Author Archives: Will Shelton

Tennessee used three turnovers and an unreal third-and-long performance to beat Auburn. And despite a 21-9 third quarter lead, the right team won in Columbia two weeks ago with the Gamecocks dominant in their comeback. We assumed this – third downs, turnovers, etc. – was Tennessee’s specific path to victory, and it would take more talent for the Vols to be the right team.

Today, against the #11 Kentucky Wildcats, Tennessee was the right team.

It’s felt weird all week, Kentucky being favored and (rightly) ranked so high. And so now, on the heels of Tennessee’s 24-7 victory, there’s a tendency to treat it like business as usual; the Vols haven’t lost to Kentucky, ranked or otherwise, in Knoxville since 1984.

Let’s be clear: this was not business as usual. Not just for Jeremy Pruitt, but for the Vols in recent memory.

Two second half fumbles made the score look more respectable. But Tennessee gained 412 yards in 60 snaps, 6.86 yards per play. Kentucky gained 262 yards in 73 plays, 3.59 yards per play. That difference of 3.27 yards per play is the best for any Vol squad against power five competition since Lane Kiffin’s 2009 Vols beat Georgia 45-19 with a difference of 3.49 yards per play.

That day felt like validation. Again, it’s hard for a Tennessee coach to earn validation by beating Kentucky in football. But those Dawgs were unranked, and these Cats just outside the Top 10. It feels a bit like Tennessee’s blowout of #12 Northwestern in the Outback Bowl at the end of the 2015 season: the name can carry more weight than the ranking, so much so we might fail to appreciation the level of domination.

Much of the validation we’re looking for – as much as is available this year – is one more win away. Butch Jones beat a South Carolina team that finished fourth nationally, but a failure to earn bowl eligibility made that memory fade. As we’ve mentioned before, those Gamecocks might have been the best team Jones beat in his entire tenure. But at Tennessee, 5-7 is never going to qualify as a memorable year.

For today to last, the Vols need to win one more. But for now…today was quite memorable indeed.

Jarrett Guarantano averaged 9.9 yards per attempt and tear-dropped several balls, including the end-of-half hail mary. For a team that couldn’t run all year? Ty Chandler and Tim Jordan combined for 152 yards on 31 carries, plus 59 more for Jordan Murphy on the reverse. Two school records were tied or broken today, as Darrell Taylor notched four sacks and Guarantano continues to just not throw interceptions. He’s got a shot at Peyton Manning’s single-season record of four picks.

Tennessee wasn’t lucky or gimmicky. They simply dominated Kentucky on both sides of the ball, the type of performance that raises the ceiling of everyone involved.

Jeremy Pruitt now has two ranked wins in ten games. Lane Kiffin got one in his only season, Derek Dooley infamously went oh-for-three-years, and Butch Jones got the Gamecocks in year one and Georgia in year three. It’s a big deal.

Pruitt also got a schedule that some might rank the toughest in the nation through this week. Kentucky is the sixth Tennessee foe to have spent time in the Top 15 this season. The next two won’t make that list, but the Vols still need one of them to earn bowl eligibility. Missouri will present in many ways the opposite challenge from today; if Vanderbilt beats Ole Miss next week the Vols and ‘Dores could face each other with only one going through to the postseason.

There’s work left to do. But today was some of the best work we’ve seen in this decade. We almost always beat Kentucky. But we almost never beat a ranked team – or anyone – like this.

Go Vols.

Not everything is the best or worst you’ve ever seen, though it may feel like it in the moment. Such was the case for portions of the day against Charlotte, when the Vols ran it 26 times for 20 yards against a Conference USA opponent and scored only a single offensive touchdown. It wasn’t good at 4.09 yards per play, Tennessee’s lowest output of the season. But per play, it was better than three games from last season, including both the obvious (Georgia and Alabama) and the similar (Southern Miss, 3.56 in victory). On the year Tennessee averages 5.35 yards per play, a significant improvement on the 4.77 from last year. The running game yesterday certainly didn’t fit the “competent, not excellent” theme the Vols have been building from after last year, but both the result and the other phases of the game were acceptable.

At the end of this year, when the offense’s total yards are held against them (currently 333 per game, 313 against power five competition), one thing to keep in mind: Tennessee is playing at a much slower pace than in most of the last ten years. The Vols ran just 47 plays yesterday, the second time this year (46 at Georgia) we’ve been under 50 offensive snaps.

