Next week, somebody is going to be picked second in the SEC East. Maybe it’ll be the Vols, maybe not. But I would anticipate Tennessee being close enough to warrant conversation.
That’s not really a goal, of course. You don’t get a silver medal. If the Vols have a successful 2022 season, that won’t be how we describe it. But the journey to such a finish can provide a clear opportunity for the kind of season we’re looking for.
Some ten years ago, we started ranking Tennessee’s most important games going into each season. Even then, in Derek Dooley’s final season, you can see the argument: it’s not which wins would be worth most, in which case Alabama and Georgia vault to the top of the list. It’s more about that team’s particular path to success: back then, we had NC State at number two, with Dooley feeling heat heading into year three and the Vols in desperate need of a good start.
The game at number one on that list has been the game at number one almost every year going back somewhere between 10-30 years:
Florida
It would be easier to think of when the Gators haven’t been viewed as Tennessee’s most important game going into the season. Once the Vols broke a 10-year Alabama streak in 1995, the Tennessee/Florida game vaulted to the top of our lists and our hearts. Since then, when has it not been the Gators? Maybe when Miami was the defending national champion and Ron Zook moved to Florida in 2002. Maybe when Mark Richt firmly established Georgia as a power after beating the Vols four years in a row for 2004-05. And there have been a few times when the Gators were perceived as simply too good for the Vols to realistically catch in the midst of coaching change; maybe only Jeremy Pruitt’s 2018 squad, with Dan Mullen also in year one, could really look at Florida as their biggest game in year one.
Last summer, we would’ve viewed a win like South Carolina or Kentucky as “more important” on the front end. But Josh Heupel’s team did more than a good enough job to get the Gators back at the top of our list in year two, even before Mullen’s season spiraled and Florida turned their own staff over.
Tennessee, as you know, has one win over Florida since 2004, and even that one has six years and two coaching staffs of mileage on it. Beating the Gators at any point would be a success for Tennessee right now. It would create one of the strongest memories any Vol coach has secured in the post-Fulmer era, and Heupel would have a chance to do it early in year two. It doesn’t always go that way, even when you feel like it’s gonna. But it certainly can this year, in a game the Vols might even be favored in for the first time since ducks pulled trucks.
It always starts here. It’s where it can go next that helps define importance to me:
LSU & Kentucky
You can go in any order here. LSU is the national power, a meaningful win for the Vols in any year. Stumble against Florida and Pittsburgh, it’s your chance to right the ship. Beat one or both of those teams, and it’s a chance to stay in the national conversation. The LSU game will function to some degree like the Texas A&M game in 2016: it can’t do it for you by itself, but it can set the course for what comes next.
Kentucky fans are surely telling themselves they should have three consecutive wins over us. The program has elevated itself to a place where they might earn those second place votes. And the seeds of rivalry have always been there via basketball season. The Vols catch LSU coming off a bye; Kentucky catches us in the same fashion.
For Tennessee fans, it will seem easier to overlook the Cats because of what comes next. But it’s this sequence of games that gives the next one a chance to matter most.
Georgia
If you think we’re ready for this kind of fun, then sure, Georgia’s the most important game on the schedule because it’s the one that gives you the best chance to win the East.
I think that’s an unfair conversation headed into year two against the defending national champions. But I wouldn’t shy away from the opportunity. And that’s why I’d look at an absolute success like this: beat Florida, LSU, and Kentucky, and you’ll go to Athens on November 5 with a chance to move into first place in the SEC East. No matter what you did against Alabama. (Or Pittsburgh.)
It’s all hypothetical about whether Tennessee can beat Georgia at this point. But if you want that opportunity to really count, you get there by way of Florida, LSU, and Kentucky.
The composite recruiting rankings at 247 go back to 2000. That February, the Vols signed five five-stars – pretty good! – including Michael Munoz, Jason Respert, and Casey Clausen. The next two years, Tennessee signed three five-stars each February, giving the program 11 five-stars from 2000-2002.
From 2003-2023, the program has 14 five-stars. And the Vols have never signed more than two in the same class since ’02.
Even getting two became a rare feat. After that run in the early 2000s, each Vol coach (more or less) had just one signing class that included a pair of five stars:
Phillip Fulmer did it in 2007 with Eric Berry and Ben Martin
Some combination of Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley did it in February 2010 with Da’Rick Rogers and Ja’Wuan James
Butch Jones did it in 2015 with Kahlil McKenzie and Kyle Phillips
Jeremy Pruitt did it in 2019 with Darnell Wright & Wanya Morris
And now, Josh Heupel happily joins the list with Nico Iamaleava and Chandavian Bradley.
One thing that’s increasingly been an issue for Tennessee, and maybe for everyone via the transfer portal: getting your highest-rated recruits to actually become your highest-rated players over multiple years.
Nico and Bradley look like they’ll be the top two players in this year’s class. Addison Nichols and Tyre West will see action for the first time this fall as the highest-rated players in the Class of 2022. Before them, the players at the top of Tennessee’s board haven’t always turned into sure things, even beyond the most recent coaching turnover:
Chandler and Morris started for the Vols over multiple seasons before transferring out. Jarrett Guarantano would be on this list from 2016, joining other names like Marquez North and Da’Rick Rogers who did some really good things in a Tennessee uniform, but whose careers ultimately led elsewhere.
And, as we know, coaching changes can lead to wipeouts of entire classes of elite prospects. Pruitt’s highest-rated class in 2019 thankfully retains Darnell Wright, who has a chance to be one of Tennessee’s best players this fall. But its next three highest-rated players were Wanya Morris, Henry To’oTo’o, and Quavaris Crouch. The 2020 group thankfully retains Omari Thomas, who will have a chance to make a big impact on the defensive line this fall. But three of its four highest-rated players were Keyshawn Lawrence, Harrison Bailey, and Malachi Wideman.
