Category Archives: Football

Tennessee opened as an 11-point favorite over Missouri this week, and depending on the source, the line is currently between 12.5 and 13. So . . . does the Statsy Preview Machine think the Vols will cover against the Tigers Saturday? Let’s take a look and then decide whether we think it’s right.

From the perspective of Tennessee

Both Tennessee and Missouri have played one game this year, so the SPM will be combining data from this year and last both for (1) scoring offense and defense (with an adjustment for returning production), and (2) comps.

Tennessee’s Scoring Offense last year: 24.2
Tennessee’s Scoring Offense this year: 31
Tennessee scoring offense to be used (combination of this season and last season): 27.6
Missouri’s Scoring Offense last year: 25.3
Missouri’s Scoring Offense this year: 19
Missouri scoring offense to be used (combination of this season and last season): 22.2

Tennessee’s Scoring Defense last year: 21.7
Tennessee’s Scoring Defense this year: 27
Tennessee scoring defense to be used (combination of this season and last season): 24.3
Missouri’s Scoring Defense last year: 19.4
Missouri’s Scoring Defense this year: 38
Missouri scoring defense to be used (combination of this season and last season): 28.7

Tennessee’s offense

The Missouri scoring defense is most similar to the following prior Tennessee opponent(s) (FBS only) and using 2019 data:

• Mississippi State 28.8
• South Carolina 26.1

Tennessee scored 20 points against Mississippi State and 41 points against South Carolina last year. Combined, that’s 111% of what those teams usually give up. So that makes the estimated points for Tennessee against Missouri 31.9.

Tennessee having only played South Carolina so far in 2020, the Vols have obviously scored 100% of what their opponents gave up. That makes the estimated points for Tennessee against Missouri 28.7.

Combining both 2019 and 2020 comps, the estimated points for Tennessee against Missouri is 30.3.

Tennessee’s defense

The Missouri scoring offense is most similar to the following prior Tennessee opponent(s) (FBS only) and using 2019 data:

• South Carolina 22.4
• UAB 23.1

Tennessee gave up 7 points to UAB and 21 points to South Carolina last year.
So, against the best comps, Tennessee allowed 61% of what those teams usually score, making the estimated points for Missouri against Tennessee 13.5.

For 2020, the Vols have allowed 100% of what its opponent have given up, making the estimated points for Missouri against Tennessee 22.2.

Combining both 2019 and 2020 comps, the estimated points for Missouri against Tennessee is 17.9.

Therefore, the estimated score from Tennessee’s perspective is Tennessee 30.3, Missouri 17.9.

From the perspective of Missouri

The Tennessee scoring defense is most similar to the following prior Missouri opponent(s) (FBS only) and using 2019 data:

• South Carolina 26.1
• Mississippi 26.5

Missouri scored 38 points against Ole Miss and 34 points against South Carolina. That’s 137% of what those teams usually give up, which puts the estimated points for Missouri against Tennessee at 33.3.

As it does from Tennessee’s perspective, the SPM for 2020 defaults to its opponent’s scoring defense because there is only one comp to look at, so the estimated points for Missouri against Tennessee for 2020 is 24.3.

Combining both the 2019 and 2020 comps, the estimated points for Missouri against Tennessee is 28.8.

The Tennessee scoring offense is most similar to the following prior Missouri opponent(s) (FBS only) and using 2019 data:

• Kentucky 27.2
• Mississippi 26.6

Missouri allowed 29 points to Kentucky and 27 points to Mississippi last year. That’s 104% of what those teams usually score, making the estimated points for Tennessee against Missouri 28.7.

For 2020, the estimated points for Tennessee against Missouri is 27.6.

Combining both the 2019 and 2020 comps, the estimated points for Tennessee against Missouri from Missouri’s perspective is 28.2.

Therefore, the estimated score from Missouri’s perspective is Missouri 28.8, Tennessee 28.2.

SPM Final Estimates

Throw all that in the pot, turn up the heat, and here’s what’s for dinner:

SPM Final estimated score: Tennessee 29.2, Missouri 23.3

SPM Final estimated spread: Tennessee -5.9

Difference between the SPM and the Vegas opening spread: 5.1

That makes this a Category 1 game for the Statsy Preview Machine, meaning it’s not overly confident about its conclusion because it is not far off from the Vegas spread.

Eyeball adjustments

I’m feeling pretty good about the results from Tennessee’s perspective, as my current belief is that Tennessee and South Carolina are fairly evenly matched. The 41 points that the Vols scored against the Gamecocks last year is probably inflated, but that inflation is mostly accounted for by combining with another comp of the same year and then combining that result with this year’s results.

