Category Archives: Football

There are plenty of numbers to support the growing narrative of Tennessee’s offense:  the Vols again fell behind by two possessions, again rallied, and again should have won. Had they pulled it off in Gainesville it would have been the eighth time in the last 34 games Tennessee came back to win from down two possessions. That’s exciting, but the argument here is, “Is it necessary?”

In 2016 and the first three games of 2017, the Vols have been incredibly productive when they had the ball in the fourth quarter. And there are a plethora of statistics to back it up (the data comes from Sports Source Analytics):

Rushing Offense

• In 2016, Tennessee averaged 6.69 yards per carry in the fourth quarter with 11 touchdowns and 29 runs of 10+ yards. All three of those numbers were the best for any quarter of the game last fall. Through three games this year the Vols average 6.22 yards per carry in the fourth quarter, bested only by a 7.35 average in the second quarter.
• John Kelly in the fourth quarter this fall:  11 carries for 104 yards (9.45 ypc) with two touchdowns. He is one of only 16 players in college football to have run for 100+ yards in the fourth quarter this year, and is tied with nine other running backs atop the national leaderboard with four 10+ yard runs in the fourth quarter.
• Last year Josh Dobbs ran the ball 32 times for 324 yards (10.13 ypc) in the fourth quarter, seventh nationally in yards per carry.

These kind of numbers suggest an offense that wears down the defense all day and/or a team playing from behind against softer coverage. But most of Tennessee’s two-possession holes had already been erased by the fourth quarter last season (and Tennessee’s defense wasn’t good enough to make you feel safe about any lead). And the fourth quarter passing numbers are just as stout:

Passing Offense

• Last year Josh Dobbs was 49-of-73 (67.1%) for 739 yards (10.12 ypa) with nine touchdowns and three interceptions in the fourth quarter. His fourth quarter QB rating was fourth nationally.
• This year Quinten Dormady is 11-of-20 (55%) for 248 yards (12.4 ypa) with two touchdowns and an interception in the fourth quarter. His fourth quarter QB rating is currently 19th nationally.
• Dormady’s 248 fourth quarter passing yards are eighth nationally.
• John Kelly and Marquez Callaway in the fourth quarter:  six catches for 187 yards and a touchdown.
• Josh Malone last year in the fourth quarter:  12 catches for 308 yards and four touchdowns. He was one of only nine players to finish the season with 300+ receiving yards in the fourth quarter.

Look at the yards per attempt per quarter over the last two years:

Dormady doesn’t have the uptick in completion percentage Dobbs enjoyed in the fourth quarter, but the jump in yards per attempt is incredible.

All these numbers show the offense the Vols are running in the fourth quarter is incredibly potent. So what of the offense Tennessee runs in the other three quarters? What’s the difference?

I don’t have all the answers or the reasons why. As we noted yesterday, this has been an issue for Tennessee through three offensive coordinators and three starting quarterbacks under Butch Jones. The simplest explanation may be that playing from behind and in so many tight games has created have-to-have-it moments in the fourth quarter almost every week. And in those situations, Tennessee’s offense has largely excelled.

But the best way to win close games continues to be not to play them. If the team that shows up in the fourth quarter somehow manifests itself earlier and/or throughout the game – in some combination of philosophy, play-calling, and execution – the Vols would not find themselves in position to get beat by a miraculous play.

We saw Butch Jones make an adjustment in philosophy to get to this point:  in 2015 the Vols were racing to early leads, then letting off the gas. That kind of loss hasn’t happened since the Arkansas game that year. But now the Vols are saving too much gas for the home stretch. A better chance of success, for the Vols and their head coach, is to treat every play like it’s the fourth quarter.

I’ll still be posting the recap of what happened with Tennessee and its past and future opponents tomorrow as usual along with my own updated win probabilities, but I wanted to provide y’all an early opportunity to use the Vols Win Probability Calculator to see where you’re at after this weekend’s games so that I could include them in tomorrow’s post.

