For two weeks, we’ve talked about the question of “closing the gap.” What’s the best way to measure that? When it comes on the heels of another big loss to Alabama, the answer is talent.

There are plenty of options – recruiting rankings, draft picks, etc. – but let’s take a look at actual talent on the roster. For that, we turn to the team talent rankings at 247 Sports. I like these not only for giving a look at the entire roster, but because they include transfers and, obviously, don’t count those leaving early for the NFL, which can give a boost to recruiting rankings a year too long.

In team talent, you’ll find a common theme from recruiting: the Vols are 15th in the nation in talent…and seventh in the SEC. But far more important than the ranking is the rating: it’s not just who’s ahead of you, but how far. And looking at the six available years of team talent data tells us quite a bit about the hopes for Tennessee’s past, present, and future.

We use blue chip ratio a lot in recruiting: the percentage of four-and-five-stars per class, noting that national champions always hit 50+%. That’s a number, as you’ll see, the Vols flirt with quite often, and heavily so in Jeremy Pruitt’s classes. But when you’re seventh in the SEC in talent, the conversation for Tennessee can’t just be about getting to 50%.

I used the team talent rankings to calculate a blue chip ratio for the entire roster (the percentage of four-and-five-stars on your roster to three-four-and-five stars). Here’s where Tennessee stands over the last six years:

(If the tables look weird, turn your phone sideways)

Tennessee Roster Blue Chip Ratio

This makes sense: the Vols had their best teams in 2015 and 2016, infused with the talent from Butch Jones’ 2014 and 2015 recruiting classes. But it dropped off sharply in 2017, even before all the losses, in part due to signing only five blue chip players that February.

Jeremy Pruitt’s first three teams have featured almost identical levels of talent, but right now it skews much younger. Of Tennessee’s 22 seniors, including that 2017 recruiting class, only seven were blue chip recruits: Jordan Allen, Ty Chandler, Jarrett Guarantano, Brandon Kennedy, Trey Smith, Aubrey Solomon, and Savion Williams. The entire calculation will change given the eligibility rules for this season, but in a normal year the Vols would trade off those graduating with the incoming 2021 recruiting class, which currently features 12 blue chip commits and 14 three-stars. If the current class stayed exactly the same, it would give Tennessee a team talent blue chip ratio of 46.1% for next season, the Vols’ best since 2015-16.

So yes, overall it’s going in the right direction and gaps are being closed; next season the Vols should have an overall blue chip level comparable to the best we’ve seen in the post-Fulmer era.

Here’s the problem:

How big is the window of opportunity?

The Vols are getting closer to the window. But getting through it will be much more difficult now.

In 2015-16, not only were the Vols stocked with both talent and experience to make a move, but Florida and Georgia were unstable. 2015 was Mark Richt’s last year and Jim McElwain’s first, with the Gators in particular low on talent from the end of the Will Muschamp era. McElwain won two division titles but did nothing to change that. Meanwhile Georgia, already a consistent player in the 50+% blue chip ratio game, significantly upped the ante under Kirby Smart.

You can throw out those Richt vs Smart graphics all you want through their first however many games. But the Georgia teams Tennessee is trying to beat right now are way, way more talented than the Richt teams we saw at the end of his tenure.

And Florida is trending that direction as well.

For all of Tennessee’s strengths, some of its greatest weaknesses post-peak have involved bad timing, whether self-inflicted or otherwise. When Florida and Georgia have been vulnerable, the Vols have failed to capitalize:

• 2002: The Vols beat Spurrier in his last game in The Swamp in December 2001 with everything on the line, fumbled it away in Atlanta, but still entered 2002 with Ron Zook at Florida and Mark Richt in year two in Athens. I was a 21-year-old college student, so what did I know then, but as good as the Vols were when I was growing up from 1989-2001, holding the best winning percentage of any SEC team in that run…in 2002 I thought we were getting ready to ascend, specifically because the Gators would be down. Instead, the Vols fumbled 87 times in the rain against Florida, were devastated by injuries, and finished 8-5. Tennessee still tied for the SEC East in 2003 and won it in 2004, but there was no step forward overall. Then…
• 2005: With Urban Meyer in year one at Florida and that read option stuff never going to work in the SEC, Tennessee was ranked third in the preseason AP poll. Florida was 10th. Georgia was 13th. Instead, the Vols mismanaged the quarterback situation and hurt themselves, not unlike this season, with turnovers at the worst possible times. Tennessee went 5-6, and though they rebounded again in 2006 and won the SEC East in 2007, again, no step forward.
• 2010: By far, the low point for the SEC East: Urban Meyer’s last year at Florida saw the Gators go 8-5, Georgia started 1-4 and finished 6-7, and South Carolina won the SEC East for the first and only time at 5-3 in league play. But the Vols were in year one of Derek Dooley. Whoever else you wanted to hire in January 2010, I’m not sure they do any better in year one, and if Kiffin doesn’t leave, maybe we’re on probation later. So more than anything, this one just feels like bad luck, unless of course you’d like to take it back to the, “What if Fulmer doesn’t hire Dave Clawson?” conversation two years before.