Tennessee averages 62.2 plays per game. The Vols were actually a tick slower last year at 61 plays per game. But in time of possession, you can see a significant difference between 2017 and 2018:

(Stats via Sports Source Analytics)

Last year the Vols ran essentially the same number of plays, but took almost three fewer minutes off the clock at a difference of nearly half a yard less per snap. There are several key differences from last year: one is third down conversions, the lifeblood of Tennessee’s offense. The Vols are converting 41.13% in 2018, 50th nationally, and have picked up 37 first downs through the air on third down, 11th nationally. Last year Tennessee converted just 30.67% of their third downs overall, 120th nationally.

How else are the Vols staying on the field? Take away the Florida game, and how many turnovers do you remember?

For the record: two against UTEP, the late fumble against Georgia, and the sack-fumble of Guarantano early in the Alabama game. Six against the Gators still stings, but the Vols have turned it over just four times in the other eight games. Last year, by contrast, the Vols had 18 turnovers in 12 games.

The narrative of Tennessee’s season will essentially be written by what they do in the next three games, and whether they can find two wins to get bowl eligible. But there’s enough data to this point to begin to establish Tennessee’s identity. The Vols continue to run on first down, even though they’re not very good at it (4.05 yards per carry, 101st nationally). Tennessee’s 69 passing attempts on first down rank 119th nationally, despite playing from behind so often in four of the five losses.

Part of me still believes the Vols are running it so often on first down to protect their defense: keep the clock moving, limit opportunities, etc. Tennessee is also snapping it deeper into the play clock than at any point under Butch Jones.

The real question here is how we’ll see the Vols open things up not just in the next three weeks, but next season when, in theory, all of the skill players could return along with Guarantano. Maybe the most surprising number of all: Guarantano’s 8.1 yards per attempt are on par with the best numbers of the post-Fulmer era (8.3 for Dobbs in 2016 and Tyler Bray’s last five games in 2010, 8.0 for Bray in 2011 and 2012). The Vols appear more than capable in the passing game, but remain deliberate in their commitment to the ground game, even when it’s not working well. Again, I have to believe this is in part to protect their defense.

So what now? The offensive staff put together a different, effective gameplan at South Carolina. Needing two wins in three games to get home, will we see more passing attempts? Will that lead to opposing offenses taking advantage of more shots against Tennessee’s defense? Tennessee’s plan beat Auburn and gave itself a chance against South Carolina. Is there anything left up the offense’s sleeve?

We almost got to hit the fast forward button last night. Tennessee’s touchdown to open the third quarter wasn’t the grind of its first two, which combined to take nearly 12 minutes off the clock in 21 plays. This one was poetry: nine plays, 75 yards, and almost all of them looked like they caught South Carolina off guard. The result was a 21-9 lead with 10 minutes to play in the third quarter. The Gamecocks, 3-3 on the year, looked wobbly. Pruitt’s Vols looked ready to ascend toward bowl eligibility.

And then, the game Vegas thought we’d see showed up.

South Carolina’s next three drives covered 198 yards in 20 plays. You can do the math there on the per-play average. Tennessee’s next three covered 109 yards in 35 plays. That math isn’t as much fun.

The end result – a three-point win for South Carolina – makes sense when you look at total yards: a 376-to-351 advantage for the Gamecocks smells of a close win. But per play, South Carolina (6.71) was far superior to Tennessee (4.81).

We saw some of Tennessee’s script for victory in creating a turnover and not being loose with the ball themselves. But South Carolina, as they have done all year, made it their business to take away big plays. The Gamecocks are now ninth nationally in 20+ yard plays allowed, sixth in 30+ yard plays allowed. And when Tennessee can’t connect on those downfield shots, you get an offense that looks like the one we saw last night: overly reliant on long drives sustained by a third down conversion percentage that seems, well, unsustainable.

Tennessee has converted 33 first downs on third down passes this year (stats via Sports Source Analytics). That’s 10th nationally among teams playing fewer than nine games so far. Jarrett Guarantano was remarkable, for the most part, on third down again last night, even when it had to look different from the downfield throws. Credit Tyson Helton and Tennessee’s offense staff for drawing up a plan that still worked without them. But the more you have to live on third down, the more it will eventually kill you.

South Carolina, meanwhile, lived much more reasonably: big plays taking advantage of a vulnerable Vol secondary, but also 224 yards on 40 carries, which represented 71.4% of their offensive snaps. It’s been there all year, just covered up by turnovers against Florida, an actual win at Auburn, and the quality of opponent from Georgia and Alabama. But Tennessee’s struggles to stop the run might be the quality that most stands in the way of the Vols and bowl eligibility. The Vols are 99th nationally in yards per carry allowed. In S&P+, the offense earns high marks for what it has been able to do, 35th nationally. But the defense ranks 104th, and it’s been down there for a while.

