Category Archives: Football
2021 Expected Win Total Machine – Kentucky
2021 Expected Win Total Machine – Georgia
2021 Expected Win Total Machine – Florida
2021 SEC Projected Records and Standings
In case you missed it last Friday, we’re inviting our readers behind the curtain to participate in the production of this year’s annual preseason football content. For the next week or two, we’ll be giving you an opportunity to weigh in on the projected records and standings for the SEC.
The end goal here is projected standings for each division of the SEC, but we don’t want to just jump to the finish line on the question. Instead, we’ll walk through the schedule for each team and make an educated guess as to the outcome of each game. That gives us each team’s projected record (and also any necessary head-to-head tiebreakers) from which we then determine projected division standings.
Regular readers will recognize the Expected Win Total Machine below. It doesn’t ask for wins and losses, but instead your level of confidence for a win in the form of some number out of 100. Think of it as a percentage (but don’t include a percentage symbol in your answer or the machine will complain). For instance, if you feel really good about Tennessee beating Bowling Green in the season opener, you’ll put something like 90 or 95 in the Bowling Green input field. If you feel really bad about Tennessee’s chances against Alabama, you’ll put something like 5 or 10 next to that game. When you’re finished, hit the submit button, and the machine will spit your projected win total back at you. It will also log your game-by-game entries into our system so we can come up with community numbers we’ll use for the preseason content.
We’ll compile that data into a fan expected win total and include that number in the preseason content. We’ll also convert it into expected wins and losses and use it to come up with projected records for each SEC team and standings for each division.
This is a Vols community, so we’re going to start with Tennessee just to get our feet wet. Here’s how it’s going to work:
Let’s get started. Here’s the link to the first form. We will add the other teams periodically over the next week or so.
If you haven’t weighed in on the Power Rankings yet, you can do that here:
2021 Expected Win Total Machine – Tennessee
Help us write a Vols football preseason publication: 2021 Power Rankings
Yes, 2021 is a Season of Change for the Tennessee Volunteers football program, and we’re turning to face the strange ourselves with this year’s preseason publication. We’re inviting you along for the process, asking for input on several key pieces of content.
First up is our Preseason College Football Power Rankings. We don’t usually publish these in any form, but use them primarily as a building block for much of the rest of the publication. Previews, projected records and standings, the stock watch, and other content depend to some degree on the Power Rankings.
The Power Rankings are compiled first using a formula, and then subjected to human overrides, which is where we (and you) come in.
Here’s the first draft, the formula-only results. It’s a baseline, and now it’s up to us to tell it where it’s wrong.
| 1 | Alabama |
| 2 | Clemson |
| 3 | Oklahoma |
| 4 | Georgia |
| 5 | Ohio State |
| 6 | Texas A&M |
| 7 | Florida |
| 8 | Oregon |
| 9 | Wisconsin |
| 10 | North Carolina |
| 11 | Cincinnati |
| 12 | Notre Dame |
| 13 | Texas |
| 14 | USC |
| 15 | Iowa |
| 16 | Iowa State |
| 17 | Penn State |
| 18 | Washington |
| 19 | BYU |
| 20 | Miami (Florida) |
| 21 | Indiana |
| 22 | Arizona State |
| 23 | Utah |
| 24 | Auburn |
| 25 | Oklahoma State |
| 26 | Coastal Carolina |
| 27 | Northwestern |
| 28 | Virginia Tech |
| 29 | Michigan |
| 30 | Mississippi |
| 31 | Louisiana-Lafayette |
| 32 | Nebraska |
| 33 | Minnesota |
| 34 | UCF |
| 35 | Appalachian State |
| 36 | LSU |
| 37 | West Virginia |
| 38 | TCU |
| 39 | Louisville |
| 40 | Liberty |
| 41 | Pittsburgh |
| 42 | UCLA |
| 43 | Maryland |
| 44 | Purdue |
| 45 | SMU |
| 46 | Tennessee |
| 47 | Buffalo |
| 48 | Kentucky |
| 49 | North Carolina State |
| 50 | Arkansas |
| 51 | Memphis |
| 52 | Boise State |
| 53 | Mississippi State |
| 54 | UAB |
| 55 | Tulsa |
| 56 | Virginia |
| 57 | San Jose State |
| 58 | Tulane |
| 59 | Ball State |
| 60 | Baylor |
| 61 | Missouri |
| 62 | Stanford |
| 63 | Michigan State |
| 64 | San Diego State |
| 65 | Houston |
| 66 | Washington State |
| 67 | Colorado |
| 68 | Georgia Tech |
| 69 | Marshall |
| 70 | Kansas State |
| 71 | Western Michigan |
| 72 | Army |
| 73 | Toledo |
| 74 | Nevada |
| 75 | Troy |
| 76 | Boston College |
| 77 | California |
| 78 | Florida State |
| 79 | Georgia Southern |
| 80 | Wake Forest |
| 81 | Texas Tech |
| 82 | Oregon State |
| 83 | Air Force |
| 84 | South Carolina |
| 85 | Central Michigan |
