Category Archives: Football

A couple of weeks ago, we posted side-by-side depth charts for Tennessee and Georgia and included the players’ respective classes and recruiting rankings. The main conclusion from doing that was that yes, Georgia’s starting lineup was more talented than Tennessee’s. The end result of the game was certainly attributable to more than just a gap in talent, of course, but the Bulldogs did have a pretty clear advantage in that department.

The South Carolina Gamecocks are talented as well, but Tennessee does have better numbers. Whether it will matter is a different question.

Here’s the side-by-side projected starters for this week’s game between the Vols and the Gamecocks, with each players’ class and recruiting rankings. If you can’t see the entire chart embedded below, click here for full page:

As before, the color codes are based on the range of 247 Composite numbers on the list. The range starts with deep green at the top and ends with deep red at the bottom. The highest-rated player on the list is Tennessee defensive tackle Kahlil McKenzie.

Here’s the list of starters, sorted by recruiting ranking (full page here):

Obvious caveat is obvious but will be noted anyway: The star ratings and 247 Composite numbers are from the players’ recruiting profiles and are not necessarily indicative of how valuable they currently are to their respective teams. Some lower-ranked guys are doing better than their rankings, and some guys with really high rankings have yet to live up to expectations.

That said, here are a few observations:

• Of the nine highest-ranked players, Tennessee has eight of them.
• Of the next 17, South Carolina has 12 of them.
• Tennessee running back John Kelly versus South Carolina linebacker Skai Moore is a matchup of extremely under-rated players. Both of these guys have far surpassed their respective expectations upon arriving on campus.
• If you’re just going by talent, Tennessee should have the advantage at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Of the nine positions, Tennessee has three 4-stars and two 5-stars. The Gamecocks have two 4-stars.
• South Carolina’s passing game is incredibly young, but incredibly talented.

GoVols247 is citing multiple sources in reporting that redshirt freshman Jarrett Guarantano is expected to make his first start at quarterback on Saturday against South Carolina. They are also reporting that Quinten Dormady is now “considering his future with the program.”

Dormady started the first five games and went 76 of 137 for 925 yards, six touchdowns, and six interceptions. Guarantano has seen limited action in four games and gone 12 of 24 for 54 yards and a touchdown.

As we just published a few minutes ago, Jones yesterday appeared to be focused on three things he expected out of his quarterbacks: taking care of the football, good decision-making, and leadership, and he placed an emphasis on the backup getting “leadership reps” when not starting. Guarantano had received national criticism for his demeanor on the bench for the first game against Georgia Tech when Dormady started. There have been rumors that Dormady has already left the team, but for now the report is merely that he is considering his options.

If you read any Vols news on Twitter or elsewhere yesterday, you probably saw a bunch of jokes about #leadershipReps. In case you missed it, here’s what happened: Tennessee head coach Butch Jones used the term during his Monday press conference in response to a question about how he was handling the distribution of reps between his two quarterbacks, Quinten Dormady and Jarrett Guarantano. If the onslaught of tweets and articles is any indication, it embarrassed a lot of Vols fans.

If all you’ve seen is the hashtag or the parade of parody it birthed, you’d rightly think the whole thing is ridiculous. In one short day, “leadership reps” has become shorthand for claiming credit for slacking off. Woo, internet.

Jones is largely and primarily responsible for this treatment, of course. He’s used cliches and other phrases like this since he stepped foot on campus five years ago, and he’s bought pallets full of patience from the fan base with them. But now the patience is running thin, and he’s not only suffering from the #1 cause of death of coaching careers — losing — he’s caught in a particularly nasty downward spiral where nearly everything he says or does is instantly presumed to be irrebuttably wrong. I think I just made up a word. . . . Pfffft, guess not. Bummer.

