Author Archives: Will Shelton

Tennessee is replacing its starting quarterback, tailback, and number one wide receiver. An ideal combination this is not, especially when all of them went in the NFL Draft. We won’t know what we’re getting in the trade from Josh Dobbs to Quinten Dormady and/or Jarrett Guarantano until we see it. But the best way to help a new quarterback is to get productive play from your starting tailback and number one wide receiver.

We know the names will be John Kelly and Jauan Jennings. The latter had the two most satisfying plays of the 2016 season. The former actually out-gained both Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara last season on fewer carries than both of them (what would the odds have been on that stat this time last year?). Granted, Kelly had no meaningful carries against Virginia Tech, Florida, Georgia, or Alabama. But he still averaged 6.43 yards per carry on the year, good for 43rd nationally.

Kelly’s productivity and a deep offensive line make the running game a lesser concern. I think the biggest question with Kelly actually ties directly into the questions about the passing game.

Tennessee has thrown to their running backs more than any team in the SEC in each of the last two years. In 2015 it was 21% of the time, and the Vols almost hit that number again last year (individual target rates from Football Study Hall):

When the percentage was so high in 2015, we wondered if it represented the lack of a true number one receiver and/or downfield threat, or perhaps Mike DeBord’s conservative fingerprints on Josh Dobbs. But last year all those options faded:  Josh Malone was a clear number one, the Vols hit 50 20+ yard passes, and Dobbs became the highest drafted Vol quarterback that wasn’t Manning or Shuler.

But still, Tennessee went to their backs 20.6% of the time, far more than any other SEC team. So now the question shifts:  were these numbers a byproduct of having Alvin Kamara on the roster, or will this still be a focal part of Butch Jones’ offense with a new quarterback and a new coordinator?

Kamara was the target on 12.6% of Dobbs’ passes in 2015 and 14.3% last year. Both numbers led the SEC among running backs. Can John Kelly fill at least one of those shoes? He didn’t get much opportunity to do so last year:  he caught only six passes and no more than one in any game.

If the running back isn’t going to be a focal point of the passing game, where will those targets go?

Here’s how Tennessee’s passes were distributed last season:

Jennings made a big leap last year after being targeted just 6.2% of the time in 2015. As he becomes the new number one, Tennessee will need a number two to emerge with or without a strong contribution out of the backfield. And if it’s without, they’ll need a number three.

We’ve seen Tennessee’s passing game adapt under Jones in the past when it comes to top of the statistical leaderboard: in 2014 Pig Howard was the number one option out of the slot (54 catches for 618 yards), but Jalen Hurd was still third on the team in receptions with 35. Same for Rajion Neal in 2013, third on the team with 27 catches. Whether Worley or Dobbs, Bajakian or DeBord, throwing to the backs has been high on Butch’s priority list.

I actually think John Kelly will do quite well in this regard when given the chance. The bigger question may be for Ty Chandler or Carlin Fils-aime; history suggests whoever gets the number two reps is still going to get plenty of opportunities coming out of the backfield as well.

Maybe part of playing a new quarterback will include going downfield even more and not having to rely so much on the running backs in the passing game. It’ll be telling to watch early in the season to see how often the Vols look their way. Either way and especially if Tennessee goes downfield more, they’ll need a number two wide receiver to step up to fill in the gap.

A couple years ago at the old site, we researched the 247 composite rankings for every Tennessee starting lineup since 2006. Last week Joel provided a 2017 depth chart with individual recruiting rankings,  which inspired me to return to those historical rankings to see how Team 121 compares.

The main point:  the 2017 Vols will have 81 recruiting stars in the (projected) starting lineup, which is tied for the most at Tennessee in the last 12 years. And, somewhat surprisingly, it’s more than last year’s team had in its starting lineup.

First, the numbers:

There are plenty of spots here that are still up for grabs, but only a few that would actually make a difference in the overall rating. Marquez Callaway earning a start over Josh Smith would give one extra star on offense. If Jack Jones slid into the starting lineup at the expense of Coleman Thomas, that would be another. And the biggest available jump would be for Kahlil McKenzie, one of only two five-stars on the roster, to work his way into the starting lineup over Kendal Vickers.