And of course, there’s 2015-16. Though the Vols went 3-1 against Florida and Georgia those two years, the damage was done in failing to make the necessary progress overall. Tennessee closed the gap entirely, but getting to 9-4 twice was never going to be enough to get through the window. Tennessee’s recruiting under Butch Jones fell off before he was fired for losing games. The losses to Oklahoma and Florida in 2015 remain the most consequential outcomes for Tennessee in the post-Fulmer era: the Vols built momentum and talent, but in failing to sustain the one lost the other. Florida and Georgia were vulnerable, but the Vols didn’t get to Atlanta, didn’t get through the window even though it was wide open, and will find it much more difficult now. In all those moments of opportunity in the last 18 years, rarely have Florida and Georgia had stability and excellence at head coach the way they do now under Dan Mullen and Kirby Smart. I’ll give you Richt and Meyer from 2006-08, but Georgia went 8-5 in 2009.

And here’s the thing: Tennessee still won the SEC East in 2007! We used to talk about “win the SEC East every three years” like it was settling, as if Florida and/or Georgia was always going to struggle. But when the Dawgs and Gators have it together – and they do now – Tennessee is doing a good job just to get in the fight. Georgia still has the talent advantage on both, certainly. But the Vols were two-touchdown underdogs in Athens last month. Florida is +3.5 on Saturday.

Comparison is the thief of joy and a three-touchdown favorite

Of course, here’s our other problem, unique to us in the SEC East:

Gross.

In the first three of those missed opportunity years for Tennessee, Alabama was also unstable: Dennis Franchione left a mess after 2002, Mike Shula was doing what we called a good job at the time in 2005, and in 2010 Alabama wasn’t the monster we know and love just yet, 10-3 with a loss to South Carolina.

By 2015-16 Alabama was the Bama we know and hate, though the Vols had a shot in 2015. But also by then we weren’t measuring success only by the pursuit of national championships ourselves. That’s certainly still true today. So yeah, it’s going to be hard for Tennessee to get to Atlanta when the Vols play Alabama every year and Florida and Georgia don’t. But even if the schedule changed, Tennessee has to close the gap in its own division at a time when the window of opportunity to beat Florida and Georgia is tighter than it’s been at any point in the last decade.

So yes, we shouldn’t be worried about trying to catch Bama right now, unless you’d like to be a crazy person. But here’s one thing that may surprise you: from Saban’s year two in 2008 to the present, Alabama only wins the SEC West 58% of the time. Tennessee shouldn’t worry about being Alabama, but it would certainly be nice to be Auburn or LSU.

But…

To get there, the Vols need to start thinking of recruiting success as not just hitting 50% in blue chip ratio, but 60%. To get there, the Vols are going to have to win more games. Chickens, eggs, etc.

It’s also been true for Auburn and LSU that, to beat Alabama to Atlanta, you either need a Heisman quarterback (Cam Newton, Joe Burrow), extreme weirdness (four missed field goals, Kick Six), or whatever happened in the Iron Bowl in 2017…when Alabama still won the national championship, same as in 2011.

We often think of the SEC as these six traditional powers. But the program that’s actually been the best comparison to Tennessee these last six years is…

What’s life been like for a Texas A&M fan?

You’ll note that Kevin Sumlin and Jimbo Fisher aren’t recruiting much differently from each other. Sumlin went 11-2 with a Heisman quarterback in 2012. They went 9-4 with seven point losses to two top five teams the next year, Johnny Football’s last. After that, as you know: three straight 8-5’s, followed by a 7-5 and a coaching change. Jimbo’s first two years: 9-4, 8-5.

Without the Heisman quarterback, Texas A&M is 2-4 against Auburn, 1-5 against LSU, and winless against Alabama.

