Category Archives: Football

As we said in yesterday’s post ranking the SEC’s quarterback units, Tennessee shows up in the Top 4 in five of eight SEC unit rankings in the 2020 edition of our Gameday on Rocky Top magazine. The Vols QBs were ranked No. 4 yesterday, and today, the running backs also come in at No. 4.

2020 SEC Running Back Rankings

Additional comments

With Tua gone and an outstanding offensive line, this may be the year we see Alabama return to its run game roots, and it will be in good hands not only with Najee Harris, but with a couple of excellent complements as well.

Kentucky’s running game wasn’t the best in the league just because of Lynn Bowden, but also because of Asim Rose, Kavosiey Smoke, and Christopher Rodriguez. And Missouri is likely to lean on Larry Rountree III to help ease the transition to a new-look offense.

Then there’s Tennessee, led by Ty Chandler, Eric Gray, and Tim Jordan. With the way Gray finished last season, he is probably going to push Chandler for some serious playing time, and with their own outstanding offensive line, these guys should be primed for a solid season.

Your thoughts

What do y’all think? Where did we get it right? Where are we wrong?

Two years ago, we added SEC unit rankings to our annual college football preseason magazine for the first time. It was such a hit that we made it a regular feature. Unfortunately, back then it was a bit of a downer for Vols fans, as Tennessee was generally relegated to the “others” list at the bottom.

Not this year. Heading into this fall, the Power T shows up in the Top 4 in five of the eight rankings. Some of those rankings are probably going to come as a bit of a surprise, including the quarterback rankings, for which Tennessee ranks No. 4.

Here’s our complete list of quarterback rankings for the SEC this year, right out of the magazine. We’ll be publishing these over the course of the next couple of weeks, but each post will be live only for a day or few before it’s removed or moved to an in-process VIP area. If you want to see all of them all of the unit rankings at once and at your convenience, you’ll need to order the Gameday on Rocky Top magazine, which, by the way, arrived here yesterday and will ship the day after you place an order. It won’t hit the newsstands until sometime mid- to late-next week.

2020 SEC Quarterback Rankings

Additional comments

As the blurb up there says, with both Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa gone, I really like Kellen Mond among this batch of signal-callers. Kyle Trask in the hands of Dan Mullen is also pretty clearly in the upper tier with Mond.

Then there’s a bunch of experienced guys behind those two, including the Corral/Rhys Plumlee combo at Ole Miss now under the direction of Lane Kiffin and the Tennessee quarterback room, led by Jarrett Guarantano and assisted by a strong recruiting bump in the form of Harrison Bailey. Auburn’s Bo Nix, Alabama’s Mac Jones, and South Carolina’s Ryan Hilinski are all right there as well.

Seven SEC teams basically have unknowns at quarterback this fall. This is especially true for Vanderbilt, who will be back in just a minute. They had to run to Dollar General unexpectedly to get a QB off the shelf because they just ran out.

Your thoughts

What do y’all think? Where did we get it right? Where are we wrong?

Our familiar autumn rhythms will change this year, and much for the better. The Georgia game moves to the second Saturday of November, adding some much-needed balance to Tennessee’s schedule. The Vols’ three most obvious tests since divisional play began now have a month of their own: Florida in September, Alabama in October, Georgia in November. It’s insane to think back to Tennessee’s original SEC East schedule, which saw the Vols open league play with Georgia and Florida back-to-back from 1992-95. Since 1996 the Dawgs have resided around the first or second Saturday of October, often followed by a bye. But in Tennessee’s lengthy journey through the wilderness, any hopes of sneaking into Atlanta’s promised land have been dashed by the season’s halfway point. Only in 2016 have the Vols carried those hopes to November.

No one here is picking Tennessee to win the SEC East. But you might find a lot of us picking Tennessee to be in the conversation in November.

Beyond that break, which will be good for everyone’s mental health, Tennessee gets Alabama right where they want them: the Vols get a bye the week before, while Bama doesn’t get their bye until the week after. The last time that scenario happened: 2015, when Tennessee almost won in Tuscaloosa.