And the calendar worked hard against the 2021 group, with early signees inking with Jeremy Pruitt in December 2020 before he was let go in January of 2021. Aaron Willis, Kaemen Marley, Kaidon Salter, and Julian Nixon have all left the program.
So that’s all four of Tennessee’s highest-rated signees in 2021, three of four in 2020, and three of four in 2019 who left the program.
Don’t underestimate the job this current staff is doing.
The transfer portal shows no signs of disappearing, and the portal can giveth too: Hendon Hooker is one of many examples of how the Vols used the portal to speed up a rebuild that could have been otherwise crippling.
In the meantime, Heupel is recruiting at the peak of what any of his post-Fulmer predecessors were able to accomplish with five-stars. Despite x number of years of struggle, Tennessee can clearly still attract and earn commitments from the best in college football. If Heupel can simply provide stability, more of those players might stick around longer than we’ve seen with the last group. And there is plenty of excitement that this staff will do far more than just be stable.
Earlier this week, we revisited our list from last summer of Tennessee’s best and worst surprises. Using data from Phil Steele’s all access online, we tracked the Vols against the spread going all the way back to 1985, looking for the games they most over-and-under-performed. On Tuesday, we did the ten worst. Today: the fun part.
Tennessee’s 10 Best Performances Against the Spread, 1985-Present
9a. 1993 South Carolina: favored by 20, won 55-3
9b. 1993 at Kentucky: favored by 16, won 48-0
Heath Shuler’s Vols were not to be trifled with. In the Steve Tanneyhill revenge game, Charlie Garner had a 60-yard touchdown run on the second play of the game, and the Vols never looked back. The ’93 Kentucky squad made the Peach Bowl, the Cats’ first postseason appearance in nine years. Tennessee destroyed them 48-0. Again, this team is the program’s high-water mark in SP+ in the last five decades for a reason.
8. 1989 at UCLA: 15-point underdogs, won 24-6
The genesis of Tennessee’s “decade” of dominance from 1989-2001. In week two, the Bruins were ranked sixth and hosted the Vols on a late night in Pasadena. UCLA went for it on 4th-and-1 at the UT 37 on their opening drive, and the defense held. From there, the Vols introduced the world to freshman tailback Chuck Webb: 134 yards and two scores, plus 78 more from Reggie Cobb. The program was off and running, en route to back-to-back SEC titles in 1989-90, and more to come. Read more from the LA Times.
6a. 1985 vs Miami (Sugar Bowl): 7-point underdogs, won 35-7
One of the most famous nights in the history of Tennessee football. I was four years old, so I carry no memories from the game itself, but spent much of the next four years being shown the highlights on that old SugarVols VHS tape, before the ’89 team made its own memories.
6b. 2004 vs Texas A&M (Cotton Bowl): 4-point underdogs, won 38-7
Tennessee was the higher-ranked team, but the Vols were down to third-string quarterback Rick Clausen. No matter: he went 18-of-27 for 222 yards with three touchdowns, and the Vol defense ambushed the Aggies in forcing five turnovers. This capped a 10-3 season, still the last time the Vols lost fewer than four games in a year.
5. 2010 Ole Miss: favored by 2.5, won 52-14
Tyler Bray’s coming out party in Knoxville. When we first looked at this list last summer, we noted this game as the high-water mark against the spread in the post-Fulmer era, and talked about the power of a team finding its quarterback. There are no guarantees, of course: Bray’s revelation at the end of his freshman year led to an injury as a sophomore and a bunch of high-scoring losses as a junior. But that late span created real momentum for the program going forward, something Hendon Hooker knows a thing or two about…
3a. 1985 at Kentucky: favored by 4, won 42-0
As good as the Sugar Bowl romp over #2 Miami was, the ’85 Vols were even better relative to expectations in the Bluegrass that year. When Tony Robinson went down to injury and was replaced at quarterback by Daryl Dickey, the Vols took some time to restart the offense. They tied Georgia Tech 6-6 and only scored 17 points in a win at Memphis State. Kentucky came into this one playing for bowl eligibility, and beat the Vols in Knoxville the year before. Not this time: the 42-0 shutout moved the Vols into the Top 10.
3b. 1990 Florida: favored by 4, won 45-3
Here’s the high-water mark in Neyland Stadium. Up 7-3 at halftime, Dale Carter took the second half kickoff to the house, and engaged the floodgates. The Vols routed Steve Spurrier’s Gators in a Top 10 clash, making this the benchmark for blowouts in both rivalry and elite competition categories. This is the fourth appearance for a Johnny Majors team in this Top 10.
2. 2021 at Missouri: 2.5-point underdogs, won 62-24
Maybe the Missouri game isn’t your dominant image from last fall; the win over South Carolina was in Knoxville, and it felt like we were beating a better team in the moment. The win at Kentucky was a ranked dub in a close game. But historically speaking, this one is incredibly significant. Going back to at least 1985, we’ve only seen one game where the Vols over-performed expectations via Vegas better than this. And for a Tennessee program that just saw its worst performance relative to expectation the previous season? There was credibility earned here on a level that we hadn’t experienced from a year one coach, a delightful surprise that we might look back on as a tone-setter for something more. From last fall: Announce My Presence With Authority.
1. 1994 at Vanderbilt: favored by 12, won 65-0
The largest margin of victory via shutout in modern UT history. Total yards: Tennessee 655, Vanderbilt 212. The Commodores came into this one 5-5 and looking for bowl eligibility. Instead, they got this. Freshman Peyton Manning was hitting his stride, but this day was as much about the talent gap as anything. Overperforming the spread by 53 points, this is far and away Tennessee’s best performance relative to expectation at kickoff since at least 1985.
In the negative department, four of Tennessee’s five worst performances against the spread post-Fulmer came from 2017-2020, and each of those happened in Knoxville. There’s a reason it felt the way it did walking out of the stadium.
