Category Archives: Football

Last year when Brian Maurer got his first career start against Georgia, we ran the numbers on Tennessee’s midseason replacement quarterbacks in their first start. These are the guys that, for reasons good and bad, didn’t win the job in fall camp, but took over at some point during the season.

It’s interesting how many quarterbacks get their first start this way, whether that’s through injury, youth movement, or just poor play from the incumbent. In the last 30 years, I believe only Heath Shuler, Jerry Colquitt, Tee Martin, Joey Mathews, Brent Schaeffer, Matt Simms, and Quinten Dormady made their first start at Tennessee in a season opener.

When you go to the backup mid-year, it typically means some other things are going wrong too, and your starter can’t just manage the game and still win. And at Tennessee, there certainly isn’t an abundance of great football in the last decade-plus. But one thing we noted in the piece last year already changed with Maurer: the first starts for Guarantano, Dobbs, Peterman, and Worley produced zero offensive touchdowns. Maurer came out firing with a pair of touchdown passes in the first half, and the Vols were still in that game late in the third quarter. Georgia led 29-14 but the Vols had 1st-and-10 at midfield when Maurer threw an interception; Tennessee actually stopped Georgia on 4th-and-1 on the next drive, giving the Vols another first down at midfield. But a false start and a sack ended that threat, and Georgia added two scores in the fourth quarter.

So: you can be feisty with the new guy against elite competition, and Jim Chaney was of course at the trigger for that game. Victory, of course, is much harder to come by:

(If the table looks strange, rotate your phone)

Midseason Replacement QBs, First Start:

If it’s indeed Harrison Bailey on Saturday, he certainly won’t be the first Vol QB to get his first action against a Top 10 foe. And perhaps the up-tempo nature of the game in 2020 will give him additional opportunities to flourish. But victory – unless you’re playing our in-state friends from Nashville or Memphis – is a big ask.

Some of these guys obviously went on to excellent careers. Erik Ainge and Josh Dobbs, in particular, overcame some frustrating freshman performances to be two of the best we’ve seen at the position in Knoxville. So don’t judge Bailey too much on the first impression, especially when it comes in the middle of the year.

(…unless he’s great. Then lean all the way into it.)

Against the Vegas opening spreads last week, the GRT Statsy Preview Machine went 23-20 (53.49%) overall, 7-5 (58.33%) in Category 2, and 4-3 (57.14%) in Category 3. For the season, the Machine is now 212-192 (52.48%) in Category 1, 80-69 (53.69%) in Category 2, and 40-33 (54.79%) in Category 3. Of the seven “Category 4” games, four were canceled or postponed. The others went 2-1 (66.67%), making the results for the four weeks we’ve been tracking them 11-1 (91.67%).

Using the same spreads as SP+, the Machine was 21-21 (50%) overall for the week.

SP+ went 18-26 (41%) officially, using its own spreads. For the season, it is 209-192-6 (52.1%). Against our spreads, though, it was much better, going 22-21 (51.16%) for the week and currently sitting at 226-178 (55.94%) for the season.

Below are the GRT Statsy Preview Machine’s picks for Week 14 of the 2020 college football season. As always, if you’re wondering why we do this or what I mean when I refer to “confidence” and when I place game predictions into different categories, check out this post. Also, in case it’s not perfectly clear from the above results, spreads matter.

GRT SPM 2020 Week 14 Picks

For the second week in a row, there are a ton of Category 3 games that the GRT Statsy Preview Machine likes particularly well, although most of last week’s didn’t make it to the finish line. Of this week’s Category 3 games, seven make the Category 4 cut because they also agree with SP+:

• Houston at SMU (SMU -.5)
• Hawai’i at San Jose State (San Jose State -6.5)
• Tulsa at Navy (Tulsa -9.5)
• Washington State at USC (Washington State +13.5)
• Toledo at Northern Illinois (Toledo -10.5)
• Texas at Kansas State (Texas -7.5)
• Florida at Tennessee (Florida -17)

The head-to-head stat rankings suggest that Saturday could be a long day for both the Tennessee offense and the Tennessee defense. The overall game plan should probably be to slow the game down to hopefully shorten it and make it more of a low-scoring contest.