The trade-off, however, is Tennessee’s next two opponents will also be coming off their bye.

So when we look at the rhythm of Tennessee’s 2020 schedule, where are the breaks, and where might things go wrong? If we’re looking for the kind of year we’d all celebrate – 9-3 would be the best regular season since 2007, a 10-3 finish the first time Tennessee didn’t lose four games in a season since 2004 – how are the Vols most likely to get there? In the rhythm of the schedule, which of the big four are they most likely to win, and where are they most likely to get tripped up?

Charlotte – September 5

The 49ers do get Norfolk State the following Saturday, as opposed to Tennessee’s trip to Norman. But memories of Georgia State should alleviate any look-ahead. Advantage: Push

at Oklahoma – September 12

Oklahoma opens with Missouri State, who is coached by…Bobby Petrino! They also have their bye in week three after facing the Vols, which seems strange. Advantage: Push

Furman – September 19

The Paladins head to Knoxville to get that money between Charleston Southern and Western Carolina. This week would be trap game city if the Vols were facing an FBS foe; Furman did make the FCS playoffs last year, but lost in the first round to Austin Peay 42-6. This is too many words on Furman, even for a team that lost to Georgia State last year. Advantage: Push

Florida – September 26

In a few years, Florida’s Septembers will start to look a bit different: they’ve got Utah in the Urban Meyer Bowl in 2022-23, then the series with Miami is renewed the next two years. But for now, it’s the usual: FCS opponent, Kentucky, mid-major, Vols. In this case Florida gets South Alabama the week before Knoxville. Advantage: Push

Missouri – October 3

No one knows exactly what the first year will look like for new coaches in the time of corona, but if Tennessee beats Oklahoma or Florida, the Vols will represent the first opportunity for Eli Drinkwitz to make a statement. Mizzou plays Vanderbilt and South Carolina in weeks two and three, but then gets Eastern Michigan in week four. No matter what Tennessee does against Florida the week before, we’ll be all up in our feelings. The first potential trap game for Tennessee. Advantage: Missouri

at South Carolina – October 10

It’s what you want the week before the bye: playing another team that’s also on its sixth-straight game. South Carolina is in Gainesville the week before. I don’t think Will Muschamp will be in serious jeopardy in week six, but that probably depends on what happens in weeks one through five. Advantage: Push

Alabama – October 24

The Vols get the Tide right where they want them: Tennessee is coming off a bye, Alabama will be playing its eighth straight game before going into one. It’s not murderer’s row for Alabama heading into Knoxville – at Ole Miss, at Arkansas, vs Mississippi State – but with all their heavy lifting in front of them in November, the Vols could spring the trap. Advantage: Tennessee

at Arkansas – October 31

The Hogs are coming off their bye, and Tennessee will have another feeling our feelings moment coming off Alabama. I didn’t include this in my trap game poll on Twitter because I don’t think Arkansas is good enough to qualify, but the placement of this game certainly benefits the home team. Advantage: Arkansas

Kentucky – November 7

Here’s the real trap; the poll I took on Twitter agrees, with UK getting 57% of the vote. Kentucky is also coming off its bye, and the Vols are headed to Athens the following week. If Tennessee beats Florida and doesn’t stub its toe, the Vols will go to Georgia in control of their own destiny for Atlanta, even if they lose to Oklahoma and Alabama. Kentucky hasn’t won in Knoxville since 1984…which maybe makes the trap even more enticing. Do not look ahead. Advantage: Kentucky

at Georgia – November 14

The Bulldogs are in Jacksonville and at South Carolina the two weeks leading into this one. I’m leaving this a push for now, but that largely depends on what South Carolina and Kentucky are like by the first of November. Advantage: Push

Troy – November 21

If Troy is frisky, this could be trap material if the Vols are coming off heartbreak or disaster in Athens. But Troy also gets Appalachian State the following week, which should be the far more meaningful game to their own narrative. Advantage: Push

at Vanderbilt – November 28

An even finish, as Vandy gets Louisiana Tech the week before. Advantage: Push

Pages 92 and 93 of our Gameday on Rocky Top college football preseason magazine includes a Stock Watch that lists all of the SEC teams in order of how they finished in their respective divisions. For each team, it includes (1) a baseline (last year’s record, standing in the division, final ranking in the AP poll, if any, and final SP+ ranking), (2) this year’s returning production numbers, (3) this year’s overall team talent ranking, and (4) a projection for this year’s record and standing in the division. There’s also a BUY, SELL, or HOLD recommendation along with a short blurb explaining the rationale for the recommendation.