So then, we wondered how much a good surprise might be worth to Josh Heupel in year one. And that’s exactly what we got: the Vols went to Missouri at +2.5 on October 2, and won 62-24. That 40.5-point over-performance was the best of the post-Fulmer era, topping Tyler Bray’s coming out party in Knoxville against Ole Miss in 2010 (a 52-14 win at -2.5). And it was indeed no fluke: the Vols over-performed the line by 14.5 points the very next week against South Carolina, and off we went.
I don’t know if the Missouri game is your dominant image from 2021. But historically, it might be the most significant outcome from last fall.
So looking forward to 2022, I celebrated two holidays this weekend: Independence Day, and Phil Steele’s arrival. If you love stats and history, I highly recommend his online access, which includes every team’s performance against the spread going back some 40 years. So I spent some time these past few days digging deeper than just the post-Fulmer era on these questions: what are Tennessee’s best and worst performances against the spread? And how high on those lists do the struggles of 2017-2020 and the unexpected delight of 2021 rank?
I went back as far as 1985, using that SEC Championship season as a benchmark for both my lifespan and our modern conversation. We’ll save the best for last, and look at Tennessee’s best performances against the spread later this week. Today, here’s a look at Tennessee’s worst performances against the spread. Can’t appreciate the good without the context!
Tennessee’s 10 Worst Performances Against the Spread, 1985-Present
10. 1993 vs Penn State (Citrus Bowl): favored by 10, lost 31-13
We’ll see more from Heath Shuler’s squad tomorrow, which was so dominant it confused Vegas more than once, then did so again in the finale. This team, still Tennessee’s all-time best in SP+, lost at Florida by seven and tied Alabama in Birmingham. They destroyed everyone else. And then in the bowl game, they took a 10-0 lead…before Penn State closed on a 31-3 run. Ki-Jana Carter ran for 108 of their 209 yards, and the Nittany Lions had their second bowl victory over Tennessee in three years.
9. 1999 Memphis: favored by 30, won 17-16
Beware the orange pants! With everyone expecting bloodshed following the events of the next game on our list, the defending national champion Vols were perhaps still thinking about the loss at Florida the previous week. Tennessee needed a last minute drive to get the win on a very nervous homecoming Saturday. This was my freshman year at UT, and I’m not sure I’ve ever spent more of a game thinking about how bad it would be to lose. But we didn’t!
8. 1996 at Memphis: favored by 26, lost 21-17
Kevin Cobb was down.
6a. 1988 Washington State: favored by 3, lost 52-24
An 0-4 start became 0-5, with Tennessee surrendering more than 600 yards of offense. A Host of Volunteers has a great podcast about the 1988 season, which started 0-6 but ended 5-0, setting the table for Tennessee’s golden era to begin in 1989.
6b. 2017 Georgia: 10-point underdogs, lost 41-0
Tennessee’s run on the national scene from 2015-16 came to a firm halt on this day, dominated by Kirby Smart’s year two Bulldogs in Knoxville.
4a. 1995 Vanderbilt: favored by 32, won 12-7
This line will make more sense when you see what happened in this match-up the previous year. In the 1995 regular season finale, the Vols were ranked fifth, but almost stumbled the week before in Lexington. Against Woody Widenhofer’s year one Commodores, the Vols struggled offensively, but got the job done in a 12-7 victory. (The next two years against Vanderbilt, with some guy named Manning at quarterback: 14-7, 17-10). The Vols struggled into the Citrus Bowl…then beat maybe the most talented team they’ve ever faced from Ohio State.
4b. 2007 at Florida: 7-point underdogs, lost 59-20
An odd game, but not for this rivalry. Florida led 28-13 and was driving for the putaway score in the third quarter, when true freshman Eric Berry picked sophomore Tim Tebow and raced back 96 yards for a score. The Vols got a stop, and got the ball back down 28-20 with five minutes to play in the third quarter. And then, disaster: an Arian Foster fumble was returned for a touchdown, followed by a 99-yard Florida drive, followed by, followed by, followed by. The Gators scored 31 unanswered in the final 20 minutes, giving the Vols their worst margin-of-victory loss of the Fulmer era. Tebow won the Heisman, but the Vols would rebound to win the SEC East.
3. 2019 Georgia State: favored by 24.5, lost 31-23
This game had a chance to play in some real positive history at UT, as the 2019 Vols eventually rebounded from this disaster to finish the year on a six game win streak. The fallout for the Jeremy Pruitt era in 2020 severed that potential chain, leaving this one as one of two notable examples for getting stunned at home by a mid-major, along with…
2. 2008 Wyoming: favored by 27, lost 13-7
The margin of upset is wider here by half a point. But given what was happening at the time, I do think the Georgia State loss hurt more; at this stage in 2008, Fulmer was out, and the team played like it.
1. 2020 Kentucky: favored by 6.5, lost 34-7
Going back through at least 1985, this is Tennessee’s worst performance relative to the spread. The pick sixes in the first half set the tone, and Kentucky’s offense was able to finish things off in the second. The Vols have been blown out by more, for sure, but have never performed so poorly relative to what we thought would happen at kick-off, at least via Vegas standards.
Which is why it’s so amazing to know what they did against Missouri in the opposite direction just one year later. More on that later this week.
It was kind of USC and UCLA, all things considered, to let their news loose on June 30. Nine weeks til kickoff, three weeks til SEC Media Days, baseball season moving into the rear view. It’s great content, thanks!
So now, is there a great version of where all this might be headed for Tennessee?
To me, two questions guide the thought process for the SEC moving forward:
Who makes it worth it to continue to expand?
How big is too big?
Football takes the lead on all of this, so a lot of what we’ll look at here in terms of size and scope is based on football scheduling. But I think you have to start with, “Would the league be good at 16 no matter what else happens?”
Who makes it worth it to continue to expand?