The offense needs to make the most of first downs (its one legit advantage) and should probably focus on the run game to both eat the clock and avoid interceptions.

The defense should help slow the game down by making Florida take as much time as possible to score. You don’t want to play prevent all game long, but you do want to make sure the Gators don’t score quickly by getting behind you. If you shorten the game and thereby limit the scoring, you’re more likely to be within striking distance late.

When the Vols have the ball

Link to table

Where’s the opportunity?

First down. A mediocre Gators’ defense appears to have an advantage over a struggling Vols’ offense everywhere except on first down, where Tennessee has a slight edge.

Where’s the danger?

While the Gators’ defense is generally better than the Vols’ offense in nearly every aspect, there’s a HUGE disparity in red zone success and scoring in general. There’s also great danger for the Vols on third downs and in throwing interceptions. Frankly, it just looks like a long day for the Tennessee offense unless they’ve figured something out over the past few weeks.

Gameplan for the Vols on offense

Make the most of first downs. Run the ball, both because you can’t throw an interception that way and because it slows down the game. Hope for some luck in the form of turnovers along the way.

Vols on defense

Link to table

Where’s the opportunity?

The Gators are a passing team and not especially good running the ball. As good as their passing attack is, they do have a tendency to throw some interceptions.

Where’s the danger?

If they don’t throw interceptions, the Gators are lethal through the air and on third downs against good defenses, and the numbers suggest it will be especially easy for them against a Vols’ defense struggling against the pass.

Gameplan for the Vols on defense

Keep everything in front of you. Yards in front of you are better than yards behind you. Give them short yardage and make the journey to the end zone a long one with plenty of stops.

Special teams

Link to table

The Vols could make something of what appears to be an opportunity in the return game. Both teams have good punters, although Florida probably doesn’t use theirs nearly as often.

Turnovers and penalties

Link to table

This looks like both teams are equally likely to give the ball away, but Florida is more likely to take the ball from its opponents.

The Vols’ game against Vanderbilt this week got bumped in favor of a last ditch effort to get Missouri a full slate of 10 games, so the Vols are off yet again. But there’s still a lot to watch, including the Iron Bowl Saturday afternoon.

Here’s the GRT college football TV schedule for the week, first curated just for Vols fans and with the full searchable schedule for the entire week following at the bottom of the post.

Thursday, November 26, 2020 – Friday, November 27, 2020

I don’t know whether you really want to watch New Mexico vs Utah State Thanksgiving night, but you’ll probably be sitting in a chair digesting anyway, so you might as well look at something.

Friday starts getting interesting, though, with a Top 20 Big 12 matchup between No. 13 Iowa State and No. 17 Texas at noon and a Top 20 ACC matchup between No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 19 North Carolina at 3:30, both on ABC.

Gameday, November 28, 2020

Saturday kicks off with the game that should have been ours this week — Missouri-Vanderbilt, at noon on the SEC Network — along with a look at what is (probably?) our next opponent in No. 6 Florida, as the Gators host Kentucky at noon on ESPN.

And then comes the Iron Bowl at 3:30 on CBS. Alabama should roll in this one, but you never know in a rivalry game, especially this one.

The evening slot features a couple of SEC games of interest to Vols fans, with LSU-Texas A&M and Georgia-South Carolina.

Bonus hoops schedule for the weekend

The Vols’ basketball team also canceled its first four games, so there’s no orange hoops to watch this weekend, either. But there are some other interesting games. I’m wary of attempting to keep tabs on what will likely be a constantly-changing college basketball schedule, but here is a list of games that Vols fans might find interesting this weekend:

Full searchable college football TV schedule

Here’s the entire 2020 college football TV schedule for this week:

Why does it feel like things constantly go against the Vols? Because in one of football’s most telling statistics, things have indeed gone against Tennessee for a very long time.

The 2020 Vols are -3 in turnovers through seven games: 8 takeaways, 11 giveaways. Statistical comparisons are difficult this year, with teams playing an uneven number of games. And it’s fruitless to compare this season to others outright: you tend to look worse when an FCS opponent isn’t on the schedule.

But we can compare what these Vols are doing to what their predecessors did in conference play, the most helpful comparison in a year in need of understanding.