So, here’s the form. Go ahead and post your result in the comments section as well for discussion purposes.

Two years ago, I was in my basement watching the Vols take on the Gators in The Swamp. They were ahead by 13 late in the fourth quarter, and I turned to my wife and kids and explained to them that it would take an extraordinary lapse of unimaginable proportions for Tennessee to lose the game. Hey, I was excited, because I’d been waiting for that moment from the time my oldest daughter was nine to the time she was 19.

You know how that ended. Multiple fourth down conversions and an extraordinary lapse of unimaginable proportions in the form of a miraculous (for Florida) touchdown on fourth-and-14 to give the Gators a one point lead and the win. It was crushing.

This evening, as I was watching the team finally wear out the Gators with John Kelly in the fourth quarter, I turned to my middle daughter and explained to her that all we had to do was run Kelly until he was in the end zone, and we’d win the game. I had a serious case of deja vu the entire time, though, because I was standing in the same position looking in the same direction feeling the same way about the Vols-Gators game that I had two years prior. We were in a commercial break, so I sat down and thought about it: What in the world would I do if the unimaginable and miraculous happened again? I only got as far as planning a long, hot shower before we were back from commercial and I was consoling myself with a game-tying field goal, figuring that we would be favored to win in overtime.

You know how that ended. A long pass into the end zone with time expired and watching the Gators celebrate a win over the Vols again.

So, what do you do after a soul-crushing loss to a hated rival? A few suggestions:

What to do after a soul-crushing loss to a hated rival

Eat some ice cream. I just finished a bowl of Blue Bell Rocky Mountain Road. Chocolate ice cream with chocolate-covered peanuts, pecans, almonds, and walnuts with a marshmallow swirl. It is delicious, even if it is named after those other mountains way out in Colorado. If you eat enough of it, it also has the added benefit of inducing a sugar coma, and it’s hard to remember traumatic events in that state. Really, all you want is more ice cream, so it’s a self-perpetuating cure.

Eat some jalapeno Fritos. I first found these on a recent trip up to Iowa, and I think I ate them all the way from Indianapolis to Waterloo. They’re Fritoey but not so much that it tastes like you’re licking your dog’s paws. They’re also spicy enough to keep you eating long past the point you really would like to stop, so it keeps your mind occupied with important questions like, “Why can’t I stop eating these?”

Go sit on the porch swing with your six-year-old. This took some effort, to be honest, but it was aided by my littlest one asking me, “Are you mad?” right after the game like she was afraid I was mad at her. I don’t know, honey, are you a Gators fan? No? Okay, then.

Just kidding. I didn’t give her that litmus test. Besides, she’s small enough that we still choose her clothes, so she wears orange, darnit.

Anyway, we got some fresh air and a change of scenery out on the deck, and we were visited by the neighborhood stray cat. Omi loves that stupid cat. And she doesn’t really care about soul-crushing defeats to rival teams, so if I hadn’t already been in a sugar and Frito coma, I would have probably recognized this as a perspective or something. As it went, we stayed out there for five minutes until my cravings compelled me back into the kitchen.

Listen to the players. No joke, I am constantly amazed at the maturity college football players display in the wake of heart-wrenching losses. You can tell they’re disappointed, but they already have their minds right, pointed toward the next day, the next practice, the next opponent. Don’t let one opponent beat you twice. Unless it’s jalapeno Fritos, then it’s fine.

Watch some other games. This will make you realize that (1) you’re not the only one who’s had a rough day, and (2) there’s still a lot of season left. As I write this, Kentucky is leading South Carolina 20-13 late in the fourth quarter. LSU (#12) just got mauled by Mississippi State. Can you imagine how you’d have felt to lose by 30 to the Gators? UCLA got beat by unranked Memphis. Kansas State got beat by unranked Vanderbilt. Missouri looked terrible against Purdue.