Back in the early pandemic days when we were uncertain when football would be played again, we had some fun building a 32-team football superconference. The framework we used is the same one making the decisions now, as usual: which programs are most valuable?
From that 2018 list from the Wall Street Journal, we found 13 programs valued at more than $500 million. With Texas and Oklahoma coming to the SEC, each of those 13 programs was already slated for the Big Ten or the SEC…except for Notre Dame. The Irish remain the white whale in this exercise (which makes them even less likely to be on any fantasy SEC radars).
From there, another 19 programs were valued at $250+ million. Those 32 teams represent:
11 of 14 current SEC programs (soon 13 of 16 with Texas/OU)
8 of 14 current Big Ten programs (soon 10 of 16 with USC/UCLA)
4 of 10 current Big 12 programs, with wide disparity between Texas/OU and Kansas State/Oklahoma State
5 of 12 current Pac 12 programs
3 of 14 current ACC programs
Notre Dame
If the SEC and Big Ten remain committed to their existing structures, the biggest winners yesterday were Vanderbilt, Rutgers, Missouri, Purdue, etc. Those programs get a seat at the big table they wouldn’t be able to pull up to on their own.
Based on those 2018 Wall Street Journal rankings, after Notre Dame the next two most valuable programs outside the current 32 team SEC & Big Ten are Oregon and Washington. Again, unlikely to be considered for the SEC. As Stewart Mandel points out in his overarching piece in The Athletic, Oregon holds a lot of power here. If they want to stay, the Pac-12 has a future. If they want to go and the Big Ten is willing to say yes, we’re deep down the path to the Big 2.
From an SEC perspective, in value the two most obvious targets are Clemson and Florida State. Those are three of your last nine national championships, and Clemson just played for another in 2019. Those two would get you to 18. If you wanted to expand from there? Virginia Tech is the next most valuable football program in the ACC, the last in the $250+ million club. Miami is further down the list (behind Georgia Tech among ACC schools, but that seems unlikely from a football perspective), but certainly adds name recognition, history, and expands the footprint.
One other thought among many: the SEC’s last two rounds of expansion always went outside existing territories and rivalries: Arkansas and South Carolina in 1992, Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012. Would South Carolina and Florida protest the most obvious additions of Clemson and Florida State, even in this landscape?
If so, I wonder about Duke and North Carolina from an all-sports perspective, which would immediately change the calculus in basketball. If Duke is a no go for various reasons, North Carolina and Virginia Tech would still fit the previous model.
Here’s the real question: how many of these teams are worth it?
And if the league decides they’re good at 16, would they still be good if the Big Ten went shopping? Does a 16-team SEC still carry enough weight to lead the conversation if the Big Ten adds Clemson, Notre Dame, Oregon, and Washington?
Some of this will also get down to the future of the College Football Playoff. Does the SEC view the Big Ten as an equal, or at least equalish? As early as 2026, could we see the champion of the SEC play the champion of the Big Ten, and nevermind what anyone else thinks?
There are plenty of dominoes to fall from there, including future non-conference scheduling, etc. But there is certainly a scenario where the SEC looks at all of this, even potential future expansion from the Big Ten, and says, “Nah, we’re good.”
If the league does say yes to expansion, then…
How big is too big?
Let’s start with what feels like the football move that would earn the most head nods: add Clemson and Florida State to go to 18, then stop there. At that point, the league doesn’t need Miami, or the North Carolina and Virginia markets to make that case that it clearly has the only championship-caliber argument in the south.
For scheduling purposes, we’ll attempt to stick to the one thing everyone seems to agree on: teams in the same conference need to play each other more often! Eighteen teams lends itself to two models:
One annual rivalry, then rotate the other eight opponents every year.
Five annual rivalries, then rotate four other opponents every three years.
One annual rivalry among 18 teams is a mess, particularly for a team like Tennessee. A quick pass at what made the most sense to me left the Vols and their opponent with the third-best option every year:
Alabama vs Auburn
Florida vs Florida State
Clemson vs South Carolina
Georgia vs Tennessee
Texas A&M vs LSU
Texas vs Oklahoma
Ole Miss vs Mississippi State
Arkansas vs Missouri
Kentucky vs Vanderbilt
Maybe it’s moderately fair, and in this system you’re seeing everyone every other year anyway. But in this format, games like Alabama/Tennessee, Florida/Georgia, Auburn/Georgia, etc. are getting played on home fields only once every four years. Seems unlikely, even in the midst of so many traditions falling by the wayside.
Five annual rivalries with four rotating opponents? Let’s get nuts.
18-Team SEC, Five Annual Rivalries (Plus 4 rotating opponents)
Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Clemson
Arkansas
LSU
Missouri
Texas A&M
Mississippi St
Texas
Auburn
Alabama
Georgia
LSU
Mississippi St
Florida State
Clemson
South Carolina
Florida State
Georgia
Alabama
Vanderbilt
Florida
Georgia
Florida State
Tennessee
South Carolina
Kentucky
Florida State
Florida
Clemson
Auburn
Vanderbilt
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Auburn
South Carolina
Clemson
Tennessee
Kentucky
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Florida
Mississippi St
Missouri
LSU
Arkansas
Alabama
Texas A&M
Ole Miss
Auburn
Mississippi St
Ole Miss
Arkansas
Auburn
Kentucky
Oklahoma
Missouri
Arkansas
South Carolina
Oklahoma
Texas
Kentucky
Ole Miss
Mississippi St
LSU
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma
Texas
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas A&M
Missouri
Ole Miss
Mississippi St
South Carolina
Clemson
Missouri
Georgia
Florida
Florida State
Tennessee
Kentucky
Alabama
Vanderbilt
Florida
Georgia
Texas
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Missouri
Ole Miss
Texas A&M
Texas
Arkansas
LSU
Oklahoma
Alabama
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
Kentucky
Ole Miss
Florida State
Clemson
It’s imperfect, for sure, and carries some compromise for many, especially new additions like Oklahoma with few natural fits for so many protected rivalries. But for a team like Tennessee (and others), this system preserves every one of our biggest rivalries, then you’d see everyone else every three years, and in Neyland every six years.
