Author Archives: Will Shelton

The coaches who hit it big at Tennessee’s rival institutions – Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Kirby Smart – all validated themselves in year two. It’s a well-documented leap, one great coaches tend to make. The foundation Jeremy Pruitt inherits isn’t as strong as the ones those three built from: fewer bricks, more mess, etc. But for Tennessee, the 2019 goal also doesn’t have to be the College Football Playoff for Pruitt to be a year two success story.

We almost certainly won’t be entertaining any of these in 2018, but in 2019 Pruitt could validate himself by being the first Tennessee coach in a long time to:

• Win 10 games (2007)
• Win the SEC East (2007)
• Lose less than four games (2004)

While Butch Jones made progress from Derek Dooley’s tenure in total victories and ranked wins, these three barriers still stand. Jones’ teams flirted with them in 2015 and 2016, but were left with only a pair of 9-4 seasons. As such, there is still a step the Vols can make, now under Pruitt’s watch, between year one and competing for the national championship.

All of that to say: this team has a ton of questions in 2018. But we’ll start with the one that might be the biggest question mark for 2019, which could stand in the way of a breakthrough.

#10: Defensive Line Depth

A coaching change brings a fresh start, and a significant part of that is falling back on recruiting rankings for players who haven’t panned out yet. “They were ranked so high for a reason,” we tell ourselves, “and these new coaches, who are always better than our old coaches, can get the most out of them!”

The more optimistic you like to be, the more you’ll lean on this kind of thinking for players like Jarrett Guarantano and Drew Richmond. Lane Kiffin did this very thing for Jonathan Crompton and Montario Hardesty. But nowhere could it be more helpful for Tennessee this fall than on the defensive line.

In Tennessee’s celebrated 2015 recruiting class, three of the five highest-rated signees were defensive linemen. The other two were Preston Williams, who left the team, and Alvin Kamara, who’s doing alright for himself. Kahlil McKenzie elected to go early to the NFL.

But two remain: Kyle Phillips and Shy Tuttle. And in Tennessee’s 2016 class, the third highest-rated signee was Jonathan Kongbo.

Kongbo complicated my analogy by moving to outside linebacker, but in a 3-4 scheme there’s still some truth to the point.

So the Vols might get more production from one or all of these three under a new coaching staff. If so, awesome! That could go a long way toward the Vols having a successful 2018.

But it won’t matter in 2019, because all three of them are seniors.

So no matter how well guys like Phillips and Tuttle play, they aren’t long-term answers for the program. One can hope we don’t need too many of the backups this fall, but next year? Those guys will be the guys.

So who are those guys?

Darrell Taylor, a redshirt junior, could play a similar role to Kongbo; we’ll learn more about that this fall. Two options on the interior – Paul Bain and Alexis Johnson – are also seniors. So as it stands today, here are the returning, 2019-eligible players listed as defensive linemen on Tennessee’s roster:

• Deandre Johnson, Jr (2019)
• Darrell Taylor, R-Sr
• Matthew Butler, Jr
• Kivon Bennett, Jr
• Eric Crosby, Jr
• Ja’Quain Blakely, R-Jr

Darrell Taylor, who again could be better categorized as a linebacker in Pruitt’s scheme, had 27 tackles last year. Alexis Johnson had 14. The rest of those guys combined for seven.

This makes Tennessee’s 2018 signees – Greg Emerson, Brant Lawless, Emmit Gooden, plus Jordan Allen at DE/OLB – critical to next season’s success. How soon and how often will we see them this fall? And will one or more from the existing depth chart take a step up?

If the old recruiting stars pan out for Phillips, Tuttle, and Kongbo this fall, that’s great news for the short-term. But whether they do or not, Tennessee’s long-term future faces a significant question mark on the defensive line. We should get our first taste of the answers this fall.

 

We moved to Virginia today. It’s a new adventure for our family, with all of the emotions that come from leaving a place you love and going to a new place to love.

I started writing about the Vols the first time I moved to Virginia, 12 years ago. In United Methodist world this is the time of year when pastors move to new appointments, and my first was one county over from where we are now, back in 2006. Before that I lived in Knoxville my entire life. It was home. I was 24, single, and suddenly hours from anyone I knew. And so I started writing ten days after I started preaching, more than anything because I missed home.

In time, Ceres became home. And then Athens. And we are so full of hope to say the same thing about Pulaski.

But today, we lost one of my favorite things about Knoxville being home. One of the biggest reasons I loved and love Tennessee enough to write about it for so many years. And if you’re reading this, I bet he was one of your favorite reasons too.