Still, the 81 stars represented here are tied with 2008 and 2015 for the most in the last dozen years. The overall historical ratings (which count walk-ons as two-stars):

• 81:  2008, 2015, 2017
• 79:  2012, 2016
• 78:  2011, 2013
• 77:  2009
• 75:  2007
• 74:  2006, 2010, 2014

This time last year we were envisioning the 2016 Vols putting a higher-rated lineup on the field that never ultimately materialized, especially on defense. McKenzie never became a consistent starter before getting hurt, four-star options at defensive end couldn’t win the job from three-star Corey Vereen, and likewise with Emmanuel Moseley in the secondary (plus the fact that Cam Sutton was also a three-star out of high school). Last year’s squad was capable of throwing something like 83 stars in the starting lineup, but ended up with lower numbers than 2015 and 2017’s projection.

When you’re replacing Dobbs, Kamara, Malone, Barnett, plus the healthy versions of JRM and Sutton we had to bid farewell to last fall, it can seem like an instant rebuild at the end of a decade of doing just that. But Butch and company have recruited well enough that the talent level, at least in terms of recruiting stars, will remain even. The production levels, of course, remain to be seen, but just because they were playing behind six NFL draft picks doesn’t mean they aren’t talented.

Tennessee’s defense is particularly notable here. Having 42 stars in the projected starting lineup – including only two three-stars in Vickers and Gaulden – means only the 2008 defense (with three five-stars) was a higher-rated unit in the last 12 years. Again, we’re not coming into this year expecting outright greatness from this defense. But there is plenty of talent left on Tennessee’s roster, and much of it is young:  Tennessee only has five four-star seniors, and four of them (Wiggins, Martin, TKJr, and Evan Berry) are in the secondary.

What will this all mean in the fall? Who knows. But if and when this team struggles, it won’t simply be because there’s not enough talent. Its success will depend on how the existing talent – much of it unproven – can rise to the occasion.

Of the many interesting scheduling ideas floating around this off-season (including Joel’s here a few days ago), my favorite is from back in January: Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight’s Make College Football Great Again. Their post uses the Big Ten, in part an effort to help prevent another Penn State or Ohio State playoff debate. We’re simply applying it here to the SEC. In terms of what is the most fair and the most fun, this is the best model I’ve seen.

No divisions, no conference championship game, nine regular season conference games.

First, ditching conference championship games frees up an additional week to be used on playoff expansion or an extra bye week.

If you’re going to go this route, you have to address the possibility of ties at the top of the standings. Models that include a handful of annual rivals and a rotation of other opponents – including ones that do it well like this one from SB Nation – either keep the conference championship game as a potential rematch, or shrug their shoulders at the notion of a tie.

In case you were born before divisions or overtime, ties are awful. No one is happy because literally no one wins.

I’m for anything that makes every single game matter as much as possible, and in this sense I don’t like playing conference championship games in non-divisional formats because of a higher probability of rematches. Divisional formats with annual rivalries greatly reduce the possibility of rematches: in 25 years the SEC has never had an annual rivalry (Tennessee-Alabama, Florida-LSU, Georgia-Auburn) play an encore in Atlanta.

But take out divisions? If you just sent the two best conference records to Atlanta, Tennessee and Florida would have run it back in 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, and the very next week in 2001. This absolutely would have diminished the value of the regular season meeting.

Schedules need a way to preserve the rivalries that matter most, but also maximize the value of every game. And they need to be able to produce a champion that is rewarded in ways Penn State was not. Head-to-head needs to matter more, not less.

This is why I love FiveThirtyEight’s model:

Imagine a world in which historical rivals always play each other every year and yet, by almighty Rockne, the best teams in a conference always play one another, too. Imagine a world with no divisions.

Not only have I imagined such a world, my friends, but I have seen one. I have seen it in the hallways of a high-school debate tournament.

The solution that debate tournaments devised is something called power-pairing. Power-pairing just means that teams with the same record are paired off against each other, so that a team that starts off the tournament 2-0 will face off against another 2-0 team, for instance. It usually works by drawing the first two rounds of a tournament at random,¹ and after that, everything is power-paired.

Three annual rivalries, two predetermined opponents, four flexed/power-paired match-ups

Here are the annual rivalries I went with:

• Alabama:  Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
• Arkansas:  LSU, Missouri, Texas A&M
• Auburn:  Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
• Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
• Georgia:  Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
• Kentucky: Mississippi State, Missouri, Vanderbilt
• LSU:  Alabama, Arkansas, Ole Miss
• Ole Miss:  LSU, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
• Mississippi State:  Auburn, Kentucky, Ole Miss
• Missouri:  Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas A&M
• South Carolina:  Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt
• Tennessee:  Alabama, Florida, Vanderbilt
• Texas A&M:  Arkansas, Ole Miss, Missouri
• Vanderbilt: Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee

In FiveThirtyEight’s model, teams play their rivals in weeks 2, 4, and 7 of league play. Week 7 highlights the biggest rivalries as best we’re able. There’s a logistical point here for the SEC: this model works more smoothly for the Big Ten because they typically don’t start conference play until week four or five. So there’s a whole piece here about moving most or all non-conference games to early September that would have to be worked out, along with bye weeks.