So in addition to playing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt every year, you’d get something like this:
YEAR A: Clemson, at Texas A&M, at Texas, Missouri
YEAR B: at LSU, Florida State, Ole Miss, at Mississippi State
YEAR C: Oklahoma, at Auburn, at South Carolina, Arkansas
(then switch the home-and-away for the next three years)
Or go to 20, and you’ve got:
20-Team SEC, Four Annual Rivalries (Plus 5 Rotating Opponents)
Alabama
Auburn
Tennessee
LSU
Ole Miss
Arkansas
LSU
Missouri
Texas
Texas A&M
Auburn
Alabama
Georgia
Mississippi St
LSU
Clemson
South Carolina
Florida State
Virginia Tech
Miami
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Tennessee
South Carolina
Florida State
Florida
Miami
Clemson
Virginia Tech
Georgia
Florida
Auburn
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Kentucky
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Mississippi St
Virginia Tech
LSU
Arkansas
Alabama
Texas A&M
Auburn
Miami
Florida State
Virginia Tech
Clemson
South Carolina
Mississippi St
Ole Miss
Auburn
Kentucky
Missouri
Missouri
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Texas
Mississippi St
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas A&M
Missouri
Ole Miss
Ole Miss
Mississippi St
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Clemson
Georgia
Florida
Miami
Tennessee
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Florida
Texas
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Missouri
Texas A&M
Texas
Oklahoma
LSU
Arkansas
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
Kentucky
Ole Miss
Georgia
Virginia Tech
Miami
Florida State
Clemson
Kentucky
No matter which way you do it, there are compromises. These are just first draft ideas.
These exercises are fun, especially in July. Are either of them better for Tennessee than the SEC staying put at 16 teams?
The real answer to that question, I think: what will access to the College Football Playoff look like?
You need enough carrots out there for everyone in your league, as we wrote when Oklahoma and Texas headed our way last July. One way to make such a thing at least possible: an eight-team SEC playoff, which would instantly become a pass/fail benchmark for the entire league. Send the winner to face the champion of the BIG Whatever, and you’ve got a deal…it’s just one that cuts out everyone else in college football from the national championship chase.
If the sport isn’t headed in that direction, you’re still talking about x number of SEC teams chasing College Football Playoff bids…but for the rest? Is the Outback Bowl or whatever it’s called today still going to cut it when an increased playing field inherently leads to more losses to go around?
I don’t know the answer to these questions, though I do enjoy the conversation.
The best thing Tennessee can do: keep getting better.
Over the years of writing about Tennessee, we’ve sometimes joked about, “Man, imagine how much fun this will be when we win!”
And what you learn along the way is, these little moments are always available. Your team doesn’t have to win it all before they can do something meaningful, before we can enjoy them.
Whenever I hear people asking if this – right now – is as good as it’s ever been, I feel my age. In March and April of 1998, the men’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nine years, and the Lady Vols went 39-0 to win their third straight national championship. You’re probably aware of what the football team did that fall. Those were some pretty good days.
But what I really think back to is 2007-08. In the summer of 2007, Lady Vol softball played for the national championship. That fall, we won the SEC East in football. In February, we beat #1 Memphis and went to the top of the polls ourselves in basketball. And in April, the Lady Vols won their second straight national championship. It felt like a time less reliant on purely what we did in football, and more about the overall health of the athletic department.
There’s an image from back then that I can’t find, but often reference: Pat Summitt, Phillip Fulmer, and Bruce Pearl sitting together at a Lady Vol softball game. Two Mount Rushmore faces of Tennessee Athletics, and a young (47 at the time!) coach you thought might join them one day. You just knew we were in good hands, and those hands would have us in the hunt.
That’s the real prize, to me: are we in the hunt?
Define success only by winning championships, and you will spend most of your fandom disappointed. But are your teams capable? When you sit down to watch, do you believe they can win? That’s the prize.
Things changed faster than any of us would’ve guessed from those 2007-08 seasons, now 15 years ago. There have still been moments along the way, always accessible. We’ve just had a really hard time lining them up:
Men’s basketball went to the Elite Eight in 2010, two months after Lane Kiffin left in the middle of the night.
Pat Summitt was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2011, still helping the team win the SEC Tournament and reach the Elite Eight in 2012, her final season.
Cuonzo Martin’s 2014 team came within a charge call of the Elite Eight. He left for Cal soon after.
The 2015 and 2016 football Vols went 9-4, 3-1 against Florida and Georgia in those two years. Those seasons carried their share of what could’ve been, but still represent the high-water mark for football since 2007. Meanwhile, men’s basketball had their low-water mark for the same span in 2015 and 2016 during the transition from Donnie Tyndall to Rick Barnes.
Barnes got it going with an SEC Championship in 2018 and a month at #1 in 2019. Those years were preceded by a 4-8 football season in 2017, then a handful of 25+ point losses in 2018.
We got close enough to consider asking the question two ago, after football rallied from a 1-4 start to finish 8-5 in the fall of 2019. Some of those moments were both fun and meaningful. And that remained the struggle soon after, certainly impacted by the pandemic: how to string meaningful moments together, to make one year build on the next.
On the football side of things, credit Josh Heupel and his staff for making his year one far more competitive and exciting than most had planned, then building on it with real momentum in recruiting. And since football season ended, we’ve seen this:
Men’s basketball won the SEC Tournament for the first time since 1979
The Lady Vols made the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2016
Baseball spent most of the season ranked #1, winning the SEC regular season and tournament crowns
It’s not that every program on campus is ready to be considered the best in the land. But in those sports, Tennessee is in the hunt. Softball hasn’t left the hunt.
