Author Archives: Will Shelton

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?

A few more observations on this fine Sunday:

This was Tennessee’s biggest win as an underdog since Florida in 2001. Covers.com has the closing line from that night in The Swamp at +16.5. The line closed at +14.5 yesterday, just ahead of other classic upsets like 2003 Miami (+12.5) and 2004 Georgia (+13). The Vols were +7 against South Carolina in 2013. Obviously the Vols weren’t big underdogs in the 90’s, so other than Florida 2001 you have to go back to 1989 at UCLA (+15.5) to find a bigger upset win.

The Vols are 98th in yards per carry at 3.86 and the only SEC team under 4.00. One big run early did not heal the wounds of the first quarter: the Vols now have 52 carries for 116 yards in the opening stanza, with 2.23 yards per carry ranking 128th nationally. One thing the Vols are actually worse at than last year, so far: Tennessee gives up an average of eight tackles for loss per game, 120th nationally, up from 7.42 last season. (Stats via Sports Source Analytics)

Tennessee’s rushing production on first down isn’t as bad as you might think: 125 carries for 558 yards (4.46 per, 69th nationally). That average does drop to 3.84 yards per carry if you take away Ty Chandler’s 81 yard touchdown against UTEP.

Here’s a list of teams with fewer first down passing attempts than Tennessee (45): Coastal Carolina, Georgia Tech, Maryland, San Diego State, Navy, Air Force, Army, Georgia Southern. So yeah, your eyes aren’t deceiving you there. When the Vols have turned it loose on first down, they’ve typically gotten the desired result in catching the defense off-guard: 32-of-45 (71.1%, 12th nationally on first down), for 467 yards (10.4 ypa). Fifteen of those attempts have gone for 10+ yards, five of them for 25+. I’m not sure how much the Vols will seek to change this against Alabama, but it might be worth a look after that.

On third-and-short, the Vols still struggle to move the ball. When running on 3rd-&-1-to-3, Tennessee has 14 carries for 16 yards and only six first downs. 1.14 yards per carry is 127th nationally. Weirdly, the Vols are also 1-for-6 passing on third-and-short. So consider this:

• 3rd-&-1-to-3:  20 plays, 7 first downs (35% conversion rate)
• 3rd-&-4-to-6:  17 plays, 7 first downs (41.2%)
• 3rd-&-7-to-9:  23 plays, 13 first downs (56.5%)
• 3rd-&-10+:  23 plays, 5 first downs (21.7%)

That’s impressive and concerning at the same time. Open it up!

Speaking of which, here’s to Jarrett Guarantano: on 3rd-&-4-to-9, Guarantano is 19-of-24 (79.2%) for 248 yards (10.3 ypa) and 15 first downs. He’s also 16th nationally in overall yards per attempt (9.0).

At the midway point of the season, the Vols have 16 plays of 30+ yards. Last year they had 18 in the entire year.

We didn’t need it yesterday, and Auburn was the best red zone defense in the country coming into the game. But the Vols are now just 11-of-19 scoring touchdowns in the red zone this year; that’s 88th nationally. On the other side of the ball, Tennessee is one of just five teams nationally to surrender points on every red zone trip. Opponents are 17-for-17 against the Vols, with 11 touchdowns and six field goals. Plenty of room for improvement here.

The last time the Vols were +3 or better in turnovers against an FBS opponent: Kentucky last year, when the Vols were +4 and still lost. Some of the best wins of the Butch Jones era, as you might expect, came via huge turnover margins: 2016 Virginia Tech, 2016 Missouri, and 2015 Northwestern were all +4.

Quietly, Brent Cimaglia is 7-of-8 on field goals this year. The miss was the blocked kick yesterday. 87.5% is 14th nationally. The best percentage for Vol kickers this decade is Daniel Lincoln and Michael Palardy combining to go 15-of-18 (83.3%) in 2010.

It seemed like the Vols were penalized for a lot of little things yesterday, but Tennessee is still 20th nationally in penalty yards per game (42.5). The Vols have been relatively good at avoiding major 15-yard penalties this year. The flip side: Tennessee’s opponents average just 45.5 penalty yards per game, 107th nationally. The Vols aren’t giving or getting much help from the yellow flags.

So I allowed myself to dream this week, and went back to read what we wrote when Butch Jones and the 2013 Vols beat #11 South Carolina in his first season. Much has changed since then: the full buy-in language of five years ago reflected the exhaustion of trying to defend Derek Dooley the three years before that with no such victories to stand on. Five years later, maybe I’m a little wiser about too much weight too fast.

It struck me, reading that piece, that you can make a very good argument that the 2013 Gamecocks – #11 on that day, #4 at the end of the year – were the single best team Jones’ Vols ever beat. The win that was supposed to be first ended up, in some ways, never being topped.

You just never know. And in some ways, that should make us celebrate days like today even more.

