Author Archives: Will Shelton

Tennessee’s “decade” of dominance from 1989-2001 created and sustained elite expectations in the Vols’ non-conference schedule. It started with UCLA, Notre Dame, a championship squad from Colorado, and Donovan McNabb’s Syracuse. In the early 2000’s the Vols added Miami off their national championship and Cal teams who entered the season with similar expectations, while renewing acquaintances with UCLA and Notre Dame. And in the last decade the Vols faced Oregon and Oklahoma home-and-home, plus a string of neutral site games including the Battle at Bristol.

Tennessee’s non-conference slate to open the 2020’s is a little lighter, some combination of the program’s fall and rotating leadership in the athletic department. The Vols still have Oklahoma (2020 and 2024) and Nebraska (2026-27) on the docket, but the other marquee match-ups are the return trip to BYU (2023) and the Johnny Majors Bowl with Pittsburgh (2021-22).

In the College Football Playoff era, power five teams are required to schedule another power five team as a non-conference opponent each year. The SEC allows Notre Dame, Army, and BYU to fulfill that requirement as well, so the Vols are set with the Cougars in 2023. What is now mandatory for the Vanderbilts of the world has been the expectation at Tennessee for 30+ years.

So it’s interesting and a little unsettling to see the holes in Tennessee’s non-conference scheduling just a few years down the road.

John Pennington at The Sports Source and Vince Ferrara at The Sports Animal did great work on Tennessee’s future non-conference scheduling compared to the rest of the SEC. Tennessee’s power five slate includes no dates beyond 2027, while other traditional powers in the league have not only announced games into the late 2030’s, but have begun scheduling two power five opponents much sooner than that. Alabama will open with Notre Dame and Ohio State in 2028.

So Tennessee’s scheduling needs some work, and the athletic department has to be in conversation about whether to add another power five foe towards the end of the decade if the Vols want to keep pace. But the Vols have a more immediate problem: there’s a power five hole in their 2025 slate.

With games being scheduled 15+ years in advance, an opening five years down the road is problematic; especially so when you consider most of the power five options have already filled their required slot for 2025. Of the 65 power five schools, only the Vols and six others don’t have another qualifying power five opponent on the non-conference docket in 2025. And one of those six others is Nebraska, who the Vols will face the following two seasons home-and-home. So in theory you could work out a triple-header and play a neutral site game in 2025, but there’s not really a good existing option between Knoxville and Lincoln. And if you wanted to just make it a four-game series, the Huskers don’t have another opening until 2032, so it seems unlikely we’d play three in a row from 2025-27 then wait another five years to finish the contract.

That leaves these five schools who the Vols could theoretically pick up the phone and call today to get something on the books for 2025. Scheduling info from the good folks at fbsschedules.com.

Open in 2025

• Maryland: no meetings since the disastrous 2002 Peach Bowl, nothing in Knoxville since 1975. They feel our pain on rapid coaching change, and are a grotesque 21-40 the last five years, with the move to the Big Ten offering little kindness. If Maryland is the option I found most interesting, you can see how this list is going to go. One problem here: Tennessee never schedules Big Ten teams. Like never. The Vols famously played Penn State in 1971-72, but they didn’t join the Big Ten until 1990. It’s in part, I’m sure, to the number of SEC/Big Ten bowl match-ups. But Tennessee’s first home-and-home with a team in the Big Ten when the game kicks off will be Nebraska in 2026.
• California: An all-time day at Neyland in 2006, and a high-scoring defeat at Berkeley in 2007. Our old friend Justin Wilcox enters year four at Cal having improved the Golden Bears from 5-7 to 7-6 to 8-5 his first three seasons.
• Northwestern: Tennessee and Northwestern have only met twice, both on January 1 against two of the most successful teams in Northwestern history. The Vols won those two games by a combined score of 93-34. Northwestern was steady under Pat Fitzgerald until last year’s 3-9 finish. A nice trip for any Chicagoland Vol fans, but again, the Vols don’t schedule Big Ten teams.
• Washington State: Peyton Manning’s first start back in 1994. The Vols and Cougars have met five times, but never in Pullman.
• Rutgers: Seems unlikely!