What we want to do today is take the whole stock concept just a bit further. I’m going to give each of you a hypothetical $100 worth of stock (because I’m hypothetically rich) in each of the 14 SEC teams. I’m also going to give you a hypothetical $600 cash (because I’m hypothetically generous as well.) Your job is to reallocate your SEC portfolio using those resources. What stock do you want to convert back into cash? What stock and how much of it do you want to buy?

Here’s how I did mine.

Dump

I’m dumping the following teams in the following amounts:

• LSU ($100)
• Georgia ($80)
• South Carolina ($100)
• Vanderbilt ($100)

LSU just has too many new parts in a season where I think continuity is more important than ever. Passing game coordinator Joe Brady and defensive coordinator Dave Aranda are both gone, and the roster returns the least amount of production of any team in the SEC, Joe Burrow chief among them. If the object is to buy low and sell high, you cash out when you think the stock is at an all-time high and likely to go down, and that’s what we have here. They’re not worth last year’s price. I’ll buy them again later.

Georgia’s defense was phenomenal last year and may get even better this year. But I think they have issues on offense, issues that didn’t just manifest this year with all of the departures. It actually started last season and will only be exacerbated by all of the departures this year. It just seemed to me like they missed Jim Chaney more with each game. Now, they have another new offensive coordinator, and when they lost offensive line guru Sam Pittman, four linemen decided to leave early, three to the NFL and one to Tennessee. And that’s before we even get to the fact that they’ll be breaking in a new quarterback in a short offseason. They’re still good, and that defense is so elite that it might actually be able to win most games all by its lonesome, but I just don’t see Georgia’s value going anywhere but down this fall. I’m keeping $20, but converting $80 to cash to spend in other places.

South Carolina and Vanderbilt? The forecast is gloomy for these guys. My official prognostication for the Gamecocks this year is that Will Muschamp, fair or not, is getting fired by his schedule. And you’re not going to lose money holding Vanderbilt stock because they can’t go lower than the basement, but that capital can be put to better use.

That gives me an extra $380 in cash to put a total of $980 in my account. I’ve zeroed out on LSU, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt, and I’m down to only $20 in Georgia stock.

Hold

Here’s what I’m going to hold:

• Missouri
• Auburn
• Mississippi State
• Arkansas

With the exception of Auburn, the decision to hold these teams is due primarily to them turning over the entire coaching staff combined with a catastrophe of an offseason. I will note that Drinkwitz did well in only a single season at Appalachian State, and I do like all of the new staff rosters. But until I see some evidence otherwise, I’m still convinced that this is a bad year to be a new team.

So why is Ole Miss, which also has a new staff, not on this list? We’ve seen up close and personal that Lane Kiffin can do well in a first year, and the Rebels return a ton of production.

Auburn? Shrug. I just don’t see them getting any better or worse. But they could also do either. So . . . hold is just a default decision for those guys.

Buy

Alright, so I have $980 to spend on teams I want to buy. Here’s how I’m spending that money:

• Texas A&M ($400)
• Tennessee ($300)
• Florida ($100)
• Alabama ($100)
• Kentucky ($40)
• Ole Miss ($40)

Texas A&M lost five games last year, but they only lost to really good teams. As I noted yesterday, they have more overall coaching and roster continuity than any team in the SEC. And this year, they trade a cross-divisional game with Georgia for one against Vanderbilt and a non-conference game against Clemson for one against Colorado. That’s two games better, just for free. LSU may still get them, but it’s not the automatic loss it was last year. Auburn . . . who knows? And Alabama probably gets them and the SEC West crown, but I think the Aggies have a pretty good shot. So I’m thinking some upside is practically guaranteed, and there’s a pretty good opportunity for a windfall. It’s not quite “all-in,” but it’s “more-in-on-them-than-anyone-else.”