And that question now turns to football, the biggest hunt of all. The Vols haven’t won 9+ games in the regular season since 2007.
Meaningful Saturdays are out there, and not too many from now. What will this team do this fall?
On a personal note: I started writing about Tennessee 16 years ago, about 10 days after I became a pastor. I’d lived in Knoxville all my life, then moved to Virginia to begin serving churches. And I just missed talking about the Vols.
I did that for a few years just on my own, as it fit into the rhythm of my life. And then Joel Hollingsworth asked me to join the team at Rocky Top Talk, which I did right after Kiffin was hired. And it had such a profound and positive impact on my life, all those years getting to talk about the Vols with so many people, even if the years were often confusing and it felt like no two sports could get it going at the same time.
We left RTT and restarted over here five years ago now, with kids on the way and another move back to Virginia, and more time to write about other things. And through all of that, up to and including a pandemic, sitting down at the keyboard to do this has remained such a positive thing in my life.
Two weeks ago, after 16 years away, my family and I moved back to Knoxville. And starting this Sunday, I’m elated to be joining the team at Powell Church. We’re so thrilled to be part of such a great community, and to be back home in the area. More than anything, we are incredibly grateful.
I still plan on sitting down at this keyboard trying to figure things out, with the Vols and otherwise, and finding its fit in the rhythm of our lives here. Frankly, I don’t know how to be a pastor without it. I just wanted to say thanks – for wherever you’ve read for however often – for making a difference in my life.
The good old days are always out there. And sometimes they seem closer than others.
This list makes sense, right? Wins follow talent, rinse, repeat.
Here’s the question, especially as it relates to Tennessee: how often does talent follow wins?
Do you have to win at an elite level before you can recruit at one? For this exercise, let’s ask it this way: how many programs have signed a Top 10 recruiting class without winning 10+ games in any of the four previous years?
That’s the question for Tennessee’s program right now, sparked by the commitment of Nico Iamaleava, the Vols’ highest-rated prospect since Bryce Brown in 2009. With NIL opportunities and a record-breaking offense, the Vols have momentum.
It didn’t translate into adding more blue chip players into the fold this week, though the Vols have several more on campus this weekend. Missing out on guys we may have talked ourselves into can send the narrative back in the other direction. So maybe it’s helpful to take a more objective look: how realistic is it to expect the Vols to land a Top 10 class before they “prove it” on the field by winning 10+ games?
In the last six years – so 60 Top 10 classes – I count two instances of a program landing a Top 10 class without having won 10+ games in the four previous years (or Texas A&M going 9-1 in 2020).
Let’s start there, in fact: the Aggies finished with the #6 recruiting class in February of 2020. That followed years of 9-4 and 8-5 in Jimbo Fisher’s first two seasons, 8-5 and 7-6 in Kevin Sumlin’s last two. At that point, the Aggies last won 10+ games with Johnny Football in 2012, eight years earlier. Jimbo Fisher, however, won 10+ games at Florida State every year from 2012-2016, including a national championship. That certainly earned them a little extra juice, and A&M paid it off with just one loss in 2020 and a win over Alabama in 2021.
The only other instance in the last 10 years of a team landing a Top 10 class without a recent year of 10+ wins also comes from Texas: the Longhorns finished #3 in the 2018 recruiting rankings. Tom Herman went 7-6 in his first season just before that, and followed three years of seven losses under Charlie Strong. At that point, Texas hadn’t won 10+ games since making the BCS Championship Game in 2009, a nine-year gap. Herman also immediately paid that class off with a 10-4 season in the fall of 2018.
For both Texas in 2018 and Texas A&M in 2020, it wasn’t so much that a ton of true freshmen from one elite class made all the difference, but that the program had real momentum which manifested itself in both recruiting and on fall Saturdays. It became sustained success at A&M, less so for Texas (though shout out to the Mannings).
Either way, these are the only two examples of a program signing an elite recruiting class without a recent season of 10+ wins in the last six years.
So yeah, it’s hard to do and clearly the exception to the rule. The rich tend to get richer in this sport. But Tennessee is a good fit for the kind of “formerly rich” program that could potentially pull it off. We know that’s true, because if you back it up to the last 10 years, you find a few more examples:
Texas also signed Top 10 classes in 2015 and 2016 under Charlie Strong, despite having no 10+ win season since 2009
Tennessee did it under Butch Jones in 2014 and 2015, despite having no 10+ win season since 2007
UCLA and Ole Miss did it in 2013. The Bruins last won 10+ games in 2005. The Rebels did it with Cutcliffe and Eli in 2003.
Is this happening less often these last six years as part of more overall talent consolidation? Could be. Given who is still doing it – and that Tennessee almost did it with Jeremy Pruitt’s 11th-rated class in 2020 – it may be as much resource consolidation as anything.
Maybe the more relevant question for Tennessee is, how different is the challenge facing Josh Heupel right now than the one Butch Jones faced when he signed Top 10 classes in 2014 and 2015? Those groups certainly had the advantage when it comes to proximity to Tennessee’s on-field success. Our last 10+ win season was in 2007. That’s a greater distance than any of these other programs faced. Butch’s classes were also heavier on in-state and legacy kids, an advantage that also becomes weaker the farther you get from on-field success.
But Heupel and company have already landed a bigger fish than any cycle this century other than Bryce Brown in 2009 and Eric Berry in 2007. And those NIL opportunities and the SEC’s overall profile give the current administration some new advantages.
Creating a hardline expectation of a Top 10 class before winning 10+ games on the field seems unrealistic. But believing the opportunity for such a thing can exist at Tennessee? That, thankfully, still appears to be true here. The Vols are 15th in the 2023 ratings right now with only 10 commits. There’s a lot of work left to be done, on and off the field. Nothing will help Tennessee more in recruiting than doing more work on the field; this week was a reminder that you tend not to skip steps in this process, and there are still real stakes in this thing every Saturday.