So you can see how it becomes problematic to wait this long to schedule a game.

Other options get thin from here. The Vols could take an easier out and pursue Army, though the Vols already have the Black Knights on the docket in 2022. Army has just two openings on their 2025 schedule. If you want to run it back with BYU, the Cougars do have four openings at the moment. The real prize going the independent route is Notre Dame, but the Irish only have two openings, and one will go to Stanford assuming that series is renewed. Notre Dame already has Arkansas and Texas A&M on the 2025 schedule as well, so it’s unlikely they’d go for a third SEC team.

But there are a couple of options if we think of this the other way around:

ACC Teams Facing Notre Dame in 2025

• NC State: two games in Raleigh before World War II, plus the night we met Cordarrelle Patterson in Atlanta, but the Wolfpack have never been to Knoxville. Would they add a second non-conference foe?
• Syracuse: The Orange do have Purdue and Notre Dame on their 2022 schedule, so they’re clearly open to the idea, but they lack any cupcake in 2025 with Notre Dame, UConn, and Army on the list already.

Teams Facing BYU in 2025

• Virginia: The Cavaliers are open to two qualifying opponents in the same season. In fact, they’ll play three (Illinois, BYU, Notre Dame) next fall. BYU is Virginia’s only non-conference opponent currently scheduled for 2025. Virginia makes the most football sense of the teams listed so far: three straight bowls and they won the ACC Coastal last season. Charlottesville is a decent drive. Scott Stadium is small at 64,000, but not impossibly so. This could also be a Chick-fil-A Kickoff match-up; those games are currently scheduled through 2024.
• Stanford: Intriguing, as the Cardinal are one of the best programs the Vols have never faced. They’re open to multiple qualifying opponents, and will face Kansas State, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame next season. If they renew the series with the Irish, would they say yes to BYU, Notre Dame, and Tennessee in 2025?
• Utah: This wouldn’t have sounded like an intriguing game in the 90’s, but the Utes have the football pedigree to make it so now. Three meetings in Knoxville, the last in 1984; the Vols have never been to Salt Lake City, though we are going to Provo in 2023.
• Minnesota: again, the Vols don’t schedule Big Ten teams.

Everything on this list is a better option than the teams that are totally free.

Are there any other ideas? As more teams start scheduling multiple power fives, more options become available. But most of the teams we typically think of as most desirable for a home-and-home – Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, Virginia Tech – aren’t playing two marquee games until later in the decade or into the 2030’s. Tennessee was atop the list of Virginia Tech’s most desirable non-conference opponents at The Athletic. But the earliest that could happen on Virginia Tech’s schedule is 2031.

I did find one interesting exception:

If you can’t play Virginia Tech for control of Appalachia…

• West Virginia: To their absolute credit, the Mountaineers are already willing and able to play two qualifying power five opponents, especially when one of them is a rivalry game. They’ve got Florida State in Atlanta and Maryland this season, then they start renewing Big East rivalries with Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh while also playing Penn State, giving them two qualifying opponents every year through 2024. But in 2025, they’ve only got Pittsburgh on the schedule so far. You’ll recall the 2018 meeting in Charlotte was the first ever between the Vols and Mountaineers, and poorly timed from a competitiveness perspective. It’s a 6.5 hour drive, but the Vols are already headed up that way for Pittsburgh.