In weeks 1 and 3 of league play, teams would face a predetermined opponent. FiveThirtyEight’s model uses the previous season’s standings to determine these foes:  Week 1 would feature teams from the top of the conference against teams from the bottom, Week 3 would feature best against best and worst against worst.

Opponents in weeks 5, 6, 8, and 9 of league play would be determined as the season played itself out. Weeks 5 and 6 would be decided after Week 4; Weeks 8 and 9 decided after Week 7, with both pairs of match-ups featuring one home and one away game. In each case, the league office would make the effort to power-pair teams based on their current records, creating the best available match-ups among teams yet to face each other. FiveThirtyEight’s piece had an algorithm help select these match-ups.

How would this look for the SEC? Here’s a sample season we played out (projected losses in red):

Let’s take Tennessee as an example. After four weeks the Vols are 3-1, and are paired with 4-0 Texas A&M and 2-2 LSU in Weeks 5 and 6. After seven weeks the Vols are 5-2, and are paired with 4-3 Ole Miss and 4-3 Auburn in the last two weeks of the season.

At the end of the year the Vols didn’t play Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State, or Missouri. None of those teams finished above .500. Look at how many meaningful games everyone is playing:  Alabama, who wins the league at 8-1, played every team finishing 6-3 or better and three of the four teams finishing 5-4. South Carolina, who tied for last at 2-7, did not face Alabama or 7-2 Texas A&M.

If two teams tie at the top, power-pairing virtually assures they played each other during the regular season, thus head-to-head decides it. If three teams tie and their head-to-head results cancel out, power-pairing virtually assures you can find a next best common opponent to break the tie.

This would require some flexibility at all levels, especially with four unknown games to schedule on short notice. But of all the models I’ve seen, this one is the best at producing a worthy champion without divisions or rematches while sustaining key rivalries. It creates a sense of anticipation and opportunity as the season goes along with good teams continuing to face each other; in the above case the title is decided in the final week of the season when Alabama plays Texas A&M. It increases the value of every win: going 9-3 may not be cause for celebration right now, but against a schedule like this it becomes much more of an accomplishment (and hopefully creates healthier expectations along with more meaningful games). It also protects schools at the bottom of the league in any given year, helping struggling teams stay alive for bowl eligibility longer with more winnable games down the stretch. And, most importantly, it pushes opinion out of the equation and maximizes head-to-head results.

When I was 11, Superman died. It had the intended effect: me and thousands of others got invested in comic books thanks to Doomsday, one mammoth event leading to several others over the next few years.

The following summer, Batman got in on the action with the 18-month arc Knightfall. The turning point in this series came when Bruce Wayne faced a new villain for the first time. Kids today know Bane as a fun voice to impersonate. Eleven-year-old me was introduced to him when he broke Batman’s back in the summer of 1993.

The fight was reproduced in The Dark Knight Rises on the big screen in 2012, but the buildup in the comics was completely different. Knightfall starts when Bane busts all of Batman’s biggest enemies out of Arkham Asylum, then waits for Bruce to exhaust himself catching each of them before he faces him. And unlike Superman, who gave as good as he got against Doomsday, when Batman faces Bane it’s even worse than the movie:  the entire issue is devoted to Bane beating Batman within an inch of his life in his own home. Child Will had nightmares after reading it.

I thought about this last fall as Alabama rolled through Knoxville, the only punches a depleted Vol squad landed coming thanks to Derek Barnett, who might actually be Batman for all I know. It wasn’t just the beat down, it was the buildup:  Tennessee had gone through Florida, Georgia, and Texas A&M in succession before facing the top-ranked Tide. You knew that run was going to be trouble the minute the schedule was announced. But it was the how of it all that proved to be so exhausting.

What happened in the first half of last season was simultaneously so exciting and so draining, I kept thinking I wouldn’t have time to fully enjoy it until after the season was over. The Florida game is the most exhausted I’ve ever been walking out of Neyland, was swiftly followed by the single most exhilarating play in school history, then immediately followed by a five-hour, double overtime, 17-injury marathon at Texas A&M. Then Bama. And that’s just how exhausting it was for fans, let alone what it did to the coaching staff and an ever-thinning roster.