John Ward is the only autograph I’ve ever sought out. I have a handful of others that someone got or bought for me, or passed down from one generation to the next. But the only one I’ve ever stood in line for – sports or otherwise – belonged to Tennessee’s play-by-play announcer when I grew up.

It was my junior year of high school at Foothills Mall in early 1998, before we knew what that year would become. One of my closest friends, then and now, is the son of Gaylon Hill, who played on the offensive line at Tennessee in the early 1970’s. And we stood in line together; him with some pictures of his dad, me with nothing. But I was more than happy to get one of Mr. Ward’s own pictures from the stack next to him.

I was embarrassingly nervous. But Mr. Ward cut the tension, first by remembering my friend’s dad. It’s an impressive thing to know an offensive lineman – a name you rarely call doing play-by-play – 15 or so years after the fact. It’s even more impressive when you consider he had been doing this for more than three decades.

After signing some pictures of Gaylon, Mr. Ward asked if my friend also wanted a photo of himself from the stack. To my unbelief, my friend said, “No thanks.” And John Ward, in perfect cadence, replied, “Why not?”

To me, it was those little things. We all remember the catchphrases and the big moments. But I adore the details. There’s a little chuckle in Jeff Powell’s run in the 1986 Sugar Bowl when he says, “Forty-five, forty…” as if to signify that he, too, can’t believe all of this is happening but it is. He also let the moments be the moments without over-inflating them. The way he says, “Thirty-four, twenty-seven“ after Aaron Hayden’s first touchdown at the Miracle at South Bend is perfect. Instead of spending two dozen words to speak to what a tremendous comeback this would be for Tennessee, he does it in one syllable.

And I remember all of this because so many of us not only turned down the TV and turned up the radio for all those years, but heard his voice on so many highlight tapes season after season. I have no doubt Mr. Ward would tell you there are many, many people at the Vol Network who helped make him great; they all certainly helped make it great to be a kid in East Tennessee in the 1990’s. I did play-by-play for Alcoa High School for three years in the early 2000’s, and would find random calls Ward made coming out of my mouth unintentionally when Alcoa did something similar because I’d seen those tapes and heard those calls so many times.

And that’s the thing, at least for my generation. The story was undeniably great. But the storyteller was so unbelievably good, we would’ve been lucky to have him regardless of how many wins he got to tell us about.

I believe in story. It’s what changes things. Even when we think we’d rather have the bullet points, it’s story that truly transforms. In my line of work, I find we sometimes think things would’ve been easier if God just gave us more lists. But what we get is story. And the character at its heart, even as a carpenter by trade, chooses to speak its language. Because a good story can save your soul.

So tonight, in an unfamiliar house in a place we’ll soon call home, I’m comforted yet again by the sounds of my childhood. They were some of Tennessee’s best stories. But a good story is only good if you tell it well.

And nobody told it like John Ward.

(Or, what was Tennessee worst at last year?)

That’s a long list, as you might remember. Or, if you’re like me, you might not. Tennessee’s 2017 season became about the future after the Georgia loss. And when that future headed toward change soon after, it was easier to pay attention to potential new coaches every Saturday than document what Team 121 was doing.

So there’s an obvious joke here about this year’s team being able to show improvement basically everywhere; the 2017 Vols didn’t excel at anything in particular. But, thanks to the data from Sports Source Analytics, we can pinpoint a number of more specific ways the 2018 Vols can be better. Out of 130 teams nationally, these are the five categories Tennessee was statistically worst at in 2017.

Big Plays: 123rd in 20+ yard plays in 2017 (38 in 12 games)

Don’t remember any big plays from the Tennessee offense after the Georgia Tech game? That’s because there weren’t many. Only 38 plays of 20+ yards for the Vol offense was the lowest total since the injury-plagued 2011 season (36). Under Butch Jones the Vols were more explosive every season until last year, going from 46 20+ yard plays in 2013 to 55, 63, and 79 in 2016. But the bottom fell out without Josh Dobbs and under new offensive coordinator Larry Scott, cutting UT’s explosiveness almost literally in half.

Where will big plays come from in 2018? For what it’s worth, Marquez Callaway excelled during Quinten Dormady’s early tenure, catching eight passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns in the first three games of the year. We’re also familiar with the work of Jauan Jennings, who caught 11 passes for 250 yards against Florida, Georgia, and Texas A&M in 2016. The Vols could also use more explosiveness in the ground game; you may recall John Kelly showing plenty of that in the early going (38 for 269, 7.1 yards per carry against Georgia Tech and Florida) before injuries up front and the general ineffectiveness of the offense eliminated much of the possibility. Explosiveness is one of the most important factors for success; the Vols have lots of room for improvement.