My thought process on Tennessee is similar to that of A&M except without the dramatic and favorable change in schedule. I think the Vols get better even if they don’t get past Florida and/or Georgia, so there’s some upside in value there. I also think that the odds that they actually do get past either or both of Florida and Georgia is greater this year than it’s been for some time. So, I’m buying big on the Vols.

The problem is that Florida is getting better, too, so even though I’m going to have to keep that stock in a sealed container in the garage so it doesn’t smell up the house, I’m getting some extra of the Gators, too.

Alabama is an expensive, well-established stock, but I think it will tick up a bit this fall now that Joe Burrow isn’t in the way.

I just like Kentucky and Ole Miss. Good coaches with decent rosters that probably aren’t going to get into the mix for the divisional crowns but will likely increase in value this year.

Final ledger

Texas A&M	$500
Tennessee	$400
Florida	$200
Alabama	$200
Kentucky	$140
Ole Miss	$140
Missouri	$100
Auburn	$100
Mississippi State	$100
Arkansas	$100
Georgia	$20
South Carolina	$0
Vanderbilt	$0
LSU	$0

The GRT 2020 SEC stock re-allocation podcast

Will and I did our allocations live on the latest GRT podcast. Listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/user-284027139/gameday-on-rocky-top-podcast-episode-165-sec-stock-portfolio-re-allocation-for-2020

Your turn

What about you? What are you buying, selling, and smoking this year?

I don’t know if continuity.com is in use or whether and to what extent the term is being used as a trademark, but I might as well make a grab for it all myself, as I’ve been somewhat obsessed about the issue of continuity these last couple of weeks. I first tackled why and how much returning production matters and then posted the entire list of returning production for 2020, both nationally and in the SEC. And then I started thinking about coaches, and suddenly there were rabbit trails everywhere. The first one I poked my head into concerned head coaching and coordinator continuity in the SEC over the past ten years or so. It was dark down there. Dark and mysterious and fascinating, and it smelled like sweat and blood.

It just means more

Anyway, one of the primary reasons I’m so hyper-focused on coaching and roster continuity this summer is that I think the virus and the quarantine has amplified its importance this year.

Although the data from last week’s post proved only that continuity and change can be either good or bad depending on the personnel, it is true that change always introduces some degree of uncertainty. Uncertainty is often equal parts excitement and terror, and when you put a mic on that thing and redline the faders, it’s time for the popcorn.

There’s a reason teams don’t just gather for the first time an hour before kickoff and go play. They need time to prepare. Common sense suggests that time to prepare would be more important for teams with more uncertainty in the form of less coaching and roster continuity. With COVID-19 sending everyone into isolation just as spring practice was about to begin and teams just now, some four months later, beginning to reassemble, and with so much of the programs’ focus being appropriately diverted to safety issues, it stands to reason that preparation time this season will be at an all-time premium.

Bottom line, this seems like a really bad year to be a new team, and conversely, it seems like a really good year to know the person next to you.

So, which SEC teams will be at more of a disadvantage this fall due to the shortened offseason and the divided attention? And which should have more of an advantage due to continuity? There’s a table with all of the data below for your own perusal, but here are some of our findings.

SEC coaching continuity heading into 2020

First, let’s take a quick look at coaching continuity in the SEC just for this fall, as I somehow failed to hit that with last week’s barrage of continuity posts.

Five SEC teams have complete continuity with respect to their head coaching and coordinator positions this year: Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, and, somewhat surprisingly, Alabama, which hasn’t had complete continuity since Lane Kiffin and Jeremy Pruitt were together in Crimson in 2015.

On the flip side, three programs have turned over all three positions: Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Arkansas.