Anyway, as a lawyer, I am generally skeptical of anything that smells like runaway groupthink, and so my first reaction was to wonder whether what Jones had said was actually dumb, or whether everyone was just continuing to make fun of him for losing. And so, I went to the source to have a listen for myself:

The segment is from 12:25 to 13:57:

Here’s the transcript:

Q: “Coach, you mentioned the quarterbacks. They’re still competing, and obviously, you want to get both of them prepared to be able to play and play well. How are you dividing the first team reps with those guys, and does that limit the preparation you can have for those guys if they’re not able to get as many reps with the first team?”

A: “Well, the way we’ve always, you know, handled that situation is, you know, the #1 gets the bulk of the reps, but #2 gets a lot of reps as well. The reps are probably . . . 60/40? And again, the bye week occurred at the right time [because of 50/50?], but also, the repetitions we were able to get Will McBride as well. He’s one snap away from being the #2 quarterback. So, there’s a lot that goes into that. I think that’s also having a system, but like I told our quarterbacks, you don’t have to get a physical rep to get a rep. You can get a leadership rep by having all the wideouts stand around you and going over your progression and going over what you’re thinking. You can get a mental rep. I know you guys are only at practice for a few/couple periods, but [unintelligible — we’re in team?], all of our quarterbacks are 15 yards behind the ball, and when the ball is snapped, they’re going into their drops, and they’re talking about their progressions. So there are a lot of repetitions that can be incurred throughout the course of practice. It may not be a physical rep, but it can be a mental rep and a leadership rep, and as we all know, you need every kind of rep to be able to perform at a high level.”

Okay. First, this was an excellent follow up question from Vince Ferrara. Earlier, Jones had been asked several times questions that were obviously designed to ferret out whether there was going to be a change at quarterback this week, and he deftly dodged it every time. This follow up by Vince asked a specific question about how QB reps were being allocated, which, if answered, could have been an indication of who they were planning to start at quarterback. You can see from Jones’ two “you knows” in the beginning of his response, that he was struggling with the right answer. High five to Ferrara for the question, and kudos to Jones for answering without giving away his secret. Nice little sparring match there.

There was also an important moment earlier that was overlooked yesterday. Someone asked Jones to identify what he was looking for as he evaluated his quarterbacks, and the first three things he mentioned were taking care of the football, good decision-making, and . . . leadership.

With that context, let’s get back to the leadership reps question. If we take off our Fire Butch Jones hats and really listen to him, what he’s saying is that he’s trying to figure out his quarterback problem, but his quarterbacks have a leadership problem.

Let’s look at the question again:

Coach, you mentioned the quarterbacks. They’re still competing, and obviously, you want to get both of them prepared to be able to play and play well. How are you dividing the first team reps with those guys, and does that limit the preparation you can have for those guys if they’re not able to get as many reps with the first team?

Jones was asked a question about how to manage limited practice reps when you don’t have a clear leader and whether splitting a scarce amount of practice between two guys necessarily limited their preparation. It’s not only a great question, it’s a true conundrum for the coach. Do you go all in on one guy and give him all of the limited practice reps? If you do and it doesn’t work (or if you have already tried that and it didn’t work), do you go all in on the other guy? What in the world do you do if neither guy is making it clear that he’s the one?

And that seems to be where we are. I haven’t seen practice, but I’ve seen every snap of every game, and it looks to me like there’s no clear leader. And that means you’re still spending valuable practice reps trying to figure it out.

Then comes the second part of the question: How do you get a guy ready if he’s not getting all or most of the practice reps?

Answer: You teach him how to make the most of being a backup. You teach him to get with his receivers and talk to them about the plays. You tell him to watch the guy taking the practice snap, and you tell him to go through all of the same mechanics and thought processes that he would as if he was the guy getting the actual rep. In short, you tell him to turn his “no reps” into the next best thing, “mental reps.”

The fact that he changed the terminology from “mental reps” to “leadership reps” is an indication of an emphasis on leadership, that he believes his quarterbacks need to become better leaders, and that they need to do it even when they are not the ones getting the practice snaps. That’s all.