Run Defense: 121st in yards per carry allowed (5.43)

By contrast, Jeremy Pruitt’s Alabama defense led the nation in yards per carry allowed last season at 2.72. Tennessee’s number swells to 5.60 yards per carry allowed if you take out the Indiana State game, and it wasn’t just Georgia Tech (6.22) who did the damage. Lost in the flames of an assumed coaching search were 8+ yards per carry performances by Kentucky and Missouri. That’s the sort of number you expect to see only when facing elite competition: 2011 Arkansas, 2013 Auburn, and 2016 Alabama all went for 8+ against the Vols. But, alarmingly, so did Kentucky…in 2016 and 2017.

It was the worst performance against the run by a Tennessee defense in at least the last ten years, and probably far beyond that. Some old standbys – being more physical, defenders swarming to the ball, etc. – can help, but the Vols also need more size and more options up front. There’s some hope, especially if you still value recruiting stars, in the starting lineup, but little proven depth behind them.  We’ll see how big of an issue that becomes if teams continue to simply pound away at Tennessee late in the game. Again, nowhere to go but up.

Negative Plays: 121st in TFLs allowed (7.42 per game)

Not only did the Vols fail to create explosive plays, they were also one of the worst teams in the country in the opposite direction.

Tackles for loss allowed are one part offensive line and one part scheme. You can track strong (2013) and weak (2010, which was most of the 2013 line as freshmen) offensive lines fairly well through this stat alone. But if it felt like the Butch Jones offense went backwards more than usual, the stats back up the perception. After allowing only 5.25 TFLs per game in 2013 (37th nationally), the Vols were next-to-last in the nation in TFLs allowed in 2014 (7.77 allowed). The only offense behind them was, you guessed it, Wake Forest.

Even nationally competitive Vol squads in 2015 (7.08 TFLs per game allowed, 108th nationally) and 2016 (5.54, 53rd) went backwards more than their fair share, before things bottomed out last fall. I think the scheme change will help things by itself here: USC was 35th nationally in TFLs allowed last season. Under Tyson Helton the Vols will probably be doing less behind the line of scrimmage; hopefully that also translates to more explosive plays.

Third Down: 120th in conversion percentage (30.67%)

When you can’t be explosive and you go backwards a lot, you don’t do well on third down. Two years after being one of the best teams in the nation on third down in 2015 (45.97%, 21st nationally), the Vols were one of the worst teams in the nation on third down last fall.

For what it’s worth, Tennessee went 1-of-12 against both Georgia and Alabama on third down, meaning the Vols were at 34.5% against the rest of the schedule. Not great, but not the worst in the land either. The Vols were entirely ineffective against the Dawgs and Tide, which means yet again there’s plenty of room for progress this fall. But you’ll also find a 2-of-13 performance in there against Southern Miss. The entire offense has plenty of room to grow, and the best way to convert on third down is to be better on first and second down. But for the Vols to be successful in 2018, they’ll need to be better in crucial third down situations as well.

Interceptions: 119th nationally (5 in 12 games)

Some of this is a byproduct of teams getting ahead of the Vols and not needing to throw it; Tennessee saw only 279 pass attempts from the opposition, the fourth-fewest nationally. But that’s still just five interceptions in 279 tries, just 1.8% of passes. Even when taking a number of beatings in 2013 and 2011, the Vols still had interception rates above 2%.

Corner is one of the biggest question marks for this year’s team, and any group looking to overachieve will need to create turnovers to get there. Pruitt’s Bama defense had 19 interceptions last year; just putting guys in better position to make a play can help this defense show significant improvement over last year.

 

“Worst” is subjective, of course. When we did this eight years ago at Rocky Top Talk, “most heartbreaking” was the language we chose. As I wrote Wednesday, turns out heartbreak is also subjective. It doesn’t feel right to tag the toughest losses of the last decade with heartbreak, because that’s typically reserved for stakes bigger than the Vols have played for since 2007. We’ll just go with worst; I’m taking into consideration both how it felt at the time and how it feels today. Here are my picks for the ten worst losses during Tennessee’s decade-long struggle:

10. 2017 Florida

When Tyrie Cleveland caught that pass, I laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever had that reaction to a Tennessee loss before, especially not one on the final play of the game. But this game felt like the summation of everything the Vols had struggled with under Butch Jones: overly infatuated with a close game, an inability to create a successful offensive snap in a crucial situation despite multiple chances, Florida snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. There are more colorful examples of all three further up the list. The ending here felt both unexpected and appropriate. And ultimately, as the 2017 season faded into 4-8 infamy, this loss didn’t matter as much. It wasn’t the difference between success and failure, or Jones keeping his job. It hurt plenty in the moment, but was simply the first chapter of a story we were already dreading.