These things remind you that we’re one game into the SEC season. Missouri doesn’t look good. South Carolina’s impressive start is in jeopardy. Maybe Kentucky and Vandy are okay. Florida won today, but their non-score and non-turnover numbers aren’t going to be better than Tennessee’s.  When we recalibrate win probabilities Monday, that LSU game is going to take a hit and might even look winnable. Yes, Georgia still looks good, but that’s nothing that more ice cream and jalapeno Fritos can’t fix.

Tennessee did a noble thing on Saturday after Hurricane Irma by putting “Florida Strong” on the back of their helmets.

Unfortunately for the Vols, they were Tennessee Soft in key moments against the Florida Gators, failing to be the aggressor until too late and losing on a 63-yard missile of a Hail Mary from Feleipe Franks to Tyrie Cleveland on the final play of the game.

It was a very familiar way to lose.

After all, this is the Vols. And those were the Gators.

Even when Florida isn’t the FLORIDA of old, Tennessee can’t take advantage and move beyond them in the SEC East.

Inexplicable mistakes cost the Vols in this one, and, for that reason, the “fire Butch Jones” crowd will only grow. This Tennessee team was better than that Florida team, plain and simple. Yet, none of that mattered. Tennessee found a way to mess it up when it mattered most.

Just look at the costly mistakes that marred UT’s chances, even before the eye-covering, cringe-worthy finale.

Losing 6-3 and facing a 1st-and-goal from the 1-yard line, UT refused to give the football to savage running back John Kelly a single time. The Vols didn’t even get to attempt a game-tying field goal because Quinten Dormady threw one of his three interceptions on third down for a momentum-crushing play.

When the Vols finally scored a touchdown on a brilliant Kelly run, he gave the crowd the Gator chomp, drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that led to a great return, a short field and a UF touchdown. For a great player, that was a costly, stupid mistake.

But, even then, Tennessee refused to quit. Kelly and Co. took the ball right down the field, and Dormady found Ethan Wolf for a touchdown to trim the lead to three again.

After a fantastic interception late in the game where Nigel Warrior got his hand on the football, tipping it up to allow Rashaan Gaulden to pick off the football, the Vols once again marched down to the 10-yard line. Rather than run Kelly, who’d gassed the Gators defense, the Vols threw it three more times. The worst thing about that for UT is the play was there on a second-down pass to Kelly, who dropped the would-be, game-winning touchdown. He’d have walked in. Then, Marquez Callaway couldn’t haul in a perfect fade on the next play.

After an errant throw went wide to Kelly, the Vols tied the game 20-20 with under a minute to go, thinking surely it would go into overtime, where they’d have a marked advantage with Kelly.

But that’s not what happened.

Somehow, a Bob Shoop defense that had been very good for much of the day, let Tyrie Cleveland behind the safeties. Franks showed his cannon arm with a pass that traveled 60-65 yards in the air into the outstretched arms of his receiver, and all Micah Abernathy and Warrior could do was put their heads in their hands as Florida celebrated.

It was an embarrassing finish to an embarrassing loss that saw the players bring their team all the way back with a frantic fourth quarter and then lose. It was hard to watch, and it’s going to be hard to relive over the course of the next year or more. Think about how much UT fans have let Georgia have it following the Dobbs-nail boot Hail Mary last year. This is that, except it’s Florida.

Yeah, it’s Florida.

For some reason, the Gators play with that same ol’ swagger against Tennessee every year. They aren’t good, but the Vols make them good. They make coaching blunders, wait too long to turn up the heat and then bank on everything going perfectly down the stretch to win.

They got burned on Saturday. The team that leads the nation with five comeback wins from 10-point deficits in the past two years got ready to shoot the moon again, only to find a broken arrow in the quiver.

That’s not even mentioning Dormady’s three interceptions and three missed field goals that could have swung the game in Tennessee’s favor time after time. There were just too many blunders, but there were also plenty of players who weren’t relied on to make plays until it was almost too late.