It was just over a month ago that ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit called out backup quarterback Jarrett Guarantano during a nationally-televised game for not being engaged as the backup. Everyone agreed. Now, Jones is telling the media that he’s told his quarterbacks what they can do to stay engaged as the backup when they’re not getting the actual practice reps, and he’s getting ridiculed for it.

“Leadership reps” is an odd and amusing phrase, and Jones has made himself an easy target.

But when I hear this, I hear Jones saying that he believes he has a serious leadership vacuum at a position on his football team that requires solid leadership, and he’s trying to do something about it.

 

 

VolQuest is reporting that Tennessee defensive end Darrell Taylor has been suspended indefinitely following the fight reported last week between him and offensive lineman Trey Smith. The fight reportedly occurred during a one-minute drill and ended with Taylor kicking Smith in the face and inflicting a blow that required stitches.

Taylor was already suspended for the first half against South Carolina after being ejected for fighting in the second half against Georgia on September 30. Butch Jones has a press conference at noon and may (or may not) provide further details.

Last week featured a bye for the Vols, a few upsets, and a few mild surprises. What’s it mean for the rest of the season?

Explanations are below, but here’s the updated chart for this week:

The Vols after the bye

Tennessee didn’t play this week, of course, but that doesn’t mean opinions of the team and its prospects for the immediate future can’t change based on other happenings. Take, for instance, the fight between Darrell Taylor and Trey Smith. Here’s the information we have on the incident:

Source: UT DE Darrell Taylor kicked OL Trey Smith’s face at
practice during 1 minute drill Thursday, leading to Smith needing stitches.

— Jimmy Hyams (@JimmyHyams) October 6, 2017

Source: Smith blocked Taylor to the ground and Smith lost his helmet. They wrestled. Taylor then kicked at Smith and hit him in the face.

— Jimmy Hyams (@JimmyHyams) October 6, 2017

This sounds to me more like a post-play scrum that got out of hand due to heightened emotions with everybody flailing about and an incidental kick to the face as a consequence than it does Taylor curb-stomping Smith, but we’re all filling in the gaps with our own conjecture. My first thought was actually that someone must have finally lit a fire under the Vols’ linemen in an attempt to get them to play with some emotion and that our best defensive lineman and our best offensive lineman were getting after it in practice and the play got a little out of hand. But it’s not surprising, either, that some would view the news as more evidence of a broken team. When that train gets rolling, it colors the perception of everything.

[EDIT: Yeah, about that. Jones has reportedly now suspended Taylor indefinitely, but not Smith. At the least, that almost certainly means that Taylor was more at fault than Smith and that it probably wasn’t just some regular scrum between two amped-up players and makes it look more like bad news than no news.]

Without more information, though, I’m viewing it as something that wouldn’t have bothered us if we weren’t already on high alert for bad news, and so I’m making no adjustments for the team itself this week. The expectations were bad enough already after last week.

Non-opponents

We usually only look at how the Vols did and how the Vols’ past and future opponents did the prior week to inform our new expectations for the week, but this weekend reminded me once again that we’re all generally terrible at guessing the future based on the past. Things we’d never expect to happen often happen anyway. Sometimes, favorites lose to unranked teams at home (LSU last week, Oklahoma and Michigan this week). And sometimes, teams that look like they’re destined for the trash heap (LSU, Texas A&M) begin to piece things together and beat rivals in difficult places to play or give the decade’s best team an actual real game against all odds.

The past may portend the future, but it doesn’t always define it.

The Vols’ past opponents

Georgia Tech (3-1, 2-0 ACC, RV)

• W1: Lost to Tennessee 42-41 in double overtime.
• W2: Beat Jacksonville State, 37-10.
• W3: At UCF (canceled)
• W4: Beat Pitt, 35-17.
• W5: Beat North Carolina, 33-7.
• W6: Bye
• W7: At Miami
• W8: Wake Forest
• W9: At #3 Clemson
• W10: At Virginia
• W11: #16 Virginia Tech
• W12: At Duke
• W13: #13 Georgia

Did not play. They are tied with Miami for first in the ACC Coastal after six weeks, though.