I am suspicious, however, of the results from Missouri’s perspective, as playing Alabama in the first game of the 2020 season is almost certainly not an even matchup, meaning the 2020 comps are probably lower than they should be. Removing the 2020 comps from Missouri’s perspective gives more points to Missouri than it does to Tennessee. (It would be Tigers 33.3, Vols 28.7.) Remember, the Vols may have dominated Missouri on the field last year, but they did not dominate them on the scoreboard, winning only 24-20. However, one would think that this year’s Missouri team is not yet up to speed with a new coaching staff and system and plenty of new players. All of that leads me to the conclusion that although I am suspicious of the 2020 comps from Missouri’s perspective, I’m leaning toward believing the results.

So this week, I am making no eyeball-adjustments and sticking with the SPM to predict a score of Tennessee 29, Missouri 23. Neither I nor the Statsy Preview Machine like the Vols to cover in this one. I’m bracing for a somewhat disappointingly- close contest, but also hoping I am wrong.

Other predictions from other systems

Vegas: As I said before, the Vols opened as 11-point favorites and are currently 12.5- to 13-point favorites. With an over/under of 48.5-49.5, that translates to something like Tennessee 30, Missouri 19.

Bill Connelly’s SP+ likes Tennessee better at 27-17 (Vols -10), and gives the Vols a 71% chance of winning, but like us, still does not like the Vols to cover.

Bottom line

The GRT Statsy Preview Machine and my own eyeballs like the Vols to win but not cover this week, although neither of us is beating our chest about it.

• Vegas: Tennessee, -11 (~Tennessee 30, Missouri 19)
• SP+: Tennessee 27, Missouri 17 (doesn’t cover)
• SPM: Tennessee 29, Missouri 23 (doesn’t cover)
• Me: Tennessee 29, Missouri 23 (doesn’t cover)

Season results on Tennessee games

• Week 1: The SPM was right (albeit overconfident) against South Carolina.

What do y’all think?

The GRT Statsy Preview Machine inched out of the garage after a service call last week and basically just took a cruise around the block getting a feel for its new wheels. It went 14-13 (51.85%) overall last week, and hit only .500 in both Category 2 (7-7) and Category 3 (3-3). For the season, it is now 31-30 (50.82%) in Category 1, 18-12 (60%) in Category 2, and 8-6 (57.14%) in Category 3. Incidentally, if you compare its projections to the same spreads that SP+ uses, it went 17-10 (62.96%) overall last week, about the same as SP+ itself. I trust Bill on the spreads he’s using; I just don’t know the source. I use Oddsshark’s “Opening” spreads. Whether that’s a casino, sportsbook, Oddsshark itself, or just whoever is first, I don’t know. If anyone can enlighten, I’d love to hear it.

But for now, here are the GRT Statsy Preview Machine’s picks for Week 5 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.

GRT SPM 2020 Week 5 Picks

The Unknowable is losing a bit of chaotic power but is still a threat to rear its head and wreak havoc. With that caveat, here’s what we have for this week:

There are only four Category 3 games that the SPM likes particularly well this week.

What are you favorite games this week?

The Tennessee Volunteers kick off Gameday this week at noon on the SEC Network, and there are six (six!) games involving eight (eight!) future opponents (plus one former opponent) that will probably impact the Vols’ 2020 season.

First up is this week’s college football TV schedule curated just for Vols fans. A full and searchable college football TV schedule for this week is below the curated version.

Friday, October 2, 2020

If you owe your family or someone else some time, you’re good both Thursday night (no games) and Friday night. If you’re looking to kill some time with football, though, this one will do the job.

Gameday, October 3, 2020

The Vols kick the day off in the noon slot on the SEC Network when they host the Missouri Tigers. But set your DVRs for the South Carolina-Florida game, too, as we’ll get some more information about how frightened we should be of the Gators.

In the afternoon slot, we get looks at three future Vols’ opponents. Alabama and Texas A&M square off on CBS. Assuming the Vols beat Missouri at noon, root for the Tide here, as it increases the chances that the Tennessee-Georgia game the following week gets the prime CBS 3:30 slot. Kentucky also plays in the afternoon slot, so keep your eye on both games.

The feature game in the evening slot is Georgia-Auburn on ESPN at 7:30. Root for Georgia here, as the Bulldogs also need to win for the Vols to be playing at 3:30 on CBS instead of noon next Saturday. Future Vols opponents Arkansas and Vanderbilt are also in action, so watch live what’s most interesting and DVR the rest unless you’d prefer to just channel hop among all three all night long.