If you’re a defensive coordinator, how do you not play your safeties way back, guarding against the prayer of a pass? If you’re the offensive coordinator, how do you continue to line up in the shotgun formation in short-yardage situations and fail to give the football to Kelly when points are on the line? If you’re the head coach, how do you allow this to happen?

There was criticism right before the season from an NFL scout who anonymously told a reporter who covers the Vols that several Vols were soft. I don’t believe that’s the case. They maybe made some dumb plays on Saturday like letting Cleveland by them or drawing unneccessary unsportsmanlike penalties that wound up with devastating consequences, but they didn’t play soft.

This team coached soft. Jones coached soft. Offensive coordinator Larry Scott coached soft. And on the biggest play of the game, somehow UT’s hard-nosed defense softened just enough to do the only thing it couldn’t afford to do.

#Vols HC Butch Jones: “It’s on me, we have to do a better job on our overall discipline, our fundamentals, our details.”

— Mike Griffith (@MikeGriffith32) September 16, 2017

When you have a young but talented team, the coaching staff needs to treat you like you’re talented a lot more than treat you like you’re young. That didn’t happen on Saturday, and the wrong team was celebrating because of it if you’re a Vols fan.

Two years after Tennessee found an impossible way to lose on a 63-yard pass to Antonio Callaway on a 4th-and-14 play when it looked like it had the game won, the Vols found another way to get beat on a 63-yard pass that rained down from the heavens into the arms of Cleveland on Ben Hill Griffin Stadium’s end zone turf.

Get ready for the criticism to rain down on Jones and Co. for finding another way to lose an important game; one where the Vols made enough plays to win but also enough mistakes to lose. When that happens, it comes down to the things that happened throughout the course of the game you look back on and shake your head.

Butch Jones’ tenure in Knoxville has featured an unusual number of these kinds of games. Frantic fourth quarters, miracle finishes, games decided on the final drive or a dramatic play in the final minute or, in this case, final second. Sometimes the Vols win, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we get Josh Dobbs at South Carolina in 2014 or Jauan Jennings last fall in Athens. Sometimes we get Antonio Callaway and Tyrie Cleveland.

But when the dramatic wins and the dramatic losses just balance out, they don’t leave you with progress. It leaves us with heart conditions and, to their credit, a “we’re never out of it” confidence in players so a play like Justin Martin’s end zone punch-out is oddly normal because we just saw Malik Foreman do it last year.

So you can say a lot of things about that final play (and one of them should be a tip of the cap to Feleipe Franks for the throw). But Tennessee’s biggest problem today was that they put themselves in position to be beaten by it.

Coming into today, when the Vols had a 1st-and-10 inside the opponent’s 40 yard line they went on to score a touchdown on every drive except the one ending in Quinten Dormady’s end zone interception against Indiana State last week. Today when the Vols had a scoring opportunity inside the 40, they did this:

• 1st Quarter:  Dormady interception on 3rd-and-10
• 2nd Quarter:  Cimaglia 51-yard field goal made
• 2nd Quarter:  Cimaglia 47-yard field goal missed
• 3rd Quarter:  Dormady end zone interception after 1st-and-Goal at the 1
• 3rd Quarter:  Cimaglia 51-yard field goal missed after third down sack
• 4th Quarter:  Medley 44-yard field goal missed
• 4th Quarter:  Touchdown
• 4th Quarter:  Touchdown
• 4th Quarter:  Medley 27-yard field goal good after 1st-and-Goal at the 9

In seven first-and-goal snaps in the second half, the Vols threw seven passes. Those two sequences went like this:

• 1st-and-Goal at the 1: Should have been picked, unsportsmanlike conduct on Florida
• 1st-and-Goal at the 1: False start on Jack Jones
• 1st-and-Goal at the 5: Incomplete
• 2nd-and-Goal at the 5: Complete to John Kelly for a loss of 1
• 3rd-and-Goal at the 6: Dormady intercepted
• 1st-and-Goal at the 9: Incomplete to John Kelly, should have been a touchdown
• 2nd-and-Goal at the 9: Incomplete
• 3rd-and-Goal at the 9:  Incomplete

Seven plays, and none of them gained a single yard. This is exactly what happened on Tennessee’s only seven red zone snaps against Florida in 2014. John Kelly had 19 carries for 141 yards, but the Vols never ran the ball in a goal-to-go scenario.