Indiana State (0-5, 0-2 MVFC, NR)

• W1: Lost to E Illinois, 22-20.
• W2: Lost to Tennessee, 42-7.
• W3: Lost to Liberty, 42-41 on a blocked 23-yard field goal attempt as time expired.
• W4: Bye
• W5: Lost to Illinois State, 24-13.
• W6: Lost to North Dakota State, 52-0.
• W7: At South Dakota
• W8: S Illinois
• W9: At Missouri State
• W10: Youngstown State
• W11: W Illinois
• W12: At Northern Iowa

Oof. The North Dakota State contest was the Sycamores’ first home game in 37 days, and they threw three interceptions and lost three fumbles.

Florida (3-2, 3-1 SEC, RV)

• W1: Lost to #11 Michigan, 33-17.
• W2: Canceled game with N Colorado.
• W3: Beat #25 Tennessee, 26-20.
• W4: Beat Kentucky, 28-27.
• W5: Beat Vanderbilt, 38-24.
• W6: Lost to LSU, 17-16 on a missed extra point due to a bad snap and hold.
• W7: Texas A&M
• W8: Bye
• W9: vs Georgia
• W10: At Missouri
• W11: At South Carolina
• W12: UAB
• W13: Florida State

Well, the Gators finally got unlucky. I have no idea what to make of these guys.

UMass (0-6, 0-0 IND, NR)

• W1: Lost to Hawaii, 38-35.
• W2: Lost to C. Carolina, 38-28.
• W3: Lost to Old Dominion, 17-7.
• W4: Lost to Temple, 29-21.
• W5: Lost to Tennessee, 17-13.
• W6: Lost to Ohio, 58-50.
• W7: Bye
• W8: At USF (canceled)
• W9: Ga Southern
• W10: Appalachian State
• W11: At Mississippi State
• W12: Maine
• W13: At BYU

Bye.

Georgia (6-0, 3-0 SEC, #4)

• W1: Beat Appalachian State, 31-10. QB Jacob Eason went down, but freshman Jake Fromm looked good and took care of business.
• W2: Beat #24 Notre Dame, 20-19.
• W3: Beat Samford, 42-14.
• W4: Easily handled #17 Mississippi State, 31-3.
• W5: Demoralized Tennessee, 41-0.
• W6: Beat Vanderbilt, 45-14.
• W7: Missouri
• W8: Bye
• W9: vs. Florida
• W10: South Carolina
• W11: At Auburn
• W12: Kentucky
• W13: At Georgia Tech

If there’s any good news here, it’s that these guys got 423 yards rushing against Vandy, which makes the 294 they got in the rout against Tennessee a bit more palatable. The Bulldogs look really, really good. Auburn appears to be the only stumbling block for them, and honestly, it’s beginning to look like they could actually make things interesting against Alabama, especially if they can improve the passing game just a little bit more to complement that run game.

The Vols’ future opponents

10/14/17: South Carolina (4-2, 2-2 SEC, NR)

• W1: Beat NC State, 35-28.
• W2: Beat Missouri, 31-13.
• W3: Lost to Kentucky, 23-13.
• W4: Beat LA Tech, 17-16.
• W5: Lost to Texas A&M, 24-17.
• W6: Beat Arkansas, 48-22.
• W7: At Tennessee
• W8: Bye
• W9: Vanderbilt
• W10: At Georgia
• W11: Florida
• W12: Wofford
• W13: Clemson

Expectations for a Vols win: Well, a 48-22 win over Arkansas was not what I wanted to see. Three touchdowns on defense? Is that good news or bad news? Also, the Gamecocks offense scored on five of eight possessions in the last three quarters. Sigh. I made this a 50/50 game last week, and while I am inclined to change it to give South Carolina the edge this week, I think I’m going to leave it as is.