Full searchable college football TV schedule

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

Below is a look at Tennessee’s national stat rankings side-by-side with the counterpart rankings for the Missouri Tigers. Again (we’re saying this a lot), be wary of the numbers, especially Missouri’s, as they’ve only played Alabama so far.

Details below.

When the Vols have the ball

Link to table

Where’s the opportunity?

It would appear that the Vols should have an opportunity in the passing game, although Missouri’s bad numbers so far against the pass should probably be attributed to having played Alabama. Still, they were better against Alabama’s rushing attack than they were against the Tide’s passing attack, so maybe there’s something to it.

Where’s the danger?

Tennessee did not do well against South Carolina on first downs, and Missouri did quite well defending first down against Alabama. Same story in the run game. If Missouri makes Tennessee one-dimensional by shutting down its running attack, that could spell trouble for the Vols.

Gameplan for the Vols on offense

Pass to open up the run.

Vols on defense

Link to table

Where’s the opportunity?

Against South Carolina, Tennessee did well defending the run, on first down, and getting into the Gamecocks’ backfield to disrupt plays. Against Alabama, Missouri struggled against all of that.

Where’s the danger?

The Vols did not do well defending the pass against South Carolina, and that appears to be Missouri’s strength.

Gameplan for the Vols on defense

The Vols appear to have a distinct advantage on defense, although, once again, Missouri is probably better than its numbers suggest right now due to only having played Alabama at this point. Still, if Tennessee shores up its pass defense, they should be in relatively good shape.

Special teams

Link to table

Small sample sizes here, so any conclusions are suspect.

Turnovers and penalties

Link to table

Again, it’s hard to draw too many firm conclusions here, but one game in, the Vols have protected the ball better than Missouri has. On the other hand, Missouri has been the more disciplined team from a penalty perspective.

Without Jauan Jennings and Marquez Callaway, we prepared ourselves for two outcomes: the instant emergence of mythical freshman wide receivers, or more opportunities for Eric Gray and Ty Chandler in the passing game. It’s hard to use the word “exciting” when those new opportunities come at the expense of no longer having #15 and #1 out there, but both options felt full of possibility.

Instead, 16 of Jarrett Guarantano’s 19 completions at South Carolina went to veteran wide receivers.

It worked, so no complaints here, just an early observation.

Josh Palmer is one-for-one as the alpha: six catches, 85 yards, and the go-ahead score in the fourth quarter. That’s a great sign. I thought Velus Jones played a role similar to the way the Vols used Von Pearson a few years ago, finishing with five catches and 29 yards, unable to fully break free but with plenty of opportunity ahead, it seems. Brandon Johnson had the best catch of the night, finishing with three for 73. And Ramel Keyton was targeted more often than his two catches for 20 yards.

It’s early, and it’s weird with the virus. But none of the freshmen got involved in the passing game in week one, and Tennessee’s failures on third down didn’t allow enough distance between the Vols and Gamecocks to get them some snaps with Tennessee holding a comfortable lead.

Meanwhile, what we saw from the running backs in the passing game was…basically what we saw from the running backs in the passing game last year. Eric Gray got 31 yards on the ol’ flea flicker check down. Ty Chandler had one catch for 10 yards. And that’s it.

Last year Jennings, Callaway, and Palmer were a formidable trio: 123 catches between them, 61.5% of Tennessee’s total on the year by themselves. Dominick Wood-Anderson added 21 catches at tight end. And the backs? Gray and Chandler each finished with 13, or one per game…which is what they got Saturday. Tim Jordan had six catches in a dozen appearances.

The difference between Pruitt’s Vols and what we saw in Butch Jones’ five years can still feel a bit jarring in this department, considering the running back was an essential part of the passing game from 2013-17:

Tennessee’s secondary pass-catching RBs got the same kind of work in Jones’ offense that Gray and Chandler saw last year and last week: Marlin Lane had 11 catches in 2014, Jalen Hurd 22 in 2015 and 10 in his shortened 2016 campaign, Ty Chandler 10 in 2017.

Again, the Vols won and I thought Guarantano had one of his best starts. But I’ll be curious to see if the freshmen can get involved at receiver, and if Tennessee looks to Gray and Chandler more often. So far, it continues to be the preference of both the staff and the quarterback to throw the ball to receivers downfield far more often than not, even without Jennings and Callaway out there. If that continues to work, all this will go from curiosity to real strength. And it’s also nice to feel like the Vols have real options in the passing game we haven’t even seen yet.