To be sure, the Vols could have something completely different up their sleeve, or a bigger name could decide to take the plunge and make Tennessee their second qualifying opponent in 2025. But if those things don’t happen, and the Vols are looking at a list like this and a ticking clock, I’d make these phone calls in this order:

1. West Virginia home-and-home in 2025 and 2028 (or play them in Atlanta in 2025, but this series warrants the home-and-home)
2. Virginia in the 2025 Chick-fil-A Classic or home-and-home in 2025 and 2028
3. Utah home-and-home in 2025 and 2029
4. Stanford home-and-home in 2025 and 2030
5. California home-and-home in 2025 and 2030

Our familiar autumn rhythms will change this year, and much for the better. The Georgia game moves to the second Saturday of November, adding some much-needed balance to Tennessee’s schedule. The Vols’ three most obvious tests since divisional play began now have a month of their own: Florida in September, Alabama in October, Georgia in November. It’s insane to think back to Tennessee’s original SEC East schedule, which saw the Vols open league play with Georgia and Florida back-to-back from 1992-95. Since 1996 the Dawgs have resided around the first or second Saturday of October, often followed by a bye. But in Tennessee’s lengthy journey through the wilderness, any hopes of sneaking into Atlanta’s promised land have been dashed by the season’s halfway point. Only in 2016 have the Vols carried those hopes to November.

No one here is picking Tennessee to win the SEC East. But you might find a lot of us picking Tennessee to be in the conversation in November.

Beyond that break, which will be good for everyone’s mental health, Tennessee gets Alabama right where they want them: the Vols get a bye the week before, while Bama doesn’t get their bye until the week after. The last time that scenario happened: 2015, when Tennessee almost won in Tuscaloosa.

The trade-off, however, is Tennessee’s next two opponents will also be coming off their bye.

So when we look at the rhythm of Tennessee’s 2020 schedule, where are the breaks, and where might things go wrong? If we’re looking for the kind of year we’d all celebrate – 9-3 would be the best regular season since 2007, a 10-3 finish the first time Tennessee didn’t lose four games in a season since 2004 – how are the Vols most likely to get there? In the rhythm of the schedule, which of the big four are they most likely to win, and where are they most likely to get tripped up?

Charlotte – September 5

The 49ers do get Norfolk State the following Saturday, as opposed to Tennessee’s trip to Norman. But memories of Georgia State should alleviate any look-ahead. Advantage: Push

at Oklahoma – September 12

Oklahoma opens with Missouri State, who is coached by…Bobby Petrino! They also have their bye in week three after facing the Vols, which seems strange. Advantage: Push

Furman – September 19

The Paladins head to Knoxville to get that money between Charleston Southern and Western Carolina. This week would be trap game city if the Vols were facing an FBS foe; Furman did make the FCS playoffs last year, but lost in the first round to Austin Peay 42-6. This is too many words on Furman, even for a team that lost to Georgia State last year. Advantage: Push

Florida – September 26

In a few years, Florida’s Septembers will start to look a bit different: they’ve got Utah in the Urban Meyer Bowl in 2022-23, then the series with Miami is renewed the next two years. But for now, it’s the usual: FCS opponent, Kentucky, mid-major, Vols. In this case Florida gets South Alabama the week before Knoxville. Advantage: Push

Missouri – October 3

No one knows exactly what the first year will look like for new coaches in the time of corona, but if Tennessee beats Oklahoma or Florida, the Vols will represent the first opportunity for Eli Drinkwitz to make a statement. Mizzou plays Vanderbilt and South Carolina in weeks two and three, but then gets Eastern Michigan in week four. No matter what Tennessee does against Florida the week before, we’ll be all up in our feelings. The first potential trap game for Tennessee. Advantage: Missouri

at South Carolina – October 10

It’s what you want the week before the bye: playing another team that’s also on its sixth-straight game. South Carolina is in Gainesville the week before. I don’t think Will Muschamp will be in serious jeopardy in week six, but that probably depends on what happens in weeks one through five. Advantage: Push

Alabama – October 24

The Vols get the Tide right where they want them: Tennessee is coming off a bye, Alabama will be playing its eighth straight game before going into one. It’s not murderer’s row for Alabama heading into Knoxville – at Ole Miss, at Arkansas, vs Mississippi State – but with all their heavy lifting in front of them in November, the Vols could spring the trap. Advantage: Tennessee

at Arkansas – October 31

The Hogs are coming off their bye, and Tennessee will have another feeling our feelings moment coming off Alabama. I didn’t include this in my trap game poll on Twitter because I don’t think Arkansas is good enough to qualify, but the placement of this game certainly benefits the home team. Advantage: Arkansas