PREDICTIONS – SOUTH CAROLINA

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

69

69

60

75

75

50

50

10/21/17: Alabama (6-0, 3-0 SEC, #1)

• W1: Beat #3 Florida State, 24-7.
• W2: Beat Fresno State, 41-10.
• W3: Beat Colorado State, 41-23.
• W4: Beat Vanderbilt, 59-0.
• W5: Beat Ole Miss, 66-3.
• W6: Beat Texas A&M, 27-19.
• W7: Arkansas
• W8: #25 Tennessee
• W9: Bye
• W10: #12 LSU
• W11: At Mississippi State
• W12: Mercer
• W13: At #13 Auburn

Expectations for a Vols win: Hey, look! A 26.5-point underdog with a coach on the hot seat just got within eight points of beating Alabama! They are not as good as everybody thinks! I’m moving this game from a 1% chance back to a 5% chance. Woo!

PREDICTIONS – ALABAMA

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

10

10

10

10

5

1

5

10/28/17: Kentucky (5-1, 2-1 SEC, RV)

• W1: Beat Southern Miss, 24-17.
• W2: Best E Kentucky, 27-16.
• W3: Beat South Carolina, 23-13.
• W4: Lost to #20 Florida, 28-27.
• W5: Beat E Michigan, 24-20.
• W6: Beat Missouri, 40-34.
• W7: Bye
• W8: At Mississippi State
• W9: #25 Tennessee
• W10: Ole Miss
• W11: At Vanderbilt
• W12: At #15 Georgia
• W13: #17 Lousiville

Expectations for a Vols win: To say that the Wildcats outlasted Missouri is really the only way to describe this game. I’m going to keep this one 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – KENTUCKY

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

65

65

70

65

55

50

50

11/4/17: Southern Miss (3-2, 1-1 C-USA, NR)

• W1: Lost to Kentucky, 24-17.
• W2: Beat Southern, 45-0.
• W3: Beat UL Monroe, 28-17.
• W4: Bye
• W5: Lost to North Texas, 43-28.
• W6: Beat UTSA, 31-29.
• W7: UTEP
• W8: At LA Tech
• W9: UAB
• W10: At #25 Tennessee
• W11: At Rice
• W12: Charlotte
• W13: At Marshall

Expectations for a Vols win: UTSA actually threw a touchdown pass with 48 seconds left in the this one, but failed on the 2-point conversion attempt and lost by two. I’m keeping this one at 55%.

PREDICTIONS – SOUTHERN MISS

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

90

85

80

80

70

55

55

11/11/17: Missouri (1-4, 0-3 SEC, NR)

• W1: Beat Missouri State 72-43.
• W2: Lost to South Carolina, 31-13.
• W3: Lost to Purdue, 35-3.
• W4: Lost to #15 Auburn, 51-14.
• W5: Bye
• W6: Lost to Kentucky, 40-34.
• W7: At #15 Georgia
• W8: Idaho
• W9: At UConn
• W10: #22 Florida
• W11: #25 Tennessee
• W12: At Vanderbilt
• W13: At Arkansas

Expectations for a Vols win: Before you get too excited about that 1-4 overall and 0-3 SEC record, chew on this: Missouri quarterback threw touchdown passes of 50, 58, and 75 yards against Kentucky. I’m keeping this game at 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – MISSOURI

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

70

65

70

70

70

50

50

11/18/17: LSU (4-2, 1-1 SEC, RV)

• W1: Beat BYU, 27-0.
• W2: Beat Chattanooga, 45-10.
• W3: Lost to Mississippi State, 37-7.
• W4: Beat Syracuse, 35-26.
• W5: Lost at home, during Homecoming, to Troy, 24-21.
• W6: Beat #21 Florida, 17-16.
• W7: Auburn
• W8: At Ole Miss
• W9: Bye
• W10: At Alabama
• W11: Arkansas
• W12: At Tennessee
• W13: Texas A&M

Expectations for a Vols win: The Tigers rebounded from a home loss to Troy and weathered a developing storm similar to the one bearing down on Knoxville to beat the Gators by a point. The game was essentially decided on a missed extra point, but LSU did appear to get some things figured out on offense. For now, I’m leaving this at 50/50.