But the work Tennessee has already done in recruiting, and the surge in competitiveness in year one under this staff, has given the Vols a chance to make that next step in recruiting, even 15 years removed from a 10+ win season. It still speaks to the overall strength of the program, all these years later, that multiple coaches have had those opportunities. And both in recruiting and on Saturdays – and not too many from now – I’m excited to see what this group can do with their chance.
The addition of Bru McCoy this week raises the ceiling on our hypothetical offseason conversations. And it was already fairly high given what this offense did last season, even with Velus Jones and Javonta Payton now off to the NFL.
There may be more on the way:
Tennessee may not be done adding receivers.
Jaylon Robinson posted career-best numbers back in 2020 playing in Josh Heupel's offense: 55 catches for 979 yards and 6 touchdowns https://t.co/9hh72krLJc
Robinson’s familiarity with Heupel is an obvious plus, and he would give Tennessee another option in a room full of intriguing possibilities. In this fast-paced offense, there’s an idea here that there will be plenty of footballs to go around. Off-season additions can feel like they’re a contribution to a conversation about who the fourth or fifth guy will be.
But at least in year one, the rotation ended up being so much tighter, the better off-season question turned out to be, “Who’s number two?”
Last season Cedric Tillman caught 64 passes, Velus Jones 62. Those two combined for 51.9% of Tennessee’s total receptions, and 63.3% of the receptions among the regular rotation (players catching 10+ passes in 2021). Both of those numbers are higher than anything we’ve seen around here recently:
Top Receiving Duos at UT, 2009-21
Season
Top 2 Pass Catchers
Pct. of Receptions
2021
Tillman & Velus
51.9%
2020
Palmer & Gray
35.2%
2019
Jennings & Palmer
46.5%
2018
Jennings & Callaway
38.1%
2017
B. Johnson & Kelly
41.1%
2016
Malone & Jennings
37.8%
2015
Pearson & Kamara
32.7%
2014
Howard & Pearson
32.7%
2013
Howard & North
42.9%
2012
Hunter & Patterson
41.8%
2011
Rogers & Rivera
43.0%
2010
G. Jones & D. Moore
42.9%
2009
G. Jones & D. Moore
36.9%
Also seeing two players at or close to 50% of the team’s total receptions: UCF under Heupel.
2020: Marlon Williams & Jaylon Robinson, 50.6%
2019: Gabriel Davis & Marlon Williams, 45.4%
2018: Gabriel Davis & Dredrick Snelson, 42.9%
Their 2019 number would also be higher than anything seen at UT in the post-Fulmer era after 2021 and 2019. In the latter, the Vols had the future NFL trio of Jauan Jennings, Marquez Callaway, and Josh Palmer. How does it look if we expand it to the top three targets:
Top Receiving Trios at Tennessee, 2009-21
Season
Top 3 Pass Catchers
Pct. of Receptions
2021
Tillman, Velus, Hyatt
60.5%
2020
Palmer, Gray, Velus
47.5%
2019
Jennings, Callaway, Palmer
61.5%
2018
Jennings, Callaway, Palmer
51.5%
2017
B. Johson, Kelly, Callaway
54.4%
2016
Malone, Jennings, Kamara
54.6%
2015
Pearson, Kamara, Malone
46.8%
2014
Howard, Pearson, Hurd
45.2%
2013
Howard, North, R. Neal
57.1%
2012
Hunter, Patterson, Rivera
54.4%
2011
Rogers, Rivera, D. Arnett
53.8%
2010
Jones, Moore, Stocker
59.2%
2009
Jones, Moore, Stocker
49.4%
Here, outside of that NFL trio in 2019, last season again separates itself from the pack.
Is there a correlation between the best offenses and diversity of targets? Tyler Bray’s 2012 attack and Josh Dobbs’ 2016 squad were almost identical in the percentage of catches by their top three targets; Bray’s used a tight end Dobbs’ a back.
At UCF, trios were the name of the game in their dynamite offenses in 2018 and 2019:
2018: G. Davis, D. Snelson, T. Nixon 60.7%
2019: G. Davis, M. Williams, T. Nixon 63.5%
Soconsistently, we’ve seen this coaching staff find its best two or three wide receivers, and ride them to incredible heights all season long.
After two weeks last season, it looked like Tennessee would throw it to the tight end more than ever. But that gave way to a lethal attack involving Velus, Tillman, plus Javonta Payton 18 times for 413 yards.
Jaylin Hyatt actually ended the season with three more receptions than Payton. He caught four passes against Bowling Green in the opener, then didn’t catch a pass until the South Carolina game. His 17 catches over the last eight games made for a nice quartet of options at receiver for Tennessee’s offense, along with 34 combined receptions for Jacob Warren and Princeton Fant.
One consistent truth last season: after the running back being the #3 receiver throughout the Butch Jones era, Heupel’s offense almost never looked their way in the passing game. With just 20 total receptions for backs last season, the Vol offense fell generally in line with what they saw at UCF. Otis Anderson had 31 catches as a back in 2019; no other back had more than 20 in a season during his time there.
This coaching staff loves receivers, and loves finding the best of their best. I would assume it’ll still be important to figure out who the fourth option is in this passing game. But if form holds, the real question at this point is who will be number two.
So when we look back on “the wilderness”, it’s with a healthy degree of uncertainty about where exactly we are right now. Tennessee’s record, recruiting rankings, and draft picks from 2021 will look similar to what we’ve seen for the last 10+ years. But even that similarity trends positive. If four Tennessee players are drafted this weekend (with Matthew Butler, Velus Jones, Cade Mays, and Alontae Taylor leading projections), that would match the second-highest total for Vol alumni in the last 11 years:
Six picks in 2017 (Barnett, Kamara, Sutton, Reeves-Maybin, Malone, Dobbs)
Four picks in 2013 (Patterson, Hunter, Dallas Thomas, Rivera)
And those drafts, of course, came following year three for Derek Dooley and year four for Butch Jones, more time to build on their own terms, etc.