Kentucky – November 7

Here’s the real trap; the poll I took on Twitter agrees, with UK getting 57% of the vote. Kentucky is also coming off its bye, and the Vols are headed to Athens the following week. If Tennessee beats Florida and doesn’t stub its toe, the Vols will go to Georgia in control of their own destiny for Atlanta, even if they lose to Oklahoma and Alabama. Kentucky hasn’t won in Knoxville since 1984…which maybe makes the trap even more enticing. Do not look ahead. Advantage: Kentucky

at Georgia – November 14

The Bulldogs are in Jacksonville and at South Carolina the two weeks leading into this one. I’m leaving this a push for now, but that largely depends on what South Carolina and Kentucky are like by the first of November. Advantage: Push

Troy – November 21

If Troy is frisky, this could be trap material if the Vols are coming off heartbreak or disaster in Athens. But Troy also gets Appalachian State the following week, which should be the far more meaningful game to their own narrative. Advantage: Push

at Vanderbilt – November 28

An even finish, as Vandy gets Louisiana Tech the week before. Advantage: Push

The following was originally published in the 2019 edition of our Gameday on Rocky Top preseason college football magazine.

When last we left Jim Chaney in 2012, his offense was flirting with Tennessee’s record book. The Vols scored at least 35 points and gained at least 450 yards eight times in a dozen games. But they also allowed at least 35 points and 450 yards six times, leading to a 5-7 campaign and the end for Derek Dooley’s staff.

Chaney would not be out of work long, joining Bret Bielema’s new staff at Arkansas. Over the next six years Chaney’s offenses regularly improved at each of his three stops, eventually becoming some of the best units in America when infused with Georgia’s elite talent. The talent pool isn’t quite as deep in Knoxville [heading into the 2019 season], but there are lessons to learn from each of Chaney’s seasons between his two tours at Neyland Stadium.

2013 Arkansas

Chaney and Bielema inherited one of college football’s biggest cultural shifts in Fayetteville. After Bobby Petrino guided the Razorbacks to an 11-2 finish in 2011, he infamously lost his job in April 2012. John L. Smith served as a one-year interim and went 4-8, then Bielema arrived from Wisconsin. The Razorbacks started 3-0 but then lost their last nine games. Close losses to Rutgers (28-24) and Texas A&M (45-33) in September gave way to the kind of October one often inherits when following a successful coach who was unceremoniously fired: 30-10 at Florida, 52-7 at home to South Carolina, 52-0 at Alabama.

Chaney’s offense made small but significant strides in November. After gaining less than 300 yards in those three October losses, the Razorbacks gained between 339-389 yards in four close losses down the stretch. Arkansas fell to eventual SEC Champion Auburn and Ole Miss, then to Mississippi State by 7 and No. 14 LSU by 4. As is often the case in Year 1, progress didn’t show up in the win column, but things were moving in the right direction.

2014 Arkansas

A mark of a great coach is agile leadership. Two years after Tyler Bray led a passing attack of more than 315 yards per game, Chaney’s 2014 Arkansas squad ran for 218 yards per game. After a loss to No. 6 Auburn and a win over Nicholls State, the Hogs ran wild on Texas Tech. They threw the ball only 12 times and ran it 68 times, and they scored 49 points.

In the middle of the schedule Arkansas courted heartbreak, starting with a 35-28 overtime loss to No. 6 Texas A&M. Against No. 7 Alabama, Brandon Allen passed for 246 yards as the Tide stuffed the run, but three turnovers and a missed extra point doomed them in a 14-13 loss. Against No. 10 Georgia the following week, Arkansas scored 32 points but gave up 45. Two weeks later, No. 1 Mississippi State escaped 17-10 after the Hogs had a 10-0 lead.