PREDICTIONS – LSU

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

25

25

25

45

45

50

50

11/25/17: Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-3 SEC, NR)

• W1: Beat MTSU, 28-6.
• W2: Beat Alabama A&M, 42-0.
• W3: Beat #19 Kansas State, 14-7.
• W4: Lost to #1 Alabama, 59-0.
• W5: Lost to #21 Florida, 38-24.
• W6: Lost to #5 Georgia, 45-14.
• W7: At Ole Miss
• W8: Bye
• W9: At South Carolina
• W10: W Kentucky
• W11: Kentucky
• W12: Missouri
• W13: At #25 Tennessee

Expectations for a Vols win: That’s a pretty tough string of four games against ranked opponents for the Commodores, and so I don’t know that it says much about them other than the fact that they are not as good as the teams they just played. So, for now, I’m leaving this one at 50/50, too.

PREDICTIONS – VANDERBILT

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

72

72

65

55

55

50

50

All of that puts me at 6.1 wins, but if I had a two-headed coin, I’d have 9. 🙂

Here are the community results:

This weekend, South Carolina beat Arkansas on the strength of three defensive touchdowns, Alabama survived a scare against Texas A&M, Kentucky beat Missouri by a nose in a sprint, and Vanderbilt gave up more yards on the ground to Georgia than did the Vols.

The Vols didn’t play, but does any of what happened with the Vols’ future opponents change your outlook for the rest of the season? Use our Win Probability Calculator to find your actual expected win total.

No Fields Found.

How bad was last Saturday’s loss to Georgia from an offensive standpoint? Not only was it the first time the Vols had been shut out since 1994, it was one of the worst performances by a Tennessee offense in yards per play in the last ten years. 2008-17 is a good benchmark as it represents Tennessee’s fall from grace, and because that’s as far back as the numbers from Sports Source Analytics go.

Because we love history more than we love feeling good about ourselves, here’s a look at Tennessee’s ten worst offensive performances in the last ten years in yards per play:

10. 2014:  Florida 10 Tennessee 9 (3.43 yards per play)

Seven snaps in the Florida red zone, and all of them failed to gain a single yard. That led to three field goals and a bitter 10-9 defeat on a day most of us came to Neyland Stadium expecting the Florida streak to fall. The Vols had 29 carries for 28 yards.

9. 2008:  Auburn 14 Tennessee 12 (3.35 yards per play)

While Phillip Fulmer would ultimately go down with the ship, the 2008 Clawfense was its biggest leak. It’s one thing to lose, but another to lose like this:  needing only a field goal to win at #15 Auburn, the Vols started their final four drives at the Auburn 38, UT 42, Auburn 46, and UT 46. They failed to gain a single first down. Jonathan Crompton was 8-of-23 for 67 yards.

8. 2015:  Oklahoma 31 Tennessee 24 (2OT) (3.34 yards per play)

Tennessee led 17-3 at halftime and gained 51 yards on the first two plays of the third quarter to move to the Oklahoma 24 yard line. But after missing a field goal, the Vols punted on their next five drives and gained no more than 11 yards on any of them before bowing out in the second overtime on an interception. Josh Dobbs was 13-of-31 for only 125 yards, and the Vols averaged just 2.9 yards per carry in a heartbreaking loss to an eventual playoff team.

7. 2008:  Wyoming 13 Tennessee 7 (3.27 yards per play)

With Phillip Fulmer’s forced resignation announced earlier in the week, the Clawfense was even more lifeless against the Cowboys. Crompton and Nick Stephens combined to go 14-of-36 for 145 yards and two interceptions in a demoralizing loss to a mid-major in Knoxville.