This was Larry Scott’s third game calling plays, and I thought he did some good things again today. But what happened in the most crucial part of the field and the game was disastrous. Scott can learn and adjust. The Vols need better field goal kicking. But the overall philosophy must evolve, as Tennessee continues to flirt with the dramatic instead of taking better advantage on every snap.

This has happened with two defensive coordinators, three offensive coordinators, and now three different quarterbacks. It starts with Butch, who to his credit didn’t seem to shy away from that in the postgame. His teams absolutely never quit. But his teams have to be better at making the other team quit.

I don’t know what the best label for it is in the play-calling:  more aggression, more confidence, more competence, etc. But mismanaging crucial situations has cost Tennessee against Florida in 2014, Oklahoma and Florida in 2015, and Florida today. That covers Bajakian, DeBord, and Larry Scott. It is a common, painful theme.

Butch isn’t going anywhere. We all need to blow off a little steam, but everything else is a waste of energy right now. The Vols get UMass next week, then Georgia. If this year’s theme is DAT way, today was a reminder that Butch’s teams have been both incredibly tough and incredibly frustrating in the details. That leaves accountability, which starts with the head coach but must be more than a postgame quote. Tennessee must start coaching and playing to take more advantage on every snap, or they will continue to risk breaking hearts and having theirs broken every Saturday. And they will continue to find themselves on an incredibly entertaining treadmill.

It’s here. Tennessee-Florida Gameday. It’s a why game, why the players play, the coaches coach, and the fans fill the stands. Vols. Gators. The SEC on CBS.

And it’s today.

We’re having an online game-watching party right here, and you’re invited.

• Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. ET
• TV: CBS
• Radio: Vol Network (WNML in Knoxville)
• Live Stats

P.S. There’s still time to submit your answers to this week’s Guessing Game questions.

While we’re all waiting for the Vols to kick off against the Gators at 3:30, hang out with us here. There will be a separate game thread for the Vols, which will go live later.

Here are the schedules again, the short one curated for Vols fans first, and then the full schedule for the day:

Complete college football TV schedule

VolQuest is reporting that Tennessee safety Todd Kelly, Jr. is out indefinitely with continuing knee problems. Mike Griffith of SEC Country cites a source in saying that Kelly won’t play tomorrow “on account of a potential-season-ending knee injury.” From that statement, it’s hard to tell whether Kelly’s already had surgery or whether the surgery itself is merely a possibility. The remainder of the article makes it sound like they’re still trying to figure out whether surgery is the best course of action. Either way, Kelly is out for some extended period of time.

Kelly has only played sparingly in the first two games, as Nigel Warrior and Micah Abernathy have gotten the bulk of the work at safety.

Kelly was fourth on our early-August list of the defensive players the team could least afford to lose to injury. He was behind Kahlil McKenzie, Kendal Vickers, Cortez McDowell, and Darrin Kirkland Jr., the latter of whom has already been lost for the season. The emergence of Daniel Bituli at linebacker has eased the dependence on Cortez McDowell a bit, but losing Kelly for an extended period of time is a blow, as it means that the defense will be without two of its five most important players.

Beneath all the talk, the rivalry, and the unique circumstances surrounding this year’s Tennessee-Florida game, this is the most important fact:  for the fourth year in a row, the Vols have the better team.