The breakthrough came in November with a 17-0 win over LSU, the first conference victory under Bielema. Then No. 8 Ole Miss fell, 30-0. Missouri then became the sixth Top 20 team to beat Arkansas in 2014 in a 21-14 contest. But the Hogs dominated Texas 31-7 in postseason play.

The production from running backs Jonathan Williams and Alex Collins was both impressive and impressively similar. Williams carried it 211 times for 1,190 yards and 12 touchdowns. Collins carried it 204 times for 1,100 yards and 12 touchdowns. And Brandon Allen did his part with 20 touchdown passes to only 5 interceptions. With every loss to a Top 20 foe and meaningful wins over Ole Miss and Texas, Arkansas was clearly moving in the right direction.

2015 Pittsburgh

But with Pat Narduzzi in at Pitt, Chaney made the move to the ACC. The Panthers were 6-7 the year before, and Chaney helped bring in Nathan Peterman as a graduate transfer after Josh Dobbs solidified his role as the starter at Tennessee in the second half of 2014. Peterman’s start against Florida in 2013 was one of the roughest performances any Tennessee quarterback has ever endured: 4-of-11 for 5 yards and a pair of interceptions, and swiftly replaced by Justin Worley. No one who saw Peterman play at Tennessee believed he would ever make it as a starter in a power conference.

But Peterman came in off the bench against an eventual Rose Bowl-bound Iowa team, and went 20-of-29 for 219 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. The Hawkeyes won 27-24, but Pitt seized momentum. After a bye week, the Panthers won four one-possession games in a row. They then came up short to eventual Top 15 teams from North Carolina and Notre Dame, but rolled past Duke and Louisville with 400+ yards in both games.
Peterman finished the year completing 61.5% of his passes at 7.3 yards per attempt. He followed that up with 9.3 yards per attempt in 2016, leading to an NFL opportunity.

2016 Georgia

On the move again, Chaney joined Kirby Smart’s initial staff in Athens. Working with true freshman Jacob Eason at quarterback, the Dawgs stormed out of the gates, earning a 33-24 win over No. 22 North Carolina with 474 yards and 6.58 yards per play. Two weeks later they escaped at Missouri 28-27 with 409 yards of offense.

The Dawgs fell hard to Ole Miss 45-14, then had plenty of opportunities to beat Tennessee, as you might recall, before Josh Dobbs and Jauan Jennings ruined all that fun. At South Carolina the following week, Chaney went back to the Arkansas playbook. While Eason went 5-of-17 for 29 yards, the Dawgs ran the ball 50 times for 326 yards in a 28-14 win.

The Bulldogs then racked up the passing yards but lost a game to Vanderbilt and got completely shut down by Florida in Jacksonville. But as was the case in the first year at Arkansas (and his first play-calling year at Tennessee in 2010), things quickly improved in November. Georgia ran for 215 yards and passed for 245 in a win over Kentucky, then beat Auburn 13-7. The Dawgs put up 402 yards but fell to Georgia Tech 28-27 in the regular season finale, but bounced back to beat TCU 31-23 in the Liberty Bowl.
Eason finished his freshman campaign completing 55.1% of his passes with a 16-to-8 touchdown/interception ratio. Nick Chubb ran for 1,130 yards and Sony Michel added 830. All these pieces would return in 2017, plus a big addition at quarterback.

2017 Georgia

Eason was injured in the first game of 2017, a 31-10 victory over Appalachian State. Enter Jake Fromm, another freshman in the Athens spotlight. But thanks to Chubb and Michel, Fromm only needed to manage the game well. And that he did. After a gritty win at Notre Dame, Georgia’s offense was unleashed on the SEC.

Against Mississippi State, the Dawgs ran for 203 yards while Fromm went deep: 9-of-12 for 201 yards in a 31-3 Georgia win. The following week they signaled the beginning of the end for Butch Jones, gashing the Vols for 294 yards on the ground in a 41-0 blowout. It got even better at Vanderbilt, with 423 rushing yards plus 126 through the air. And they were just getting warmed up.