6. 2011:  South Carolina 14 Tennessee 3 (3.15 yards per play)

Derek Dooley pulled Justin Worley’s redshirt the week before, then gave him the start against the #13 Gamecocks. The Vols got a field goal after South Carolina fumbled a punt on the game’s first series, then never scored again. The Gamecocks also famously scored on a 20-play, 98-yard drive in the second half. Worley was 10-of-26 for 105 yards and two interceptions before giving way to Matt Simms again, who went 5-of-12 for 46 yards.

5. 2011:  Alabama 37 Tennessee 6 (3.10 yards per play)

The week before, the Vols and Crimson Tide were actually tied 6-6 at halftime before Nick Saban’s troops ripped off a 21-point third quarter en route to another 31-point win. Matt Simms was 8-of-17 for 58 yards and an interception, which led to Worley’s entrance…where he handed the ball off.

4. 2014:  Ole Miss 34 Tennessee 3 (3.08 yards per play)

Tennessee’s defense was actually pretty good in this one early against #3 Ole Miss, forcing a three-and-out on six of the Rebels’ first seven drives. But the offense could not keep Justin Worley safe and did literally nothing running the ball:  28 carries, zero yards.

3. 2009:  UCLA 19 Tennessee 15 (2.97 yards per play)

I forgot how bad this one was. Lane Kiffin’s first date with FBS competition did not go well:  Crompton was 13-of-26 for only 93 yards and three interceptions, leaving Montario Hardesty and Bryce Brown to run into a brick wall as the Vols had just 115 yards on 44 carires for 2.6 ypc. Two runs into the middle from 3rd-and-goal at the 3 and 4th-and-goal at the 2 kept the Vols out of the end zone in the fourth quarter and gave UCLA a big win.

2. 2017: Georgia 41 Tennessee 0 (2.73 yards per play)

Last Saturday was the second worst offensive performance of the last decade. Quinten Dormady’s 5-of-16 for 64 yards with two picks was the worst yards per attempt number (4.0) for a Tennessee starter since the number one game on this list, and the 1-for-12 conversion rate on third down (8.3%) the worst of the last ten years. Burn this film.

1. 2016: Alabama 49 Tennessee 10 (2.59 yards per play)

The Vols had 32 carries for 32 yards as injuries riddled the offensive line, scored their only touchdown on an 11-yard drive after a fumble, and were basically out of this thing at halftime even though they were only down 21-7, and had only three plays of 10+ yards before going down 28-7 in the third quarter.

Which one of these is the worst memory? Nowhere to go but up from here!

 

There’s no Vols game today, of course, but if you’re watching football, here’s the schedule. The first is a shortened list of games that might be of particular interest to Vols fans, and the second is the entire schedule for the day.

Enjoy!

Gameday, October 7

Vols are off, and if you don’t have a Harvest Moon festival to go to, here’s a chance to catch a few good games and get an early look at a few future opponents for the Vols.

 

Noon slot

Georgia travels to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt at noon. Georgia’s not losing four SEC games this year, so I’m hoping that they look as good against the Commodores as they did against the Vols. I can see an argument for not wanting them to do anything that makes it easier for them to continue to recruit well, but that’s what I’m hoping for at this time.

Afternoon slot

At 3:30, former opponent Florida hosts future opponent LSU, and I’m rooting for LSU, not because I think the Vols can catch them (although, maybe?), but because I just don’t want them to have nice things. I’m also rooting for Arkansas against South Carolina at 4:00. There’s a game between ranked teams in this slot as well, so if you prefer that, have at it.

Evening slot

Alabama takes on Texas A&M at 7:15 and figures to have its way with them, and then two future Vols opponents meet in Lexington as Missouri matches up against Kentucky. Not sure who to pull for in that one, but I guess I’m leaning Missouri.

Complete college football TV schedule for Week 6

And here’s the complete schedule for the week, paginated and searchable!