There are no easy answers, and no quick ones either with most of the snaps on the defensive line set to graduate. The Vols have been trying to overcome it in their own way on offense: methodical drives that create few opportunities for turnovers, peppered with enough risks down the field (and enough talent at wide receiver) to keep ’em honest. But when those risks don’t pay off, as was the case last night, Tennessee needs an otherworldly percentage on third downs to sustain drives.

So the numbers say the right team won last night, which also means credit the Vols for almost winning anyway. Nine penalties certainly didn’t help. But I don’t know if the Vols can be the right team the rest of the way home here, which means they’ll need that familiar formula: win the turnover battle, limit the snaps for the other side, convert a bunch of third downs, make those splash plays count.

The good news: Missouri and Vanderbilt have not been good at all in stopping explosive plays. After what will surely be another ranked win opportunity when Kentucky visits in two weeks, the Tigers and Commodores could end up being the best match-ups the Vol offense has seen on the Power 5 level all year. Tennessee’s 4.24 yards per carry last night were UT’s most against a Power 5 opponent since John Kelly ran wild on the Gators last September.

Tennessee is still making progress, which is great. But right now, even against their secondary rivals in the SEC East, it feels like the Vols have a very specific formula for victory, without many variables. The Vols may not be the right team until Pruitt and his staff bring more talent in. But last night they gave themselves a chance to win anyway. Let’s see if they can do it again.

Tennessee and South Carolina have been annual rivals for 26 years now. But after Carolina’s initial upset in 1992 – the final nail in Johnny Majors’ coffin – the rivalry lacked much importance during a 12-game Tennessee winning streak. That changed when Steve Spurrier arrived in 2005, beating the Vols in Knoxville. Since then, every Tennessee-South Carolina game in Columbia has become a landmark moment for the Vols in one way or another. It’s in part due to Carolina’s rise under Spurrier. But it’s also just an interesting twist of fate that the Vols have come to Columbia so often at their own crossroads. As Tennessee heads to South Carolina again this weekend, here’s a look back at the last six trips to Williams-Brice Stadium:

2006: The Last November as a Title Contender

On October 28, 2006, the #8 Vols earned a little payback for Spurrier’s win in Knoxville the year before. With College Gameday on hand, Tennessee beat South Carolina 31-24 under the lights in Columbia, turning back a 17-14 Carolina lead at the start of the fourth quarter with a 13-play, 80-yard drive. The win sent the Vols to November at 7-1, the only blemish a one-point loss to eventual BCS Champion Florida. But a late game injury would sideline Erik Ainge the following week, when the Vols fell to #13 LSU 28-24. Tennessee hasn’t been in the title conversation in November since then.

2008: Fulmer Forced Out

Already reeling at 3-5, Tennessee was no better at South Carolina. A 27-6 victory for the Gamecocks included just 207 yards from the Clawfense, and days later Fulmer was officially stepping down. He would finish out the season, though the Vols would fall to Wyoming the next week.

2010: Tyler Bray Emerges

The Vols and #20 South Carolina were tied at halftime, but a strip-sack fumble by Matt Simms was returned for a touchdown on the second play of the third quarter. That prompted Derek Dooley to hand the keys to true freshman Tyler Bray. His first pass was a pick six. But it got way better from there: Bray finished 9-of-15 for 159 yards and two touchdowns, helping the Vols rally to tie the game with 13 minutes to play. South Carolina won out behind Marcus Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery, but the Vols found their quarterback. Bray would lead Tennessee to a 4-0 run in November for bowl eligibility, taking several Tennessee freshman records along the way.

2012: Derek Dooley’s Last Chance

At #13 South Carolina, with Dooley’s Vols 3-4 and the head coach still looking for his first ranked win, Tennessee almost made it happen. Rallying back from three different 14-point deficits, Tennessee pulled within three at 38-35 with 8:35 to play, the intercepted Connor Shaw on 4th-and-4 at the UT 30 with 4:46 to go. Tyler Bray got the Vols in the red zone with less than two minutes to go when Jadeveon Clowney – silent all day up to this point – scored a sack/fumble, recovered by the Gamecocks. Dooley wouldn’t officially be fired for another few weeks, but the last of us left the ship on this day in Columbia.