Against Missouri, they had 370 yards on the ground, 326 through the air, and 9.04 yards per play in a 53-28 win. Then, in the Cocktail Party, they were equally impressive in a different way. Fromm needed only seven passes to collect 101 yards and Michel only six carries to get 137 on the ground. The Dawgs put a ridiculous 9.36 yards per play on Florida’s defense in a 42-7 win.

The Dawgs made the playoff by avenging an earlier loss to Auburn, and the semifinal game against Oklahoma was one for the ages. Sony Michel ran 11 times for 181 yards, Nick Chubb 14 for 145. And Fromm was sharp, going 20-of-29 for 210 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and the Bulldogs won in double overtime to get to the title game.

They would find overtime again versus Alabama and Jeremy Pruitt, but also the other side of heartbreak, as the Tide famously switched to Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback and won it on a walk-off touchdown in the extra period. But the 4.74 yards per play Chaney’s offense put on Pruitt’s defense were the second-most any SEC team gained on Alabama that year. The Dawgs gained at least 6.5 yards per play in nine other games. Nick Chubb finished the year with 1,345 yards and 15 touchdowns, Sony Michel with 1,227 yards and 16 touchdowns.

2018 Georgia

No Chubb and Michel, no problem: D’Andre Swift and Elijah Holyfield filled in quite nicely. The Dawgs ripped off at least 40 points and at least 445 yards in each of their first four games. LSU picked up a big win in Baton Rouge, but Georgia beat Florida 36-17 and Kentucky 34-17 to wrap up the SEC East, then put 516 yards on Auburn in a 27-10 win. Against UMass, Georgia picked up 701 yards at 11.3 yards per play. In the rematch with Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, Fromm was spectacular – 25-of-39 for 301 yards and three touchdowns – while the Dawgs ran for another 153 yards.
It was another sensational year for the offense: Fromm completed 67.3% of his passes at 9.0 yards per attempt along with 30 touchdowns to just 6 interceptions. And the Swift/Holyfield combo joined Williams and Collins from Arkansas and Chubb and Michel the season before as thousand-yard rushers.

Last week we looked at the last 15 years of Tennessee’s SP+ data and found that the Vols’ 2020 projection in that metric would be a season most similar to 2009, 2012, and what became of 2016. The common thread in those years: you came to kickoff almost every single week believing the Vols had a real chance to win.

If the 2020 Vols had a real chance to win every Saturday, from Furman to Alabama, they would be on a short list in Tennessee’s recent past. In the 11 seasons since Phillip Fulmer left the sideline, the Vols have been a three-possession underdog at kickoff 17 times (via closing lines at covers.com). Only in 2015 and 2016 did the Vols escape a three-possession line the entire year. And only in the other two best-comparison SP+ years – Lane Kiffin’s 2009 and Derek Dooley’s final campaign in 2012 – were the Vols only a three-possession underdog once. Kiffin took the air out of a +30 line against Urban Meyer; Dooley’s Vols were +19 against Alabama in his final season.

Including Fulmer’s final 2008 season, the Vols lost 35 games by at least 17 points in the last 12 years. The only season in that stretch without a three-possession loss: 2015, which is the only season without a two-possession loss since 1998. The next year the Vols were blown out by Alabama but had no other three-possession losses.

But again, other than 2015 and 2016, losing multiple games by 17+ points has become the norm. The transition years from Butch Jones to Jeremy Pruitt are particularly damning, with 11 three-possession losses in 2017 and 2018. Other than 2015 and 2016, the only seasons in the last 12 years with just two 17+ point losses:

• 2009: Dexter McClustered at Ole Miss, and an underrated Virginia Tech team pulled away late
• 2014: at #4 Oklahoma, at #3 Ole Miss. The Vols were feisty when Josh Dobbs took over, but also faced Georgia and Florida in down years; this was Missouri’s second division title year

Here too, I’d include 2012 in the conversation: the loss to Florida was technically three possessions at 37-20, but as you might not want to recall, the Vols led that thing midway through the third quarter before the defense became non-existent. They were blown out by Alabama. And they threw in the towel at Vanderbilt in Dooley’s final game.