If there is a good connection to that 2013 South Carolina game today, it was Tennessee’s wide receivers simply willing it to happen. Marquez North did it by himself back then. Today, Marquez Callaway, Jauan Jennings, and Josh Palmer played more snaps on the field at the same time than ever before. It’s as if Tennessee’s offense decided to ditch the idea of a dedicated slot receiver and just put its three best players on the field together. And boy, did it work: 10 catches for 210 yards, almost all of them some combination of impressive and critical.

What Tennessee did on third down today was stunning. There will be time later in the week and/or the year to talk about how we cannot keep living this way: 10-of-19 against a good-to-great defense like Auburn is an unreasonable expectation. Even more: on the go-ahead drive, the Vols converted 3rd-and-10, 3rd-and-2 after 2nd-and-14, 3rd-and-9, and 3rd-and-10 for a touchdown. What?

The last time Tennessee converted double-digit third downs: Josh Dobbs’ arrival against Alabama in 2014. There’s no need to grant asterisks when the opponent is Alabama, but the 11 conversions on that night were probably aided by the Tide’s early 27-0 lead. Today, all of them mattered to the final outcome. And it wasn’t just the one drive: the Vols converted 3rd-and-10 on the blocked field goal drive, 3rd-and-13 before connecting with Ty Chandler for a 42-yard touchdown later in the second quarter, 3rd-and-8 on the first drive of the second half, and 3rd-and-10 when running the clock down on their final possession before the kneel down. That’s seven conversions of 3rd-and-8 or longer. What?

Pulling the trigger on those seven conversions was Jarrett Guarantano, who quarterbacked the second half of the worst season in program history last fall. Not the first half with an overtime win over Georgia Tech and an almost in Gainesville, but the half with the Vols getting blown out by Missouri and Vanderbilt. And it’s not even that Guarantano was bad last year, it’s that he almost died every time he dropped back to pass.

I’m not sure how much better that part actually is, which is a credit to Guarantano: that dude stands in the pocket knowing he’s going to get rocked. But here’s what he did mostly from said pocket today: 21-of-32 for 328 yards (10.25 yards per attempt), two touchdowns, zero interceptions, W. The last quarterback to throw for 10+ yards per attempt against the Tigers was Baker Mayfield in the January 2017 Sugar Bowl. Before that it was Blake Sims in the 2014 Iron Bowl.

I think plenty of us thought there was a way to get this done today that included some of what we saw: +3 in turnovers, Auburn’s offense struggling (not early, but late?). But I don’t think any of us thought the recipe would include such a dominant performance in the passing game from the Vols. And what’s more, Tennessee had a field goal blocked, got no points out of a golden opportunity on Kongbo’s interception, and were the more penalized team for most of the day. Tennessee could’ve played better! That’s incredibly encouraging going forward. But they also won today, straight up.

So. The Vols go to 3-3 and put a bowl game back on the radar. A successful end to the season is what makes memories like this one really last; when the Vols failed against Vanderbilt five years ago, that South Carolina memory lost much of its power. Today’s win is plenty potent. But if Tennessee finds a way to get to six wins, it’ll transform from a building block to a bridge.

Tennessee is getting better; that much was evident in the second half against Georgia and was true far before the outcome was sealed today. But the Vols now appear to be good enough to have a chance to win against good teams, a happy acceleration of our expectations for this season. We all know what we’re getting into next week. But this week, this day, was incredibly important for Jeremy Pruitt and these Vols. These kids did a lot of losing last year, and some of them did a lot of almost the year before. To take all that after three 26-point losses in September and make it a winner on The Plains in October? It’s a big step forward for Jeremy Pruitt, and for Tennessee.

Go Vols.

It’s been ten years since the Vols played at Auburn, one of the best arguments for policy change in SEC scheduling. We faced the Tigers every year from 1956-1991, the series becoming Tennessee’s second-biggest rivalry during that time. Now we have to wait a decade to travel to each other’s place.

The last trip in 2008 remains an infamous one: trailing 14-12, the Vols’ final four possessions began at the Auburn 38, Tennessee 42, Auburn 46, and Tennessee 46. A field goal would have won it. But the Clawfense went three-and-out four times, gaining 12 yards in those 12 plays, and Auburn survived.

Tony Franklin, Auburn’s first-year offensive coordinator, would not: he was fired two weeks later with Tommy Tuberville on the hot seat. Phillip Fulmer elected to stay with Dave Clawson. But both head coaches would be out by season’s end, Fulmer a decade removed from his national championship, Tuberville just four years from Auburn’s undefeated season.

Tennessee won the hiring battle: Lane Kiffin promised to sing Rocky Top after beating Florida to our delight, while Gene Chizik was heckled on the runway. But Auburn won the war: Chizik hired Gus Malzahn to run the offense and signed a junior college quarterback named Cam Newton. While Tennessee struggled in Derek Dooley’s first season, Auburn won the national championship. And two years later when both Chizik and Dooley were on their way out, Auburn got their guy in Malzahn, while the Vols swung and missed on Charlie Strong before settling for Butch Jones.