2014: Josh Dobbs Emerges

Perhaps the least-tainted happy memory of the Butch Jones era. A week after entering the Alabama game and raising plenty of eyebrows, Josh Dobbs earned the first start of his sophomore season and never looked back. On the day: 301 yards passing and 166 yards rushing, a new school record for rushing yards by a quarterback. Five total touchdowns, including two in the last five minutes to turn back a 42-28 hole and get the game to overtime. Sacks on first and second down by Curt Maggitt and Derek Barnett led to a missed 58-yard field goal to win it for the Vols. Though the ultimate end for Butch Jones wasn’t what we wanted, this game remains the beginning of the real hope for something more. From November 1, 2014 to October 1, 2016 the Vols went 18-5 with wins over four ranked teams, those five losses by Jones’ now-infamous 25 points. Then we lost to Texas A&M in double overtime and got smoked by Alabama. And then…

2016: The End of the Beginning of the End for Butch Jones

Still alive in the SEC East race and in total control of their own destiny for the New Year’s Six, having survived a gauntlet of four straight ranked teams plus the Battle of Bristol, and coming off a bye week…the Vols lost to South Carolina 24-21 as a 14.5-point favorite. Dobbs, so spectacular two years earlier against the Gamecocks, was 12-of-26 for 161 yards passing and just 27 yards rushing. This was Jalen Hurd’s final game in a Tennessee uniform. And for Jones, it ended any association with that 18-5 run: 4-4 in their last eight in 2016, then 4-8 in 2017.

Progress looks smallest against Alabama and doesn’t feel like much progress at all. But the right feel was indeed present yesterday, even if briefly: down 28-0 with more than 11 minutes left in the second quarter, Tennessee forced consecutive three-and-outs on Alabama’s first-team offense. Then Tennessee’s own offense, which at that point had earned all of one first down (plus a second via penalty), came alive: Guarantano-to-Palmer for 30, then consecutive completions from Keller Chryst to Ty Chandler for a touchdown. And when Alabama answered after another near-miss on an onside kick, so too did the Vols: Jauan Jennings on 3rd-and-12, Jennings on a flea flicker (I was impressed but not surprised by the number of people in the stands who were absolutely confident Jennings would come out of the pile with that fumble), then Tyler Byrd (!) for a 20-yard touchdown.

The Vols were down 35-14 with 2:18 to play in the second quarter, and would receive the second half kickoff. I don’t think any of us thought we were winning. But Tennessee was alive, not just throwing wildly but landing some punches.

It didn’t last, of course: Tua’s six yard run on 3rd-and-5 three plays later was one of the game’s more important snaps, Bama punched it in with 15 seconds left before halftime, and more shenanigans on the second half kickoff ended most of the interest. But for Tennessee, against Alabama, this was progress.

It’s much more noticeable on paper. The Vols gained 258 yards in 55 plays against the Tide, 4.69 yards per play. Almost all of the damage was done against Bama’s first team: in the second half Tennessee ran only 24 plays for 84 yards (3.5 per play). It’s not just that Tennessee’s offense had a better day than Louisville, Ole Miss, and Missouri against Alabama’s defense. It’s how much better this Tennessee team was against the Crimson Tide than last year’s…and the year before that.

Hopelessness in this rivalry was last season, when the Vols gained 108 yards on 46 plays (2.35 per). The year before, still ranked ninth and with plenty of NFL talent, Tennessee gained 163 yards in 63 plays (2.59 per). Even trailing only 21-7 at halftime in 2016, there was a sense of impending doom quickly realized in the second half. To be fair, that team was decimated by injuries coming off Texas A&M, but Alabama made inept an offense that would go on to be the best in college football in the month of November.

We’ve been saying it all year, and it was true again yesterday: this year, competence is progress. Doing much of anything right against this Alabama team is competence, and the Vols showed it with a little flair in the second quarter. It was never going to be enough to win. But I like both the fight of this team, and the way that fight manifests itself versus last year.

Of course, the Vols already have their signature win, seem to have avoided any catastrophic injuries coming out of Bama, and still need just a split of their secondary SEC East rivals (plus a win over Charlotte) to get bowl eligible. So far Jeremy Pruitt has pushed the right buttons with this team.

Were his postgame quotes the right button? Pruitt is no doubt tired of losing, and tired of being non-competitive in the final analysis. So far he has not lost his team, and they have not lost their fight. It’s different, perhaps, when you’re coming off the worst season in school history and not a mediocre finish that ended the tenure of a longtime coach. These players, so far, have been invested as Pruitt has done the same in them.

This next part – South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt – was always going to be the most important for Tennessee to achieve its goals this year. And the Vols picked up a signature win along the way at Auburn. Tennessee seems to be entering the backstretch physically okay.