| 86 | Ohio |
| 87 | Georgia State |
| 88 | Fresno State |
| 89 | Wyoming |
| 90 | UTSA |
| 91 | Illinois |
| 92 | Colorado State |
| 93 | Florida Atlantic |
| 94 | East Carolina |
| 95 | Western Kentucky |
| 96 | Rutgers |
| 97 | Navy |
| 98 | Arizona |
| 99 | Rice |
| 100 | Southern Mississippi |
| 101 | Duke |
| 102 | Kent State |
| 103 | Syracuse |
| 104 | Arkansas State |
| 105 | South Florida |
| 106 | Miami (Ohio) |
| 107 | Eastern Michigan |
| 108 | North Texas |
| 109 | Hawaii |
| 110 | Vanderbilt |
| 111 | Florida International |
| 112 | Temple |
| 113 | Northern Illinois |
| 114 | Kansas |
| 115 | Charlotte |
| 116 | Texas State |
| 117 | South Alabama |
| 118 | UNLV |
| 119 | Louisiana Tech |
| 120 | New Mexico |
| 121 | Middle Tennessee |
| 122 | Akron |
| 123 | Bowling Green |
| 124 | Louisiana-Monroe |
| 125 | Utah State |
| 126 | Massachusetts |
| 127 | UTEP |
| 128 | Old Dominion |
| 129 | New Mexico State |
| 130 | Connecticut |
Don’t let us over-influence you, but here are some of the teams we’re thinking may be ranked too high:
- Texas A&M
- Florida
- Oregon
- Wisconsin
- Texas
- BYU!
- Northwestern!
And here’s a list of teams that are currently looking too low to us:
- Iowa State
- Michigan
- Ole Miss
- Louisiana
- LSU
If you have any opinions, leave them below.
Face the strange: A season of change
Long-time readers know that our Tennessee football preseason publication has gone through many changes over the course of the 12 editions it’s been available. It’s had different names, different publishers, and different looks. It’s been on newsstands and not on newsstands. It’s been released in mid-July for the sake of accuracy and in mid-May for the sake of speed. It’s been packaged alone and with t-shirts or decals. It’s introduced four new head coaches and counting. Will Shelton and I have been involved in every edition, but that may be the lone constant (unless you’re one of those people who will point out that there are other constants, like the fact that every edition includes both words and pictures.)
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where and when the train jumped the tracks for Tennessee Football, but this particular period — beginning with the sudden cessation of spring practice a year ago due to the pandemic, this offseason right here right now, and the prospect of a 2021 season with so many unknowns and unknowables — has to be one of the most difficult and weirdest periods of change in the storied history of a proud Tennessee football program.
As Inky Johnson says in that video up there, change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and beautiful in the end. We just didn’t know the process was going to take so long.
A 2021 fall already branded as a Season of Change seems like the perfect time to consider mixing things up a bit ourselves. Rather than just hitting repeat on the past, we’re going to look at everything with fresh eyes this year. The timing of the release date of the preseason publication may change. Publication format and distribution — whether we continue to pre-print for newsstands or go all-in on digital — will probably change. Some of the content may change. The constant will remain so: Will and I are still going to write and publish this thing this year. We and you will find out together what that looks like.
One thing we do already know is that we want to involve you — yes, you — in the creation of the content for the preseason publication. We want your input on our power rankings, predicted records and standings, stock watch, all-conference teams, Top 25, and whatever else makes sense. We’ll be the guide because we’ve been down this road many times before and we know the pitfalls. But we’ve never walked it with you, and this year, we’d like to invite you along. We wish we would have thought of it sooner.
It’s time to turn and face the strange. If you’d like to join us, get started by weighing in on the first rough draft of our 2021 College Football Power Rankings.
Gameday on Rocky Top Podcast – Episode 175 – the Hiring of Heupel
In this episode, Will and I tackle all things Josh Heupel: Will all that offense translate to the SEC? Do they know defense is a thing, too? Did they rush the hire? All of that, plus a look at the 2021 football schedule and a wary eye on Twitter rage.
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Listen here
Josh Heupel and The Embrace
We all want to win. And we’d like to win as fast as possible, please.
The most important word in that sentence is win. You don’t do that, nothing else will matter. But I do believe the healthiest word in that sentence is possible.
The depths of last Monday’s press conference and the looming shadow of violations made the whiplash all the more attractive when Tennessee hired Danny White. This is a great hire! Maybe he’ll get us out of this fast!