In the middle, Georgia, South Carolina, and Auburn are all breaking in new offensive coordinators, and Vanderbilt and Missouri have each swapped out two of three pieces. The Commodores retained head coach Derek Mason but replaced both coordinators, and Missouri replaced its head coach and offensive coordinator (it’s the same guy), but retained defensive coordinator Ryan Walters from Barry Odom’s staff.

LSU is a bit of a unique situation. Ed Orgeron remains, and so does offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger, but defensive coordinator Bo Pelini replaces Dave Aranda, and perhaps most importantly, passing game coordinator Joe Brady has moved on.

SEC Teams with the most roster and coaching continuity heading into 2020

So, if there’s an advantage to overall continuity heading into this weird college football season, which teams will benefit and which will suffer?

First on the list of teams that might benefit is Texas A&M. The Aggies rank first in overall returning production on the field and are one of the teams with no churn in the head coach or coordinator positions. Jimbo Fisher is back with coordinators Darryll Dickey (although co-OC Jay Graham is now at Tennessee) and Mike Elko. Plus, they return 100% of last year’s passing yards, 74% of their rushing yards, 80% of their offensive line starts, and most of their defense as well. These guys are not building something new from scratch. They had to press pause like everyone else, but all they have to do to get back up to speed is to hit the play button again.

Right behind the Aggies in this category are Kentucky and Tennessee, who both also return a ton of production, their head coaches, and both coordinators.

Teams in trouble if continuity matters more this fall include Mississippi State, LSU, and Missouri. These guys are still doing meet-and-greets and icebreakers.

Here’s a list of all of the SEC teams with their respective roster and coaching continuity data for you to analyze yourself. What do you see?

It feels like I’ve written a lot about continuity on this site over the past couple of years. I’ve looked at in-season starter continuity in the SEC, in-season offensive line continuity for the Vols, and long-term coordinator continuity for the Vols. Funny thing is, putting it under the microscope often reveals that continuity doesn’t impact a team’s performance as much as you think it should.

For instance, the two conclusions from the post about in-season starter continuity in the SEC were (1) it probably matters at the quarterback position, but (2) it didn’t seem to be nearly as important at other positions. Other factors such overall talent, player development, and coaching mattered more. And when we dove into in-season offensive line continuity for the Vols, we found (1) that it improved in 2018 over an absolute disaster in 2017, but (2) it didn’t have much of an effect on the team’s ability to gain yards or score points. Either it didn’t matter or any gains in that area were undone by other factors.

And then last September, I looked at coordinator continuity for the Vols, which was a hallmark of the program under Phillip Fulmer from 1992-2008 but became a certifiable mess for the following decade. Until his final season as head coach, Fulmer had one defensive coordinator and two offensive coordinators over the course of 16 seasons. In the following 12 seasons, the Vols’ football program hired four new head coaches, five new offensive coordinators (one of them twice at two different times), and seven new defensive coordinators.

But that didn’t really answer the question of whether coordinator churn, generally speaking, was merely a result of poor performance on the field or whether it might actually contribute to poor performance. As a Tennessee fan longing for the success the program enjoyed during most of the Fulmer Era, it felt more like a cause than an effect, but over the past couple of days, I decided to look at the same data league-wide. After cursing every SEC team’s media guide for listing its assistant coaches alphabetically instead of by year or position, I finally wrangled everything into one place so I could draw a firm conclusion as to whether coaching churn was good or bad for a team.

And now I finally have a definitive answer: It depends.

The entire data set is below for you to look at yourself, but here’s the summary:

Basically, by replacing offensive coordinators over the past seven to nine years, SEC teams have been about as likely to make things worse as they were to make things better, at least in the first year after the change. They fared a little better replacing defensive coordinators, but programs often went backward then, as well.

Okay, but what about the second year in a new coordinator’s tenure? They have to get better once they hit their stride and all the players get up to speed in the new system, right?

Not necessarily, at least as to the offense. Out of 24 instances over the last nine seasons where a new SEC offensive coordinator was around for a second year in the same position, the offenses got worse exactly the same number of times as they got better.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer to the question of whether that shiny new coach is going to make your favorite team better or worse. There is an answer. It’s just that the answer is that it depends. It depends on the guy you hired. It depends on the guy he’s replacing and how good the team has recently been at the thing you’ve hired the new guy to do. It depends on the roster and the relative health of the ecosystem into which all of this newness is introduced. It just depends.