This has been the question all year: can the Vols be better in November than they were in September? To do that, Pruitt will have to keep his team together while continuing to challenge them to improve. I don’t doubt Tennessee’s spirit at this point. But can the Vols continue to throw and land meaningful punches and score meaningful wins against the rest of the schedule? Or will this team be beaten down, throwing punches with less behind them before collapsing to the canvas themselves?

These things are always a marathon, and in many ways the toughest miles should be behind us now. Does Tennessee have enough left to take advantage of what’s in front of them? If the answer is yes, progress will start looking better every week.

This one feels a bit like the Tennessee-Kentucky basketball rivalry through the mid-90’s. The Cats, fueled by Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer, and Nazr Mohammed among others, won the NCAA Tournament in 1996, lost in the title game in 1997, and won it again in 1998. During a stretch of 11 straight wins over Tennessee, Kentucky won in Thompson-Boling by 20 in 1995, then by 40 in 1996. You’d show up to these games with that 1% hope, then watch a dunk contest unfold for as long as you could stand it, consoling yourself that at least you could say you watched a championship team and, in Walker’s case, a three-time NBA All-Star.

The last time Alabama was in Knoxville, it wasn’t just the final margin (49-10). The Vols, still ranked ninth and in every championship chase after a double overtime loss at Texas A&M, were scattered, smothered, and covered by Alabama’s defense under Jeremy Pruitt: 2.59 yards per play for Dobbs, Hurd, Kamara, etc. Much has changed since then, for the Vols and Pruitt. Last year in Tuscaloosa was even worse – 2.35 yards per play – but that was to be expected given the state of the Vols this time a year ago.

I don’t think anyone expects the outcome to change this year. But is this going to turn into a dunk contest again, where we say, “Oh well, at least we can say we saw Tua play in Neyland”? Or can the Vols show signs of life?

There are a handful of things that would be tangible progress against this bunch:

• Alabama doesn’t score a touchdown on its opening drive
• Tua throws an interception
• Tua throws a pass in the fourth quarter
• Alabama scores 38 points or less

But beyond that, I think a good goal for Tennessee – aside from keeping Jarrett Guarantano alive – is to leave this game still feeling good about its chances the rest of the way home. That happened four years ago against Alabama in Knoxville, when the Tide raced to a 27-0 lead before Josh Dobbs started writing his legend in an eventual 34-20 Alabama win. This one should be less about individual ascension and more about the entire team continuing to pull in the same direction.

And against this bunch, we’d better pull real hard.

This could end up in the conversation for the best team Tennessee has ever faced. The Tide are currently playing in the 99.4 percentile in S&P+. The aforementioned 2016 Tide finished the year at 99.8%; 2012 Alabama at 99.3%. The Vols faced both LSU (99.3%) and Alabama (99.1%) in 2011. Tim Tebow’s 2008 Gators were at 99.5%; Danny Wuerffel’s 1996 Gators were at 99.2%.

Two years ago at Rocky Top Talk, we ranked the best teams Tennessee has beaten in S&P+. 2001 Florida topped that list at 98.9%. All this to say, this Bama team is operating at a rare level…and this Tennessee team is trying to make its way into their atmosphere, but just getting off the ground. The history major in me is curious to see the Tide.

Tua might also be the fourth Heisman winner the Vols have faced in the last five years. We saw Baker Mayfield two years before he won it and Marcus Mariota the year before. The Vols last faced a Heisman winner in the same season with Derrick Henry in 2015. Much the same with Mark Ingram in 2009, they almost pulled the upset. The last Heisman winner Tennessee beat: Eddie George in 1995. Chris Weinke was famously inactive when the Vols beat Florida State to win the BCS title.

But on the list of the best quarterbacks Tennessee has ever faced – Mariota, Tebow, Wuerffel, plus future NFL standouts like McNabb – what Tua is doing right now stands out. Averaging 14.3 yards per attempt is just stupid. So is a 21-0 TD-INT ratio. Stop it. This is high school stuff. It’s up to the Vols to not look like a high school team out there.

Back in Thompson-Boling in the 90’s, Kentucky came back to Knoxville in 1997, and the Vols were game. Tennessee lost by just ten. We left that game feeling hopeful, and though it took another season to get there, the Vols swept Kentucky in 1999 and took a major step forward under Jerry Green. Sometimes progress looks like a 10-point loss. I don’t know exactly what number would represent progress tomorrow, but I do believe it’s available beyond just the outcome. Stay healthy and stay alive, of course. But after two years of throwing completely ineffective punches against Alabama, perhaps Jeremy Pruitt’s Vols can land one or two in there, and leave their own mark on this game.

We might get to see something historic in this Alabama team and its quarterback. Will we also see progress from Tennessee?