The total damage: since 2009, Auburn is 82-43 with a national championship, a second BCS title game appearance, two straight New Year’s Six bowls and three SEC West titles in the Age of Saban. Tennessee is a dead even 59-59 with no trips to Atlanta, and hasn’t played in anything more prestigious than the Outback Bowl.

Malzahn is a fascinating case study, setting an impossibly high bar in 2010 and 2013. After that Auburn went 8-5, 7-6, 8-5, 10-2 before losing to Georgia and Central Florida in postseason last year, and now 4-2 off a preseason #9 ranking. Auburn’s defense has been remarkable so far this year, but Malzahn’s offense has been the opposite.

The Tigers are 91st in yards per play (5.38), besting only Arkansas in the SEC. The Vols, for reference, are 71st at 5.68. Tennessee has faced a pair of Top 20 yards-per-play-allowed defenses, Auburn three in the Top 25. (Stats via Sports Source Analytics)

But Auburn has lacked explosiveness against its entire schedule: just eight plays of 30+ yards in six games, 104th nationally and better than only seven teams who have played six games. And Auburn has only one run of 30+ yards so far this year.

The Tigers beat Washington in large part thanks to a 9-of-18 performance on third down. But since then, Auburn is a woeful 18-of-65 (27.7%). And as good as Auburn’s defense is in the red zone, the offense once again does the opposite: six of their 28 trips have ended with no points, and only 15 have reached the end zone. A red zone touchdown percentage of 53.57% is 107th nationally.

And so a decade after their last meeting on The Plains, when two storied programs made similar choices for similar reasons, the Vols and Tigers will meet tomorrow with frustration in the air once more. Jeremy Pruitt is Tennessee’s fourth attempt at a post-Fulmer answer in what is now Fulmer’s world once more. Gus Malzahn has really been the only answer for the Tigers in this decade, but his signature unit is struggling like never before. It would be fitting, perhaps, if Tennessee could reverse their own fortunes at Auburn’s expense. To do so, it’ll probably take something just as ugly as what we saw ten years ago…but that result would look mighty good on Jeremy Pruitt’s Vols right about now.

So the ingredients are there, right? Sleepy 11:00 am local kickoff, preseason Top 10 team sitting at a disappointing 4-2, offense looking sluggish…plus the underdog Vols coming off a bye, new head coach with plenty of experience against this particular opponent looking for his first big win.

We can talk ourselves into just about anything, of course. The quickest way to talk yourself back towards reality this weekend is the Auburn defense.

The Tigers have the best defense in the country in S&P+. Not great news for your upset dreams. Five past and future Tennessee opponents are currently in the Top 20 in S&P+ defense, including Kentucky (3rd!), Florida (11th), Alabama (18th), and Georgia (19th).

The Vols had limited success against Florida (when not turning it over) and Georgia, both of which have significantly better offenses than the Tigers at the moment. Auburn is 93rd in offensive S&P+, which might conjure hope of the Vols squeaking out a 13-10 upset. We’ll see if Tennessee’s defense can hold up if Auburn simply decides to run right at them all day. But on the other side of the ball, the Vols will need to be smart, clean, and hope for a big play or two to find enough points to be in the conversation.

The Tigers allow 4.68 yards per play, 18th nationally. It’s even more impressive considering they’ve faced three Top 25 teams in the first six weeks. And they’re 15th in turnovers forced, though four of their 12 came against Alabama State. But where Auburn’s defense really shines is the red zone.

Opposing teams have made 18 trips to the red zone against the Auburn defense. They’ve scored five touchdowns. Their touchdowns allowed percentage (27.78%) is not only the best in the nation, only four teams are allowing under 40%. Washington got inside the 20 six times and found the end zone once. LSU went three times and scored a single touchdown. Mississippi State: four times, one touchdown. That’s incredible.

This isn’t something Tennessee’s offense is particularly great at either, with 11 touchdowns in 18 red zone attempts (61.11%, 80th nationally). The Vols went 2-for-5 scoring red zone touchdowns against UTEP, 2-for-4 against the Gators, and didn’t take a single red zone snap against Georgia.

There’s some good news there, potentially, for the Vol offense: they’ve had success with explosive plays so far this year, with five passes of 50+ yards still good for seventh nationally after the bye week. It’s how the Vols found the end zone twice against Georgia, and should have before fumbling through the end zone against Florida. Auburn’s defense isn’t noteworthy in stopping explosive plays: the Tigers are 86th nationally in 20+ yard plays allowed, 85th in 20+ yard passing plays allowed. With Tennessee’s offense struggling in short yardage situations and Auburn’s defense so good in the red zone, big plays may be the best answer for the Vols on the plains.