Continuity, then, is like a garbage-in, garbage-out computer system. It only produces the results you want if the data’s good.

The good news for Vols fans is that the data looks good. All of the other factors seem to be improving, and the guys on staff have a track record of being on the positive side of the data set.

Jeremy Pruitt

Because our analysis is limited to SEC head coaches and coordinators, it doesn’t include anything worthwhile on second-year Vols’ defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley. It’s probably safe to assume, though, that Jeremy Pruitt has as much or more to do with Tennessee’s defense as does Ansley, and we do have numbers on Pruitt.

When Georgia hired Pruitt as defensive coordinator in 2014, the Bulldogs had just held opponents to 376 yards per game the prior year. Pruitt improved total defense his first season, holding opponents to 337 yards per game in 2014. He improved it again in 2015, this time holding opponents to 306 yards per game. After two seasons under Pruitt, Georgia’s defense was allowing 70 fewer yards per game than it had been before he arrived.

When Pruitt arrived at Alabama in 2016, he did the same thing even though Alabama didn’t have much room to improve. The Tide’s defense had held opponents to 276 yards per game in 2015, and in Pruitt’s first season, they held opponents to 262. He squeezed out another couple of yards in his second season, improving to 260 before taking the job at Tennessee.

Jim Chaney

Jim Chaney’s record at three different stops in the SEC during the same time frame is also one of improvement. Hired at Tennessee in 2009 by Lane Kiffin, the offense immediately improved an impressive 115 yards per game, from 269 to 384. As a holdover from Kiffin’s staff when Derek Dooley and company arrived in 2010, Chaney’s offense actually took a small step backward (20 yards per game) in his second season and then another of 31 yards in 2011, although the blame for that one probably lies at the feet of early injuries to Tyler Bray and Justin Hunter. In 2012, Chaney and his offense hit their stride and put up 476 yards per game, somehow managing to stay 5 yards ahead of Sal Sunseri’s defense. To put a bow on it, Chaney’s offense at Tennessee improved 115 yards in his first season, then went down 20 and down another 31 before going back up 143.

Hired at Arkansas in 2013, Chaney’s offense had 357 yards in his first season. His offense improved to 406 yards per game in his second season before leaving for Pittsburgh, where he turned Nathan Peterman into an NFL quarterback.

When Georgia hired Chaney in 2016, he again immediately improved the offense, this time from 377 yards per game to 385 in his first season and then again to 435 in his second season. By his third season in 2018, the offense was cranking out 465 yards per game. And then he returned to Rocky Top.

For more on Jim Chaney, check out this post, a re-publication of an article Will wrote for the magazine last year:

Jim Chaney’s offenses from 2013-18

Conclusion

Teams don’t always get better when they hire new coaches. Generally speaking, they tend to get worse as often as they get better. Whether they get better or worse depends on a variety of factors, and the guy being hired is chief among them. History shows that both Pruitt and Chaney are both guys that make things better when you hire them. They tend to improve their teams immediately and then continue to do so in their second and third years and beyond.

In case you’re interested, here’s the entire list of head coaches and coordinators for every SEC team since 2011, along with the teams’ respective total offense and total defense numbers where available from the NCAA.

The following was originally published in the 2019 edition of our Gameday on Rocky Top preseason college football magazine.

When last we left Jim Chaney in 2012, his offense was flirting with Tennessee’s record book. The Vols scored at least 35 points and gained at least 450 yards eight times in a dozen games. But they also allowed at least 35 points and 450 yards six times, leading to a 5-7 campaign and the end for Derek Dooley’s staff.

Chaney would not be out of work long, joining Bret Bielema’s new staff at Arkansas. Over the next six years Chaney’s offenses regularly improved at each of his three stops, eventually becoming some of the best units in America when infused with Georgia’s elite talent. The talent pool isn’t quite as deep in Knoxville [heading into the 2019 season], but there are lessons to learn from each of Chaney’s seasons between his two tours at Neyland Stadium.