The better team doesn’t always win. In 2014 the Vols kept Florida’s offense at bay all day, surrendering only a 30-yard touchdown drive and a 49-yard field goal. But because the Vol offense had a total of seven snaps in the red zone and all seven failed to gain a single yard, the Gators escaped 10-9. In 2015 Tennessee scored to take a 26-14 lead with 10 minutes to play, didn’t go for two, then surrendered conversions on 4th-and-7, 4th-and-8, and 4th-and-14 before poor game management left them with only a 55-yard field goal attempt in one of the five most difficult losses of my lifetime.

Florida got those wins, which is ultimately what matters most. It’s what mattered most for Tennessee last year. But in each of the last three match-ups, the Vols have outperformed the Gators in both total yards and yards per play (with an even turnover margin in each game):

It hasn’t just been on the field. Tennessee out-recruited Florida from 2014-16, and after a setback in the rankings in February, both the Vols and Gators are currently putting together Top 10 classes for 2018:

(Blue chip ratio represents the percentage of each class made up by four-and-five-stars)

Underneath some perceived friction between Butch Jones and the Tennessee fanbase is the stability Jones has built into the program over the last five years, a stability which may now exceed Florida’s. It’s frustrating to say the Vols really could/should be going for four in a row against the Gators on Saturday and going for their third straight SEC East title this fall. But what’s also true is this may represent the longest stretch of years when Tennessee has had the better team in this rivalry since it became an annual one in 1992. And with a win on Saturday, the Vols will put themselves in an excellent position to extend this run.

The last time Tennessee capitalized on Florida’s instability wasn’t perfect either:  the transition from Steve Spurrier to Ron Zook included an incredibly weird and painful shouldn’t-have-happened loss in 2002, but the Vols still won three of four from 2001-04 en route to a pair of east titles. Butch Jones’ Vols can’t get 2014 and 2015 back, but turned the tide in this rivalry in dramatic fashion in 2016. The close losses may still be painful, but the team’s overall performance the last three years, culminating in last season’s signature win, should give Team 121 real confidence going to Gainesville.

Confidence could be Tennessee’s best weapon in this game. The Gators can ride a wave of “nobody believes in us” on Saturday with backups in key roles, the state still recovering, etc. The best way to deal with emotions like that is in businesslike fashion. And Tennessee’s offense has shown early signs that business could be very good this year.

In Tennessee’s advanced statistical profile at Football Study Hall, the Vol offense ranks 56th nationally in explosiveness. Anytime an offense is more explosive, fans have more fun. But attempting to be explosive can be dangerous for a young quarterback with relatively unproven play-makers, especially against a Florida defense. What takes care of business is efficiency, and there the Vols have excelled.

Football Study Hall and S&P+ utilize success rate to measure efficiency:  does a team gain 50% of the needed yardage on first down, 70% on second down, and 100% on third and fourth down. By this metric the Vol offense is successful on nearly half of its snaps (49.1%) through two games, 29th nationally. Tennessee has also taken advantage of excellent special teams play, 12th in the nation in average starting field position.

But most impressively, Tennessee’s offense is fifth nationally in finishing drives, measured by points per trip inside the 40 (or, when your team had a 1st-and-10 inside the opponent’s 40 yard line, how often did they score?).

Last week Quinten Dormady threw a terrible interception in the end zone. But every other time the Vols have had 1st-and-10 inside the opponent’s 40 this year, they have scored a touchdown. An average of 6.42 points every time you cross the 40 ranks fifth nationally. That’s impressive no matter who you’ve played.

Larry Scott’s offense is laying down an efficient identity, and that’s exactly what Tennessee needs in Gainesville. The Vols have more talent, more of the right kind of experience through two weeks this fall, and have a chance to be the more stable program coming out of Saturday. With so much uncertainty surrounding this game, I fall back on the simplest answer:  Tennessee has the better team. And this time, they’ve already earned their confidence.

Take care of business.

Go Vols.