Le’ts give Sumlin a pass on losing close games to the great teams from the state of Mississippi in 2014. But in addition to struggles against traditional powers, they also lost to #24 Ole Miss and Louisville in 2015, to unranked teams from the Magnolia State and Kansas State in 2016, and famously blew an enormous lead to UCLA to open the 2017 season before losing to Dan Mullen’s unranked Bulldogs again.

This is the plight of A&M under Sumlin without the Heisman QB: it’s not just about not catching Alabama, it’s 3-9 against Auburn and LSU…and also not being good/talented enough to create comfortable separation from the rest of the league.

Now, perhaps Jimbo is good enough to make up that difference; we’re about to find out. The Aggies lost a close game to Georgia last season, and just beat the Gators last month. Of his ten losses at A&M, only one – at Mississippi State in 2018 – was to an unranked, non-traditional power. And, of course, eight of the others were to Top 10 teams. If Jimbo earns them real progress, A&M can make the leap – not to Bama, but to Auburn and LSU. And though they may go through the Vols next week to prove that point, overall it would be good news for the kind of argument Jeremy Pruitt is trying to build here too.

How much separation on the rest of the SEC in the present?

Here’s the entire league for reference:

So this is Tennessee at the present: the lowest team in the top half of the league, trying to gain ground while its three biggest rivals are on fire. But not so much better than most of the rest of the league – including Kentucky and Arkansas – to expect victory outright. As we’ve said, turn it over three straight drives and get two ran back for touchdowns, and Kentucky ain’t the only team in this league that will blow you out. And while it might be of comfort to see Vanderbilt back in the basement by themselves, Kentucky has increased its talent level in a way that suggests they’re not going back down there with them.

Tennessee is making progress, no doubt. The Vols are closing the gap. But when it comes to Tennessee’s biggest rivals, the window of opportunity is tighter than we’ve seen it in the last decade. So yes, we’re closer to the window. But right now, it’s going to be harder to squeeze through.

The best way to get there is to get better players, which is a path Tennessee is on. To do that, the Vols need to win games. Momentum is a real and dangerous thing with a long lifespan. And that, for a thousand reasons, makes this date with Arkansas of great importance. The Vols will get their chance to test themselves against teams that don’t have an 80% blue chip roster in the second half of this season. But before we can get to A&M, Auburn, and Florida, we need to get past Arkansas. Tennessee is making progress, but nothing will be easy…including tomorrow night.

You hear a lot about a team’s offense being on- or off-schedule. It’s a substitute metaphor for whether the team is behind or ahead of the chains. In other words, it’s a shorthand description of the odds the offense is going to be able to keep possession of the ball given the particular down-and-distance facing the offense at the time.

It’s easier for an offense to be successful when it is on-schedule. Conversely, one of the main symptoms of a struggling offense is being off-schedule too often.

With that in mind, I wanted to see just how often the Vols’ offense is off-schedule and how often it is on-schedule. Here’s what I found, using the following criteria:

• On-schedule: First-and-10 or less, second-and-5 or less, third-and-3 or less;
• Off-schedule: First-and-11 or more, second-and-6 or more, third-and-4 or more, fourth downs

The Vols’ offense has lined up 395 times so far this season. Of those plays, slightly more than half of them have been off-schedule or behind-the-chain plays where the offense is facing more than an optimal yards-to-gain to earn a first down.

At this point, I do not have data from any other teams with which to compare, so it’s unclear whether or just how bad this might be. I suspect it’s pretty bad.

And here’s why that 50/50 total plays on/off schedule chart is probably bad. Even bad teams get a ton of free first-and-10 on-schedule plays because every series starts with one.

This chart suggests that things are going off the rails for the Vols right out of the gate on first down. Only 24% of the Vols’ second downs were on-schedule, meaning 5 yards or less to go. Over 75% were 6 yards or more to go. The current average is second-and-8.

As you might expect, it doesn’t get much better on third down. Over five games, Tennessee’s offense has had only 20 on-schedule third down plays. On average, when the Vols get to third down, they’re facing third-and-7.

I’m currently recording any fourth down as being off-schedule, although I suppose there is an argument for fourth-and-1 being on-schedule. The Vols have had 10 of those. The average yards-to-gain on fourth down, though, is 8.

Conclusion

Again, I can’t say just how bad this is without comparing it to other teams, but it does seem clear that the Vols’ offense is having real problems right out of the gate on first down, averaging only 2 yards.