So, if the 2020 Vols just played every opponent to within two possessions? They’d join only 2015 as the only Vol squad to do so since…2001! And once you start going backwards from there, you’re on a first-name basis with the three-possession losses in the 90’s: Nebraska, two losses in The Swamp plus a Florida loss in Knoxville featuring Todd Helton, and two weird bowl blowouts to Penn State. That’s the entire list of 17+ point losses in the 90’s.

Have a chance to win every game/stay within two possessions, and 2020 would join 2015, 1998-2001, 1996, 1992, and 1990 in the last 30 years. So of course, it’s not the only benchmark for a successful season – the Vols did plenty of good in years when they got up on the wrong side of the bed one week. But it would be a clear step forward. And more than anything, for fans it’s about the value of that belief: “We have a chance to win this game.”

It’s almost magazine time – more on that soon from Joel – but this week our writing staff had a conversation on this year’s cover and title. After the Kiffin/Dooley era and Butch Jones’ first season, we – as writers and fans – have spent many of the last six summers asking some form of the same question: “Okay, we’re going to make progress this fall, right? But how much?”

Now on our fifth coach in the last 13 years, the same length of time between our last division title and now, I find a lot of the necessary patience is now built in to that question. The majority don’t look at the 2020 Vols and their 2020 schedule and use the “back” word with large swaths of confidence. That’s never been a fruitful pursuit in the first place, the 90’s now three decades gone. But the hope remains that we will go “forward” this fall. How far?

Setting aside the large list of uncertainties related to the coronavirus, some of the most helpful context for me comes from the same source we use often when talking football. Bill Connelly’s SP+ data is our favorite predictive model for the future, and one of the most interesting when looking back at the past.

In last year’s magazine, we did an adaptation of a story on our site from January 2019, ranking the last 50 years of Tennessee Football in SP+. The metric itself goes back to 2005, but in 2016 Connelly developed estimated SP+ ratings all the way back to 1970. The primary takeaway from our story: to show just how far the Vols fell in 2017, the worst Tennessee season of the last 50 years by a healthy margin. That framed Jeremy Pruitt’s initial work, which still finished third-to-last in SP+ since 1970, but represented significant progress over the year before. Pruitt’s rebuilding task is historically most similar to what the Vols were trying to accomplish in the early 1980’s, which Johnny Majors ultimately paid off in 1985.

That story used percentile ratings: the 2017 Vols were in the 17th percentile, while Tennessee’s best teams of the last 50 years were in the 95th-98th percentile all-time. But in framing 2020, I find it helpful to just use the actual SP+ data from the last 15 years. In this year’s preseason SP+ ratings, the Vols earned a 14.7 (points better than the average team on a neutral field). How does that compare to the last 15 years of Tennessee football?

Working backwards through the list, we get:

The Bottom

• 2017: 1.2 SP+ rating (points better than the average team on a neutral field)

No need to dwell here: total collapse to 4-8, blown out by Missouri and Vanderbilt, no other option but change.

The First Year (or Years 0 & 1 for Dooley)

• 2013: 5.1
• 2018: 5.5
• 2011: 6.9
• 2010: 7.7

Not much surprise here either: the first seasons for Dooley, Butch, and Pruitt, plus an injury-riddled second year for Dooley. One other common theme here: all four of these teams faced particularly difficult schedules. Dooley and Butch got Oregon in year one, Pruitt got West Virginia. Dooley’s second year, the last of facing two rotating SEC West opponents, saw the Vols get #1 LSU and #8 Arkansas. Butch got the Kick Six Auburn team in year one; Pruitt got (and beat) a ranked Auburn team in year one.