The long view still reflects the wilderness, as Braden Gall’s research showed this week:
In the NFL Draft, the Vols are contemporaries with Missouri, Ole Miss, and Kentucky over the last 12 years. It’s similar to what you find in wins going back through the post-Fulmer era: from 2009-2020, Tennessee went 73-75 under Kiffin, Dooley, Butch, and Pruitt. That .493 winning percentage is likewise 11th in the SEC during that span: just behind Ole Miss (.503) and just ahead of Arkansas (.466) and Kentucky (.463), with Vanderbilt bringing up the rear.
If there’s good news here, it will still feel like bad news in the past tense: though the Vols have won games and sent players to the NFL at only the 11th-best rate in the league over the last dozen years, that’s not how we’ve recruited. Tracking the 247 composite rankings back to 2010 as well, Tennessee is probably right where you expect them to be: still among the top half of the league with the other traditional powers, with a clean break to the bottom half.
Average Overall Recruiting Ranking, 247 Composite 2010-22
Team
Average
Alabama
1.69
Georgia
5.62
LSU
6.92
Florida
10.15
Auburn
10.23
Texas A&M
12.08
Tennessee
14.77
Ole Miss
22.85
South Carolina
25.62
Mississippi State
27.31
Arkansas
27.92
Kentucky
33.69
Missouri
36.38
Vanderbilt
47.54
Despite Tennessee’s struggles on the field and in sending its best players to Sunday, the Vols have still recruited as a Top 15 team nationally on average. The lowest-ranked class in this span was 25th in Butch Jones’ first two months on the job in 2013. He also turned in two Top 10 classes the next two years.
So sure, in the past tense, it’s a strike against Tennessee. But for the present and future, it’s a great sign: this program, through four different head coaches and few winning seasons, was still able to pull Top 15 classes on average. The idea that you can win here in line with the other traditional powers in this league? That still holds up quite well.
Which leads one to wonder, of course, what we might do if more wins began to follow.
In that department, the Vols are currently seventh in the 2023 recruiting rankings, have Nico in the boat, and are in on several other blue chip prospects. And the projections for this fall, before any of those kids arrive, trend toward the opportunity to make some recent history.
Do that, and Tennessee will give itself the opportunity to make some capital-H History once more. The potential for this place never left. And the Vols are edging closer to things looking a little less like the wilderness, and a little more like the promised land.
In the last 14 years, it’s a number the Vols hit only twice. Tennessee went 8-4 in 2015 and 2016 under Butch Jones. Both of those seasons came with mixed feelings, an 11-game winning streak bookended by disappointing outcomes to open 2015 and close 2016. The Vols made plenty of individual memories in that stretch, but couldn’t sustain enough success to create lasting change.
Six years later, our feelings might still be mixed about an 8-4 outcome. If that’s the case, it’s a testament to what Josh Heupel’s team did in year one.
The 8-4 finishes in 2015 and 2016 came in years three and four under Butch Jones. He went 6-6 in year two. His predecessor went 5-7 after Tyler Bray was injured. And his successor went 7-5 by way of losses to Georgia State and BYU, followed by a six-game winning streak to close the year.
An 8-4 regular season would be the best any of Tennessee’s head coaches have done in year two since Phillip Fulmer. And if you believe in diminishing returns – or at least the idea of it – Josh Heupel’s mountain was steeper than any of them considering what he inherited.
In the early returns from our expected win total machine, our community projects the Vols to win 8.1 regular season games. It’ll stay live on our site throughout the summer, then we’ll clear the board when fall camp begins and retake our temperature once we know more about transfer portal outcomes, health, and offseason chatter. Either way, 8.1 is a tantalizing number when you consider it in the form of, “What’s more likely: 7-5 or 9-3?”
Some individual percentage breakdowns we’ll talk more about as we go this summer:
It’s close, but our community gives the Vols a slight edge in a pair of games the numbers suggest Tennessee will ultimately split: a 57.5% chance of beating Florida, and a 52.8% chance of winning at LSU.
We’re still not quite ready to assume a major upset, but the Vols get puncher’s odds against Alabama (20.4%) and Georgia (18.6%).
The numbers suggest Tennessee goes 3-1 in this group of four: at Pittsburgh (65.2%), Kentucky (67.8%), Missouri (73.8%), and at South Carolina (67.8%).
If all of those outcomes held, you’d get 8-4 by way of what we might consider a disappointing loss to a team from that last group, but also a signature win over Florida or LSU. Not all 8-4s are created equal, to be sure.
We think the win total machine does a good job with managing expectations in a healthy way. In that sense, 8-4 might feel like “achievement”: not over, not under, just the head nod and yep, we probably did what we should’ve done.
But here again lies the beauty of hope, bolstered by the reality of the way Tennessee exceeded expectations under Heupel in year one. Tying the best regular season number the Vols have put up in 14 years might feel a little underwhelming at first glance. But just beyond it – well within the realm of the possible – is the kind of season that couldn’t help but elevate your program. A 9-3 finish hasn’t been done here since 2007. If that led to the Outback Bowl, that’s been done once here since then. If that led to the Citrus Bowl, that hasn’t been done here since 2001. If that led to anything beyond, that’s never been done here in the CFP format. And if the Vols won any of those bowl games to finish 10-3, that hasn’t been done here since 2004.
This is the conversation Josh Heupel and this program have built for themselves going into year two, from the ashes of everything they inherited going into year one. Doing it as well as it’s been done around here in the last 14 years is the starting point. And going beyond – and continuing to create real change for this program – is within reach.