Here’s our weekly color-coded look at how the Vols’ national rankings are trending in each of the official NCAA stat categories. A word of warning: With the pandemic causing conferences and teams to start their respective seasons at different times, the stat rankings are comparing teams that have played to teams that haven’t, so beware any hard, fast, and confident conclusions until much closer to the end of the season.

Offense

If the table above doesn’t display well, try using this link.

Appears to be doing well: Passes intercepted, tackles for loss, sacks allowed, passing yards per completion, passing offense

Appears to need improvement: 3rd down conversions (which also suggests that the bottom in this new world is somewhere around 70, at least this week), first downs offense (this is surprising to me), red zone offense, rushing offense

Defense

If the table above doesn’t display well, try using this link.

Appears to be doing well: Team sacks, team tackles for loss, rushing defense, first downs defense

Appears to need improvement: Passing yards allowed, red zone defense

Special Teams

If the table above doesn’t display well, try using this link.

Appears to be doing well: Honestly, it’s hard to say at this point, although the punt return and punt return defense (and maybe kickoff return) numbers are probably good news even now.

Appears to need improvement: Net punting, although two of the three guys from Thinking Out Loud last night gave Vols punter Paxton Brooks credit for winning the game with that rugby punt.

Turnovers and Penalties

If the table above doesn’t display well, try using this link.

Appears to be doing well: Not giving the ball to the other team

Appears to need improvement: Penalties per game, taking the ball from the other team

1-0! Feels good!

Don’t take a seven game winning streak for granted

The historical benchmarks for a Tennessee team looking for success typically go, “Since 2015-16, since 2007, since 2004, since 2001, since 1998.” Seven wins in a row? Jeremy Pruitt’s Vols join 2015-16 as the only team(s) to accomplish that since 2001. And this is just the 10th seven game winning streak for the Vols in the last 35 years:

• 7 in a row: 1985-86, 2001, 2019-20
• 8: 1986-87, 1990-91
• 9: 1997
• 10: 1988-99
• 11: 1995-96, 2015-16
• 14: 1998-99

Tennessee will be an underdog at Georgia in two weeks, but could become the just eighth Vol group since 1985 with an eight game winning streak if they beat Missouri on Saturday.

How hard is it to win at 1-of-11 on third down?

At least in Tennessee’s own history, it’s so unusual it’s hard to find a good comparison; as we noted in the postgame last night, usually that kind of performance gets you beat by 30+ points.

Four years ago, the Vols beat Kentucky with just one third down conversion…but they only had five attempts all game, that November offense running at its best-in-the-nation rate. If you’re looking for victory, I can find only two other candidates: a 2-of-15 slog when the Vols almost lost to UAB in Derek Dooley’s first season, and a 3-of-14 performance against, you guessed it, South Carolina in the black jerseys the year before. Consider how much more the Vols could’ve won that game by…which is a sentence I’d like to entertain for this year’s team as well.

All that to say: going 1-of-11 on third down is unusual by itself, and beating an SEC team on the road while you do it is downright stupid, which fits this year quite nicely, thanks.

Where does last night rank for Jarrett Guarantano?

National stats are kind of worthless with only 72 teams having taken a snap so far. Guarantano’s 259 yards ranks 18th nationally as a ypg average at the moment, but obviously wouldn’t finish there. The best comparison for JG right now is Past JG.

Tennessee’s quarterback has a pair of games on his resume that will be fairly difficult to top:

• 2018 Auburn: 21-of-32 (65.6%) for 328 yards (10.3 ypa) and 2 TD/0 INT as a two-touchdown underdog
• 2019 Missouri: 23-of-40 (57.5%) for 415 yards (10.4 ypa) and 2 TD/0 INT as only the third Vol QB to throw for 400+

Unless JG goes off in one of our biggest games this season, he’s unlikely to turn heads in the same way he did at Auburn. And I’m all for him throwing for 400+ again, it’s just highly unusual around here.

But after those two games? Guarantano played really well off the bench against South Carolina last year (11-of-19 for 229) and had similar numbers in the 2018 win over Kentucky (12-of-20 for 197). But among games he started, I think yesterday was his third best performance as a Vol: 19-of-31 for 259 with a TD, a rushing TD, and no picks, with the game-winning touchdown strike in the fourth quarter. It clearly could’ve been better, though some percentage of that responsibility belongs to not having Jennings and Callaway out there. But compared to JG’s past, I thought it was solid.