Fulmer’s Down Years Are Now Our Year 2

• 2019: 10.7
• 2008: 12.0
• 2014: 12.2
• 2005: 12.3

Last season is at the bottom of this tier; not a bad accomplishment considering what happened in September. The 2019 Vols would be five point favorites over the 2018 Vols, themselves four point favorites on their 2017 counterparts. The 2008 Vols had the nation’s number one defense in SP+…and the Clawfense finished 97th. Butch’s year two died against Florida but was resurrected by Josh Dobbs. And the 2005 Vols got sick on the quarterback carousel with injuries just as contagious.

The good news about this tier: in all four of these cases, Tennessee was significantly better the next season.

We Have a Chance to Win This Game

• 2020: 14.8 (preseason projection)
• 2012: 15.1
• 2009: 16.2
• 2016: 16.3

The preseason SP+ ratings put the 2020 Vols as four points better than their 2019 counterparts on a neutral field. That means they’d be two touchdown favorites on the 2017 Vols. Not bad work from Jeremy Pruitt going into his third year.

What’s the common theme in this tier? I think it’s competitiveness: not with Missouri and Vanderbilt, but with everyone. In 2009, 2012, and 2016, only against Alabama in 2012 should the Vols truly have had no shot. Some of these games turned into nice surprises for us (Kiffin vs Florida and Alabama). Some of them went very differently than we thought at kickoff the other way (Dexter McClustered in 2009, Dooley’s last hurrah at Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Vanderbilt in 2016).

Remember for 2016 in particular, this rating takes the entire season into account. In preseason, the 2016 Vols were at 19.2 in SP+. Those three points could’ve made a difference against Texas A&M, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. So you’ll also note this tier features records from 5-7 to 9-4. Now, I don’t think the 2020 Vols are looking at 5-7 unless there are catastrophic injuries. But herein lies the beauty of SP+: every play counts, and it’s meant to give you an idea of a team’s strength, not the value of their resume. Not all 9-4’s are created equal, as we learned under Butch Jones. In this group you also had total breakdowns on the defensive side of the ball in 2012 and 2016 tied to new coordinators, another plus for the 2020 Vols who bring back the same faces.

So this becomes a helpful framework for 2020: can I come to kickoff thinking we have a chance to win every Saturday? This group had its flaws, but I do think they’re at least a half-step above, “Can beat anyone and be beaten by anyone.” You’re still going to get an upset here and there. But for teams on this level, you could believe victory was possible every week.

Competing For Championships

• 2006: 18.9
• 2015: 19.5
• 2007: 20.2

The step beyond for Tennessee: get back to Atlanta. The 2007 Vols did it. The 2015 Vols were one play(s) away against the Gators from doing it. And the 2006 Vols were ranked eighth in November before Erik Ainge got hurt.

Here again, this framing is more fruitful to me than chasing memories of the 90’s. And here again, each of these teams lost four games. But their relative strength was a step above what we saw in the previous tier: that group we expected to compete, this group (which is where 2016’s preseason numbers would go) we expected to win.

To me, the question isn’t about whether the Vols can break into this tier in 2020. If they do the work well in the previous tier – competitive with Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia – they’ll have a chance for clear success and progress.

Of course, these numbers are all about predicting your ability to win. The most important thing is to actually go do it. Hitting what feels like the top portion of realistic projections for 2020 – win one of those four big games and don’t get upset by anyone else – and following it up with a Citrus/Outbackish bowl victory would put the Vols at 10-3. Tennessee hasn’t won 10 games in a season since 2007, and hasn’t ended a year with less than four losses since 2004. That would be a tremendous accomplishment.

The wins will always matter most. But Pruitt has done a good job getting forward progress from the Vols from the bottom of 2017. There should be more of that on the way this fall. How much?

If I can come to kickoff 13 times this year and believe we’ve got a real chance to win, that’s a really good start. If this team can finish off some of those wins, the Vols will keep this whole thing moving forward.