9. 2008 UCLA

When you wait all summer for college football and your team is coming off an SEC East title, it hurts real bad to lose on opening night. Especially when the other team throws four interceptions in the first half. No one needs to hear me talk about the Clawfense any more; the numbers from this box score (Crompton 19-of-41, Foster & Hardesty 162 yards on only 25 carries) are burned in my brain. The beginning of the end.

8. 2014 Florida

Josh Dobbs is the reason this game doesn’t rank higher for me. He changed the narrative of the 2014 season and the trajectory of the program against South Carolina later that year, one of the most endearing and enduring victories of these last ten seasons. But on this day, Tennessee had seven snaps inside the Florida 20 in the third quarter, and none of them gained a single yard. Two field goals and an interception later, a 3-0 lead was only 9-0, and as we all remember, that wasn’t enough.

7. 2016 South Carolina

This season is still exhausting to think about. The range of emotions from the end of the Georgia game, through the end of the Texas A&M game (the kind of game that definitely makes the list when the Vols are consistently good around it), through getting decimated by Alabama…to this loss. From “team of destiny!” to a defeat that was actually encouraging against A&M, to chalking it up to injuries and Alabama while still having tangible success in front of you…and then it was simply all gone at South Carolina. A steep fall indeed, one Jones wouldn’t recover from.

6. 2015 Oklahoma

Despite the frustrating loss to Florida in 2014, the program was trending in the right direction and Oklahoma was the golden opportunity for Tennessee to announce its return to the national landscape. And man, it felt like that was happening at halftime. But in the third quarter, Tennessee had four drives featuring a 1st-and-10 at their own 44 or better. And those four sequences featured no gains greater than one yard. One missed field goal, three punts, and some heroics from Baker Mayfield later, and the Sooners stole the victory as the Vols blew a three-possession lead for the first time in almost 30 years.

5. 2010 LSU

4. 2010 North Carolina

Remember when these two happened and we thought they would represent the worst things would get for a long time? Eight years later, I think the North Carolina one is worse. Not only did we think we had won for a longer period of time, the LSU screw-up was our fault for having a billion men on the field. The UNC loss can still be blamed in part on the referee not standing over the ball while the Tar Heels substituted, and now college football has the Derek Dooley rule to prevent such a thing from happening again. The unique experience of celebrating a victory before ultimately losing twice in one season is enough to keep these two in the top five.

3. 2011 Kentucky

I can excuse 2008 Wyoming for a number of reasons, and losses like 2017 Georgia or plenty to Alabama can be chalked up to, “They were a lot better than us.” But this one, to me, still stands out. 4-7 Kentucky with a wide receiver playing quarterback and 217 yards of offense broke a 26-year winning streak for Tennessee in this series, costing the Vols bowl eligibility and Derek Dooley almost all the goodwill he had left.

2. 2012 Florida

Perhaps not one you think of right away when going back through the last ten years. But if I’m thinking back to the way I felt at the end of the game? There’s been little worse than this: all the Fulmer-Kiffin-Dooley stuff, back in the Top 25 for the first time since the slide began, and more than anything, the fragile hope that the 2012 team could actually get us back. Midway through the third quarter, it felt like it was going to happen. And then: 80-yard touchdown, interception, 45-yard gain, 23-yard touchdown, Florida up 27-20, and a few drives later a 75-yard touchdown was added on for good measure. Walking out of that stadium I remember very clearly thinking two things: this team won’t be the one to get us back, and now we’re going to have to wait at least three more years to try. I haven’t written after terrible losses because of my grandmother’s death (2016 South Carolina) or our son’s birth (2017 Georgia). But this is the only loss I remember not writing anything for because it simply felt like there was nothing to say except, “We’re going to have to wait another three years.”

1 2015 Florida

We’ll talk in a moment about where this game goes on a list of most heartbreaking losses beyond these last ten years. But within the last ten years, this one, by far, is at the top for me. Beyond the streak and the individual madness of 4th-and-14 are the failures on both sides of the ball. You’ve got multiple fourth down conversions allowed, infamously not going for two, and a final drive after 4th-and-14 when Tennessee had two timeouts and 1:26 but somehow ran only five plays before settling for a 55-yard field goal attempt. And of all the losses on this list, this one was by far the most costly. 2016 South Carolina might have cost the Vols the East. But we know this one did, in a year when Tennessee took two playoff teams to the wire. If any one of a dozen things goes differently in this game, Tennessee breaks the streak a year early, and Josh Dobbs and company get their rings and another shot at Alabama. But alas.