And it seems like the Vols gave that a real go. James Franklin is one of the best coaches in the country, and Tennessee seems to have made a run at him. He said no. I get how being associated, even loosely, with someone like Franklin can also raise expectations.
But the reality of who Tennessee is right now – the reality of what is possible at the moment – meant the Vols were always most likely to hire from a less proven tier.
Tennessee’s situation still feels most like exile. And not because they hired Josh Heupel today, but because of everything that led up to today, which is now everything Heupel and White (Josh and Danny?) will take responsibility for moving forward.
Patience was the best play last Monday, it swiftly faced temptation during this coaching search, and patience remains the best play today. Do not believe the prophets when they tell you this could’ve all been over soon. You do what you want, but I wouldn’t recommend spending any more energy on Lane Kiffin, other than wanting to beat him by a million when we play Ole Miss in the fall.
Heupel is what was possible, and perhaps the best of what was possible. Maybe if we don’t hire UCF’s AD, we don’t get a coach with as good a resume as his. The fact that White trusted him to work together again is good news to me. Either way, patience is still the best way out of exile. But this way, we might have a little more fun along the way.
In our candidates piece using SP+ to show progress over their predecessors, we noted that if Heupel was the pick, we’d talk a lot about how his 2018 and 2019 teams rated higher in SP+ than Scott Frost’s undefeated 2017 team:
Scott Frost & Josh Heupel, UCF
| Coach | Year | Record | SP+ | Avg SP+ |
| O’Leary | 2013 | 12-1 | 12.3 | |
| 2014 | 9-4 | 5.7 | ||
| 2015 | 0-12 | -15.5 | 0.8 | |
| Frost | 2016 | 6-7 | -2.2 | |
| 2017 | 13-0 | 14.1 | 6 (+5.2) | |
| Heupel | 2018 | 12-1 | 16.5 | |
| 2019 | 10-3 | 19.1 | ||
| 2020 | 6-4 | 10.9 | 15.5 (+9.5) |
The 2017 team went 4-0 in one possession games. The 2018 team went 1-1 – best way to win close games is not to play them – with the lone loss to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl after McKenzie Milton got hurt. The 2019 team went 1-3. But play for play, UCF improved from 2017 to 2018 to 2019.
And offensively:
| Team | Year | Offensive SP+ |
| Mizzou | 2016 | 54th |
| Mizzou | 2017 | 24th |
| UCF | 2018 | 11th |
| UCF | 2019 | 14th |
| UCF | 2020 | 12th |
Tennessee’s previous hires, you’ll remember, came to us as:
- Defensive coordinator, Alabama
- 23-14 at Cincinnati, 27-13 Central Michigan
- 17-20 at Louisiana Tech
- Fired after going 5-15 with the Raiders; Offensive coordinator, USC
- Offensive coordinator, Tennessee
If you’d like to debate the resumes of Butch Jones vs Josh Heupel, we can. In the above SP+ piece, we noted how Jones was a proven winner but didn’t improve what he inherited. It’s impossible, of course, to improve on the number of losses Heupel inherited from Scott Frost’s final year. But in SP+, he succeeded. I’ve never met him, but I wonder if there’s a part of anyone who might’ve followed Frost after 2017 that might want to make their own name in a different situation, to prove themselves outside of that shadow. If so, the desire to prove yourself is a good fit at a program looking to do the same.
You can make a respectable argument that Josh Heupel is the most proven collegiate head coach the Vols have hired since Johnny Majors. Heupel wouldn’t have been the only candidate to check that box, and being better than everything since Phillip Fulmer isn’t the ultimate goal. But at a time when this job might be harder than ever, it is where you start. It’s what is possible today.
Words matter. Danny White is right about that. What we say, what we tweet, what we put out there…it all matters. I don’t know if Josh Heupel will win at Tennessee or not. But even and especially in exile, seek the welfare of the city.
We can do that honestly. When Jeremy Pruitt was hired, we appreciated the eye towards the ceiling and said, “In the short-term, Pruitt is as good as Tennessee and Fulmer had any right to do after this crazy set of days.” When Butch Jones was hired, we noted how he was the lowest vote getter on our fan poll but thought fans would embrace him given time (and initially, he recruited his way into a big ol’ hug by March). When Derek Dooley was hired, I wrote about basketball.
But in each case, and now this one, I still believe the way we communicate matters. The healthiest way to do that for Tennessee is to embrace the reality of our situation, what was possible in this hire today, and what this hire might make possible from here.
For now, patience. Let’s see where it goes. And whatever it’s worth, even at the end of all these years of coaching searches, I find myself excited about those possibilities.
Go Vols.
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