There are no excuses, as Butch Jones would probably admit; the second half of the season ultimately made the first half something you couldn’t fully enjoy anymore. But looking ahead with 10 weeks to go until kickoff, one thing is certain:  thank God we don’t have to do it that way again.

The toughest stretch of the 2017 season is your choice of South Carolina, at Alabama, at Kentucky, or at Missouri, LSU, Vanderbilt. Either one is a tough SEC West draw book-ended by two of four from the traditional bottom half of the SEC East. Team 121 probably won’t be good enough to take anyone for granted and should learn from Team 120’s November mistakes in that regard. But no matter who does or doesn’t get hot in the league this year, there is no way Tennessee will have to face anything like those four weeks from last fall.

The first five weeks put Indiana State, 2-10 UMass, and the bye week evenly spaced between Georgia Tech, Florida, and Georgia. If the East goes as it usually does, the Vols won’t have to face any of their five most difficult foes on consecutive Saturdays.

How ridiculous was last fall? A trip through the media guide shows it was the only time in school history the Vols have faced ranked foes on four consecutive Saturdays. (EDIT: Upon further research, I put the bye week in the wrong place in 2013, which means Tennessee faced ranked teams on four consecutive Saturdays that year as well. So it’s only happened twice in school history, both times to Butch Jones.) Someone may have made this point as it was happening last year, but I know myself and many others were too caught up in everything that transpired in those four weeks to notice. 

The most difficult stretches in modern program history may have featured higher ranked teams than #19 Florida, #25 Georgia, #8 Texas A&M, and #1 Alabama. But none of them included this kind of gauntlet on four consecutive Saturdays:

• 1991:  Tennessee faced five ranked teams in a row (#21 UCLA, #23 Mississippi State, #13 Auburn, #10 Florida, #14 Alabama) but had a bye week after the first three and none were ranked higher than 10th. The Vols went 3-2 in this stretch, then two weeks later beat #5 Notre Dame in The Miracle at South Bend.
• 1994:  Four of Tennessee’s first five opponents were ranked (#14 UCLA, #23 Georgia, #1 Florida, #17 Washington State) with a trip to Starkville coming between the Gators and Cougars. An inopportune time for your starting quarterback to get hurt on the first drive of the season, and a huge ask for a baseball player and a young freshman filling in. They turned out alright.
• 2002:  Already dealing with season-changing injuries, the ’02 Vols played a six overtime game with Arkansas, then faced #6 Georgia, a bye week, #19 Alabama, South Carolina, and #1 Miami. 
• 2005:  A common theme in another disappointing year, Tennessee faced five Top 10 teams in eight weeks (#6 Florida, #4 LSU, #5 Georgia, #5 Alabama, #8 Notre Dame).
• 2007:  Only one of these teams was ranked, but in terms of pressure I’d put Tennessee’s march to Atlanta on the list:  the ’07 Vols had to win out to win the East against the Heisman runner-up from Arkansas, Vanderbilt in the biggest fourth quarter comeback in Neyland history, and at Kentucky in four overtimes. They then faced #5 LSU in Atlanta, the eventual BCS Champions.
• 2011:  On four consecutive Saturdays the Vols faced unranked Georgia (where Tyler Bray broke his thumb), #1 LSU, #2 Alabama, and #14 South Carolina. Two weeks later Arkansas would become the third season-ending Top 5 team Dooley’s Vols faced. The only team on this list that failed to win at least one of these games.
• 2013: Tennessee played five Top 11 teams plus a bye week on six consecutive Saturdays (#6 Georgia, #11 South Carolina, #1 Alabama, #10 Missouri, #7 Auburn), the last two starting true freshman Josh Dobbs at quarterback. Whenever someone casts Butch Jones’ overall record at Tennessee in a negative light, remember this ridiculous run in his very first year.

Tennessee plays in the best conference in college football and has always scheduled aggressively. But it has never had to face four Saturdays like it did last fall, both on paper and in what those games eventually turned in to. 

Bane eventually goes down to a new Batman, fighting with new weapons and new tactics. Team 121 will have to find new ways to win this fall without Barnett and Dobbs and many other old names to rely on. But the task itself will not be as exhausting on so many Saturdays in a row. If nothing else, 2017 should have a better rhythm. Hopefully it leads to a year we can all enjoy more fully.

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