Where would we put any of these on a longer list? Using our 2010 list of the worst losses from 1990-2009, I’d add only one to that Top 10. But I would put 2015 Florida way up there:

Worst Losses 1990-2017

1. 2001 LSU (SEC Championship)
2. 1990 Alabama
3. 2015 Florida
4. 2001 Georgia
5. 1999 Arkansas
6. 2000 Florida
7. 1993 Alabama (tied)
8. 1996 Memphis
9. 2007 LSU (SEC Championship)
10. 1995 Florida

Three years later, I think 2015 Florida is worse than the Hobnailed Boot. This is mostly because the Hobnailed Boot didn’t hurt us in the end: if not for the number one game on that list, the Vols are playing for the BCS Championship despite the loss to Georgia.

That’s our list. What’s yours?

 

In the quiet of the early summer, we’ve often spent time with Tennessee’s history. Way back in the summer of 2009 at Rocky Top Talk, we counted down the 50 Best Games of the Fulmer Era. The following year we looked at Tennessee’s 20 Most Heartbreaking Losses from 1990-2009. I’ve been going back through the latter this week, comparing some of our toughest losses in the nine years since to see where they might rank. We’ll do that exercise in full later this week, but I want to start with one game in particular.

I was a history major; even as an idiot optimist, I believe there is value in examining our toughest defeats. But what qualifies a game for that list can and will change, specifically based on the quality and quantity of victory surrounding it.

Case in point: how do you feel about this game, nine years later?

So it’s still no fun to watch, of course. But how do you think of it in the context of the last ten years?

When we did our original list of the 20 most heartbreaking losses from 1990-2009, we ranked this game #11, and almost apologized for having it that low. Recency bias was a factor, even with Lane Kiffin out and Derek Dooley in when we did the original list. But in the summer of 2010, we placed it above heart-breakers like the 1990 tie with Auburn and four Florida losses (1996, 1997, 1999, 2002).

This week, when I was putting together my list of the ten worst losses of the last ten years, it didn’t even make the cut.

To be fair, there are more losses to choose from in the last ten years than in the 20 preceding them. That’s literally true, by the way: from 1989-2007 the Vols lost 54 times, plus their first six of the 1988 season. From 2008-2017, the Vols lost 63 times.

But here too, it’s both quantity and quality that count. Tennessee has not had much opportunity for the kind of heartbreak that dominated our old list. How we experience defeat has changed. Our worst losses used to make us mourn what we gave away. Now they make us wonder if we’ll ever get it back.

In 2009, that loss to #1 Alabama was heartbreaking. But it’s not just the sequence of events, the ranking, or the rival. In 2009, we were still attached to the idea of who Tennessee had been for all those years prior. Lane Kiffin’s 45-19 win over Georgia two weeks earlier helped us do that. And the loss to Alabama didn’t take it away; even at 7-6 at the end of the season, fans were very optimistic Kiffin could get the Vols where we wanted to go. Two losses to the number one team in the country, two others by four points each, and a bowl loss to a Virginia Tech team that finished the year fourth in S&P+. We rioted, in part, because we believed in what was happening up until the very moment it was over. And today we enjoy comparing the makeup of Jeremy Pruitt’s staff to Kiffin’s.

In the moment, the 2009 Alabama loss belongs on a list of painful near misses from a championship-caliber Tennessee program. But nine years later, 2009 isn’t the bridge between Fulmer and Kiffin on the straight and narrow road of victory. It’s Exit 2A into the ditch, and there aren’t even any good gas stations.

The program’s inability to sustain success over a decade cut a hard tie from the past, and instead created an era of its own. Viewed through the lens of 2009, the loss to Alabama is heartbreaking. Viewed through the lens of the last decade, it’s a near-miss moral victory akin to 2013 Georgia. The Vols played an equally competitive game with an equally good Alabama squad in Tuscaloosa in 2015, and I don’t think any of us would put it on a list of the ten worst losses of the last ten years either.

Losing always hurts. But it’s not just that the stakes have been lower for most of the last ten years. It’s that this ditch is long and muddy, and you need really good vision to still see the shiny objects in our rear view. At some point it became normal, and our definitions of great wins and bad losses changed based on our surroundings.

The funny thing here isn’t really funny, because we’re putting enough hope in it to take it very seriously: we asked Phillip Fulmer to get out of the car when it was teetering on the edge. Opinions still vary over how many tires were in the ditch back then. And now, after trying and failing in unique and messy ways over the course of almost a decade, Fulmer has the keys again and got to pick the driver. And when in doubt at any point over the last six months, it’s Fulmer’s presence – a shiny object out of the rear view and riding shotgun – that gives me the most hope.

There’s some mud and messiness left, no doubt. Jeremy Pruitt will chase forward progress, with wins and losses along the way this year and beyond. I hope he gets us to a point when losing to #1 Alabama by two points hurts just as much nine years later as the day it happened. And I hope for wins with an even longer memory.