And when it comes to turnover margin in SEC play, the Vols have been very bad for a very long time.

Everything feels worse this year because so many of Tennessee’s turnovers are getting returned for touchdowns. Especially against Auburn, as Jeremy Pruitt noted, that play could’ve been the difference between winning and losing. But to find the kind of success this program is hungry for, the Vols will have to do more than stop throwing the occasional pick six.

The Vols haven’t had a positive turnover margin in SEC play since 2009. They broke even the following year, and have been in the negative in each of the nine years since, and three in the hole in 2020. From 2011-2020, the Vols are -42 in turnovers in 79 SEC games.

Winning football, this is not.

The turnover volume this year isn’t unusual, but that’s only because Tennessee has been so bad at it for so long:

(data via SportSource Analytics)

So all these things can be true: the Vols have been especially crushed by pick sixes and poorly-timed turnovers this season. Jarrett Guarantano continues to struggle with quality, not quantity when he turns it over. But the Vols have been on the wrong side of this conversation for a literal decade, so saying this year isn’t unusual carries the connotation that we’re used to giving away a possession every other game.

To be sure, one game can swing the conversation. The 2015 Vols finished 28th nationally in turnover margin in all games by going +4 in the Outback Bowl against Northwestern. The 2016 Vols went +4 against Virginia Tech, -4 at Texas A&M, -3 at South Carolina, +4 against Missouri. Lane Kiffin’s team did this best in league play, but only after an excruciating -3 against UCLA. But overall, the Vols haven’t landed in the black since then.

We struggle to make any good comparison to this year, but the closest in football might be 2005. The stakes were much higher then as a preseason Top 5 team and the defending SEC East champs. But the Vols never got the quarterback situation figured out between Erik Ainge and Rick Clausen, and finished a disastrous -7 overall in turnover margin, including catastrophic fumbles at the goal line against Alabama and South Carolina that cost the Vols both games.

If you’re trying to piece together what went wrong this year, the most simple explanation is the defensive touchdowns allowed. But to get where we all want to go, the program has to get on the right side of the turnover battle. Create more havoc defensively: the Vols haven’t finished inside the Top 30 in total takeaways since 2010. And find a better sweet spot offensively between taking no chances and putting ourselves in a bad situation.

Last week wasn’t the best for the GRT Statsy Preview Machine. Against Vegas opening spreads, it went 18-23 (43.9%) overall, 5-7 (41.67%) in Category 2, and 4-2 (66.67%) in Category 3. For the season, the SPM is now 189-172 (52.35%) in Category 1, 73-64 (53.28%) in Category 2, and 36-30 (54.55%) in Category 3. For the past few weeks, we’ve been keeping track of a sort of “Category 4” group, which consists only of Category 3 games that also agree with SP+. The three-week tally for those is 9-0.

Using the same spreads as SP+, the SPM was 20-21 (48.78%) overall for the week.

SP+, on the other hand, had an excellent week, going 25-16 (61%) officially, using its own spreads. For the season, it is 191-166-6 (53.4%). Against our spreads, it was 23-18 (56.10%) for the week and is 204-157 (56.51%) for the season.

Below are the GRT Statsy Preview Machine’s picks for Week 13 of the 2020 college football season. As always, if you’re wondering why we do this or what I mean when I refer to “confidence” and when I place game predictions into different categories, check out this post. Also, in case it’s not perfectly clear from the above results, spreads matter.

GRT SPM 2020 Week 13 Picks

According to that, which uses the opening spreads, there are a whopping 14 Category 3 games that the SPM likes particularly well this week. Of those, SP+ agrees on the following:

• Georgia at South Carolina (Georgia -18.5)
• Utah at Arizona State (Utah +6.5)
• Southern Miss at UAB (UAB -17)
• SMU at East Carolina (SMU -10.5)
• Coastal Carolina at Texas State (Coastal Carolina -16)
• UTEP at Rice (Rice -8)
• Florida Atlantic at MTSU (Florida Atlantic -6.5)

As I said above, let’s call those Category 4 games. I’ve been tracking those for three weeks (and posting them for for two), and over that time they are 9-0, which of course means they’ll go 0-7 this week. 🙂