2013 Arkansas

Chaney and Bielema inherited one of college football’s biggest cultural shifts in Fayetteville. After Bobby Petrino guided the Razorbacks to an 11-2 finish in 2011, he infamously lost his job in April 2012. John L. Smith served as a one-year interim and went 4-8, then Bielema arrived from Wisconsin. The Razorbacks started 3-0 but then lost their last nine games. Close losses to Rutgers (28-24) and Texas A&M (45-33) in September gave way to the kind of October one often inherits when following a successful coach who was unceremoniously fired: 30-10 at Florida, 52-7 at home to South Carolina, 52-0 at Alabama.

Chaney’s offense made small but significant strides in November. After gaining less than 300 yards in those three October losses, the Razorbacks gained between 339-389 yards in four close losses down the stretch. Arkansas fell to eventual SEC Champion Auburn and Ole Miss, then to Mississippi State by 7 and No. 14 LSU by 4. As is often the case in Year 1, progress didn’t show up in the win column, but things were moving in the right direction.

2014 Arkansas

A mark of a great coach is agile leadership. Two years after Tyler Bray led a passing attack of more than 315 yards per game, Chaney’s 2014 Arkansas squad ran for 218 yards per game. After a loss to No. 6 Auburn and a win over Nicholls State, the Hogs ran wild on Texas Tech. They threw the ball only 12 times and ran it 68 times, and they scored 49 points.

In the middle of the schedule Arkansas courted heartbreak, starting with a 35-28 overtime loss to No. 6 Texas A&M. Against No. 7 Alabama, Brandon Allen passed for 246 yards as the Tide stuffed the run, but three turnovers and a missed extra point doomed them in a 14-13 loss. Against No. 10 Georgia the following week, Arkansas scored 32 points but gave up 45. Two weeks later, No. 1 Mississippi State escaped 17-10 after the Hogs had a 10-0 lead.

The breakthrough came in November with a 17-0 win over LSU, the first conference victory under Bielema. Then No. 8 Ole Miss fell, 30-0. Missouri then became the sixth Top 20 team to beat Arkansas in 2014 in a 21-14 contest. But the Hogs dominated Texas 31-7 in postseason play.

The production from running backs Jonathan Williams and Alex Collins was both impressive and impressively similar. Williams carried it 211 times for 1,190 yards and 12 touchdowns. Collins carried it 204 times for 1,100 yards and 12 touchdowns. And Brandon Allen did his part with 20 touchdown passes to only 5 interceptions. With every loss to a Top 20 foe and meaningful wins over Ole Miss and Texas, Arkansas was clearly moving in the right direction.

2015 Pittsburgh

But with Pat Narduzzi in at Pitt, Chaney made the move to the ACC. The Panthers were 6-7 the year before, and Chaney helped bring in Nathan Peterman as a graduate transfer after Josh Dobbs solidified his role as the starter at Tennessee in the second half of 2014. Peterman’s start against Florida in 2013 was one of the roughest performances any Tennessee quarterback has ever endured: 4-of-11 for 5 yards and a pair of interceptions, and swiftly replaced by Justin Worley. No one who saw Peterman play at Tennessee believed he would ever make it as a starter in a power conference.

But Peterman came in off the bench against an eventual Rose Bowl-bound Iowa team, and went 20-of-29 for 219 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. The Hawkeyes won 27-24, but Pitt seized momentum. After a bye week, the Panthers won four one-possession games in a row. They then came up short to eventual Top 15 teams from North Carolina and Notre Dame, but rolled past Duke and Louisville with 400+ yards in both games.
Peterman finished the year completing 61.5% of his passes at 7.3 yards per attempt. He followed that up with 9.3 yards per attempt in 2016, leading to an NFL opportunity.

2016 Georgia

On the move again, Chaney joined Kirby Smart’s initial staff in Athens. Working with true freshman Jacob Eason at quarterback, the Dawgs stormed out of the gates, earning a 33-24 win over No. 22 North Carolina with 474 yards and 6.58 yards per play. Two weeks later they escaped at Missouri 28-27 with 409 yards of offense.