 

 

Earlier this week we all went a few rounds on Tennessee’s non-conference scheduling habits; I argued if you don’t want to schedule the likes of Oklahoma but you don’t want to schedule the likes of Kansas, the Vols should look at short drives to non-Clemson ACC schools as well as teams like Washington, Michigan State, and Stanford we’ve never faced before. That conversation got me thinking about how Tennessee’s scheduling practices compare to the rest of the league.

Here’s a look at every SEC team’s biggest non-conference regular season opponent since expansion in 2012. Obviously Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina have annual rivalries that make up much of the list; kudos to the Dawgs for scheduling additional marquee games in four of the last six years.

Tennessee faced three ranked non-conference teams (on gameday) in the last six years, plus a Virginia Tech team in 2016 that finished the year that way. Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina all faced more than three ranked teams specifically due to their rivalries. Again, Georgia deserves credit for scheduling up outside of their friends from Atlanta: the Dawgs went home-and-home with Clemson in 2013 and 2014, played North Carolina in the Georgia Dome in 2016, and traveled to South Bend last year.

Outside of teams with annual rivalries, only Georgia, Alabama, and Auburn played more ranked non-conference teams in the last six years than Tennessee, at four each. Three of Auburn’s four came from Clemson. Alabama, who has played neutral site season openers only the last six years, faced ranked teams four times.

Where Tennessee’s non-conference schedule really carries weight is in Top 10 teams. The Vols traveled to #2 Oregon and #4 Oklahoma in Butch Jones’ first two years (then hosted #19 Oklahoma in year three, a future playoff team). That ties Tennessee with Alabama, Auburn, and Florida in having faced two Top 10 non-conference foes in the last six years; South Carolina leads by virtue of playing four Top 10 Clemson squads at the end of the year.

Additional notes from this exercise: Missouri has not played a ranked non-conference team in the regular season since joining the SEC. And Mississippi State has played only one in the last six years, #13 Oklahoma State in 2013.

Here’s the slate for 2018:

• Alabama: vs Louisville (Orlando)
• Arkansas: at Colorado State
• Auburn: vs Washington (Atlanta)
• Florida: at Florida State
• Georgia: Georgia Tech
• Kentucky: at Louisville
• LSU: vs Miami (Arlington)
• Ole Miss: vs Texas Tech (Houston)
• Mississippi State: at Kansas State
• Missouri: at Purdue
• South Carolina: at Clemson
• Tennessee: vs West Virginia (Charlotte)
• Texas A&M: Clemson
• Vanderbilt: at Notre Dame

 

So John Adams lit the familiar off-season flame of non-conference scheduling today, arguing the Vols shouldn’t be scheduling the likes of Oklahoma in the future. The Sooners are back for a home-and-home in Norman in 2020 and Knoxville in 2024.

Adams’ point is that Tennessee’s schedule is already hard enough without including a marquee non-conference foe. He leaves out the fact that the Vols will face BYU (a team we’ve never played) and Pittsburgh (the Johnny Majors Bowl) home-and-home between 2019-2023. The Cougars and Panthers aren’t exactly on Oklahoma’s level.

Things have obviously changed for Tennessee too. The Vols ain’t what they used to be when Phillip Fulmer was the head coach and not the athletic director. In his 17 seasons as the helm, Tennessee played one or both parts of a home-and-home with Louisville, UCLA (thrice), Syracuse, Notre Dame (twice), Miami, and California. Eight of those match-ups were against Top 20 foes when gameday rolled around. The Vols also scheduled series with Oregon and Oklahoma while Fulmer was still the coach, as well as home-and-homes that were eventually cancelled with North Carolina and Ohio State, plus a series with Nebraska that may or may not be happening in 2026 and 2027.

Fulmer’s teams played anyone, anywhere, anytime. But one of the reasons the Vols have struggled in his absence is the SEC has gotten better, and not just at Georgia. Beating South Carolina stopped being free when Steve Spurrier arrived some 13 years ago. The Vols haven’t beaten an SEC West team since 2010. And since 2011, Tennessee is just 8-6 against Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

(deep breaths)

So even if Jeremy Pruitt does a good job, the week-to-week challenge in conference play will be steeper than what Fulmer faced in the 90’s. That being the case, what’s an appropriate compromise for Tennessee in future non-conference scheduling? (And remember, the emphasis is on “future”: the Vols have their marquee foe under contract through 2024, plus maybe Nebraska in ’26 and ’27).

Each SEC team is required to schedule a power-five (or Notre Dame/BYU) foe every season. I don’t think any of us are pulling for the Vols to lock down Kansas and Rutgers. But I’m also not sure it’s wise to court Clemson at this very moment. Whenever you do dream non-conference match-ups, you always get the big three teams who have never played in Neyland Stadium – Michigan, Ohio State, Texas – but those traditional powers may not also be at the top of a wise athletic director’s list while Jeremy Pruitt is trying to turn this thing around (or if the guy after Pruitt is trying to do the same).

So if you don’t want to play the very best but you don’t want to cupcake it up, what’s a reasonable alternative for Tennessee?

Two schools of thought on this:

Short Drives to ACC Country:

• Louisville: The Cards will always have Kentucky, but since making the jump to the ACC have played Auburn in Atlanta and will face Alabama in Orlando this year. It’s less than four hours from Knoxville to Louisville; the Vols and Cards last faced off in the first ever ESPN Thursday Night Football game at Louisville in 1991, then in Knoxville in 1993.
• North Carolina: Taken off the board during the Mike Hamilton/Derek Dooley tenure just in time to prevent payback for the 2010 Music City Bowl. Five hours of I-40 separate Knoxville and Chapel Hill, with a split fan base in Western North Carolina.
• Virginia Tech: The Battle at Bristol was great, but these two still deserve a home-and-home. It’s 3.5 hours from Knoxville to Blacksburg, and the Hokies are always game in the non-conference scheduling department, famously beating Ohio State in Columbus in 2014.

Teams The Vols Have Never Faced (now that West Virginia and BYU are off the list):

• Michigan State: Fans might be more excited to see the Big House, but Michigan State actually has the better win percentage this decade. I actually think scheduling either team from the Mitten State would be an appropriate move for the Vols at this time; go for the Spartans and you can stay 1-0 forever against the Wolverines and just keep running that Jason Witten clip.
• Stanford: Fulmer loved putting the Vols in California during his time; Tennessee has faced UCLA more than any other team it’s never shared a conference with. But the Vols and Cardinal have never met; could be a fun west coast option. An alternative thought here: Arizona State, also 0-0 against the Vols lifetime, in a celebratory return to Tempe.
• Washington: I’m not sure any school should court a Chris Petersen team, but this one makes a ton of sense. There’s a built-in fight between the fan bases over who has the best waterfront, plus I can tell you from calling Washington a sub-lateral move from Tennessee for Justin Wilcox (which was totally true in 2012), you would enjoy getting into it with them. From Fulmer’s perspective I’m not sure you get any added recruiting bonus playing on the Huskies’ turf, but this is the one I’d like to see most among teams the Vols have never faced.

What do you think? Which one of these would you like to see most? Or give us a better idea in the comments below.

 

In this year’s Gameday on Rocky Top preseason magazine, I wrote a narrative review of Jeremy Pruitt’s defenses at Florida State, Georgia, and Alabama. The numbers from Tallahassee and Tuscaloosa represent a ceiling you hope Pruitt can approach in Knoxville: Florida State had the best defense in college football in 2013, Alabama the last two years. It’s impressive Pruitt was able to accomplish that in his first season as defensive coordinator with those two teams, but some heavy lifting was done in recruiting before he arrived, and both of his predecessors left to become head coaches in the SEC.

So if you’re looking for a good comparison for Tennessee in year one, I wouldn’t use Florida State or Alabama. They’re the long-term goals; expecting the 2018 Vol defense to be the best in college football is an exercise in futility. But if we want a taste of what we might expect, Pruitt’s 2014 Georgia defense offers a much more fair comparison.

Todd Grantham’s final season as Georgia’s defensive coordinator in 2013 featured eight games when the Dawgs gave up 30+ points. They also forced just 15 turnovers in 13 games, 111th nationally. Georgia went 8-5, Grantham went to Louisville, and Pruitt headed to Athens. The Dawgs just missed a BCS Championship Game appearance the year before in 2012, winning their second straight division title. The program was in a healthier place in Pruitt’s first year than Tennessee’s is now. Georgia had also signed classes ranked between 8th-12th in the 247 Composite from 2012-14, a more consistent recruiting presence than Tennessee enjoyed at the end of Butch Jones’ tenure. But there are enough similarities, including significant room for improvement, for what Pruitt did in his first year with Georgia’s defense to inform the conversation on what he and his staff could do with Tennessee’s this fall.

The Year One Roller Coaster

The theme for Georgia’s defense in 2014 was inconsistency, a year one staple crop. When the Dawgs were good, they were very good. That started in week one with a 45-21 win over #16 Clemson. The Tigers gained just 291 yards and 3.83 yards per play, including only 88 yards on the ground. True freshman Deshaun Watson only saw back-up duty, but that wouldn’t last long.