The Dawgs fell hard to Ole Miss 45-14, then had plenty of opportunities to beat Tennessee, as you might recall, before Josh Dobbs and Jauan Jennings ruined all that fun. At South Carolina the following week, Chaney went back to the Arkansas playbook. While Eason went 5-of-17 for 29 yards, the Dawgs ran the ball 50 times for 326 yards in a 28-14 win.

The Bulldogs then racked up the passing yards but lost a game to Vanderbilt and got completely shut down by Florida in Jacksonville. But as was the case in the first year at Arkansas (and his first play-calling year at Tennessee in 2010), things quickly improved in November. Georgia ran for 215 yards and passed for 245 in a win over Kentucky, then beat Auburn 13-7. The Dawgs put up 402 yards but fell to Georgia Tech 28-27 in the regular season finale, but bounced back to beat TCU 31-23 in the Liberty Bowl.
Eason finished his freshman campaign completing 55.1% of his passes with a 16-to-8 touchdown/interception ratio. Nick Chubb ran for 1,130 yards and Sony Michel added 830. All these pieces would return in 2017, plus a big addition at quarterback.

2017 Georgia

Eason was injured in the first game of 2017, a 31-10 victory over Appalachian State. Enter Jake Fromm, another freshman in the Athens spotlight. But thanks to Chubb and Michel, Fromm only needed to manage the game well. And that he did. After a gritty win at Notre Dame, Georgia’s offense was unleashed on the SEC.

Against Mississippi State, the Dawgs ran for 203 yards while Fromm went deep: 9-of-12 for 201 yards in a 31-3 Georgia win. The following week they signaled the beginning of the end for Butch Jones, gashing the Vols for 294 yards on the ground in a 41-0 blowout. It got even better at Vanderbilt, with 423 rushing yards plus 126 through the air. And they were just getting warmed up.

Against Missouri, they had 370 yards on the ground, 326 through the air, and 9.04 yards per play in a 53-28 win. Then, in the Cocktail Party, they were equally impressive in a different way. Fromm needed only seven passes to collect 101 yards and Michel only six carries to get 137 on the ground. The Dawgs put a ridiculous 9.36 yards per play on Florida’s defense in a 42-7 win.

The Dawgs made the playoff by avenging an earlier loss to Auburn, and the semifinal game against Oklahoma was one for the ages. Sony Michel ran 11 times for 181 yards, Nick Chubb 14 for 145. And Fromm was sharp, going 20-of-29 for 210 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and the Bulldogs won in double overtime to get to the title game.

They would find overtime again versus Alabama and Jeremy Pruitt, but also the other side of heartbreak, as the Tide famously switched to Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback and won it on a walk-off touchdown in the extra period. But the 4.74 yards per play Chaney’s offense put on Pruitt’s defense were the second-most any SEC team gained on Alabama that year. The Dawgs gained at least 6.5 yards per play in nine other games. Nick Chubb finished the year with 1,345 yards and 15 touchdowns, Sony Michel with 1,227 yards and 16 touchdowns.

2018 Georgia

No Chubb and Michel, no problem: D’Andre Swift and Elijah Holyfield filled in quite nicely. The Dawgs ripped off at least 40 points and at least 445 yards in each of their first four games. LSU picked up a big win in Baton Rouge, but Georgia beat Florida 36-17 and Kentucky 34-17 to wrap up the SEC East, then put 516 yards on Auburn in a 27-10 win. Against UMass, Georgia picked up 701 yards at 11.3 yards per play. In the rematch with Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, Fromm was spectacular – 25-of-39 for 301 yards and three touchdowns – while the Dawgs ran for another 153 yards.
It was another sensational year for the offense: Fromm completed 67.3% of his passes at 9.0 yards per attempt along with 30 touchdowns to just 6 interceptions. And the Swift/Holyfield combo joined Williams and Collins from Arkansas and Chubb and Michel the season before as thousand-yard rushers.