The win vaulted Georgia to #6 in the polls headed to South Carolina, which was torched by Texas A&M (Kenny Football!) in week one. But not only was Pruitt’s defense unable to turn in another stellar performance, they played one of their worst games of the year. South Carolina went for 447 yards and 38 points, and a late goal-line stand led to a missed chip shot field goal for Georgia in a 38-35 Gamecock victory. Dylan Thompson was 21-of-30 for 271 yards (9.0 yards per attempt) and three touchdowns.

So it went for Georgia in 2014. They shut out Troy in a 66-0 win, then hosted Tennessee the following week. The Vols piled up 401 yards of offense, including a 23-of-35 for 264 yards and three touchdowns performance from Justin Worley, who was knocked out of the game briefly. Two second half fumbles in crucial moments doomed the Vols in a 35-32 loss, but Worley’s performance was good enough to keep Josh Dobbs on the bench for another month.

After Georgia beat Vanderbilt 44-17, Worley’s performance looked even better when the Dawgs went to #23 Missouri and shut the Tigers out 34-0. Maty Mauk went 9-of-21 for 97 yards (4.6 yards per pass) and was intercepted four times. And on the ground, the Tigers carried it 23 times for just 50 yards. It was the best performance of the year for Georgia’s defense (and, remember, the Dawgs are doing this with Hutson Mason at quarterback).

Back in the Top 10, the Dawgs had their sights set on Atlanta and more. Georgia led Arkansas 45-19 in the fourth quarter before allowing two late scores in a 45-32 win. Then they had a bye week before facing the hated Florida Gators. At this point, Georgia had won three straight in the series. But not this time: Florida ran for 418 yards while attempting only six passes in the game (remember Treon Harris?), and it was more than enough in a 38-20 win. Georgia had the league’s second-best rushing defense coming in, but allowed seven yards per carry to the Gators. More alarmingly, the defense’s two most costly performances (South Carolina and Florida) both came after bye weeks. This loss cost the Dawgs the SEC East: Georgia beat Missouri 34-0, but the Tigers didn’t lose again in league play.

But the roller coaster had twists and turns left still. After beating Kentucky 63-31, Georgia hosted #9 Auburn and bottled them up 34-7. Nick Marshall completed 11-of-23 passes for only 112 yards and the Dawgs forced three turnovers. After beating Charleston Southern, #9 Georgia faced #16 Georgia Tech in the regular season finale. A weird game featuring multiple blocked kicks and fumbles in goal-to-go situations, including a 99-yard scoop-and-score for the Georgia defense, ended on an overtime interception by the Yellow Jackets for a 30-24 GT win.

The loss knocked Georgia out of New Year’s Six contention and sent them instead to the Belk Bowl to face #21 Louisville. But the Dawgs made sure the season ended on a high note, blasting the Cardinals 37-14. Louisville ran 27 times for only 62 yards.

After finishing 54th in yards per play allowed in 2013, the Dawgs improved to 17th in Pruitt’s first year. While still allowing 30+ points six times, it was an improvement over Grantham’s eight the previous year. And they nearly doubled their turnover output, going from 15 in 2013 to 29 in 2014.

What Do We Learn From The Roller Coaster?

The comparison made by many with this Tennessee staff is the one Lane Kiffin brought in during the 2009 season. That group rode a similar roller coaster with similar relative success. The Clawfense was 110th in yards per play in 2008; Kiffin improved them to 53rd in 2009. That group struggled early, then turned the mother of all corners against Georgia with 7.38 yards per play and 45 points. They were good enough to have a shot to beat Alabama and took down South Carolina. But they also came crashing back to earth in a blowout loss at Ole Miss with only 275 yards of offense, and were largely ineffective in the Chick-fil-A Bowl against Virginia Tech (240 yards).

We obviously don’t get the Year Two data on Kiffin, but it’s comforting to know that Year Two at Georgia for Pruitt featured a defense that dominated everyone but superior competition, with one exception. In 2015 the Dawgs got torched by Alabama, then famously gave up a bunch of yards and points to Josh Dobbs and the Vols in a 38-31 Tennessee comeback. They also struggled again with Florida in a stunning loss, one that would ultimately close the book on Mark Richt’s time in Athens. But in every other game that season, Pruitt’s defense was lights out. South Carolina scored 20 points, but Georgia scored 52. Vanderbilt, Missouri, Kentucky, and Auburn all scored 14 points or less, as did Georgia Tech. Penn State got 17 in the bowl game.

I imagine Tennessee fans would take this same scenario: a roller coaster year one that makes overall improvement defensively, and a year two unit that may still struggle against the very best but starts imposing its will on everyone else.