Tennessee is 67-70 in the last 11 years, a longer sub-.500 run in the modern era than we can find for any of the other 15 winningest programs in college football history. A more concrete way to look at it: the Vols haven’t finished a season in the AP Top 20 since 2007, sneaking in at #22 after bowl wins in 2015 and 2016. That 11-year drought is also the longest on record in the modern era for any of the 15 winningest programs (via Wikipedia):

The second-longest drought among these teams isn’t actually Nebraska’s current stretch: it’s also Tennessee, 10 years from 1975-84. So good news: the Vols have made this climb before. What Jeremy Pruitt is trying to dig out of is most similar to the challenge Johnny Majors faced in the early 1980’s.

When Doug Dickey left for Florida in 1969, Bill Battle took over and led the Vols to an 11-1 finish in 1970, the highest-rated Vol squad in estimated S&P+ of the last 50 years. Tennessee went 10-2 in 1971, then 25-9-2 in Condredge Holloway’s three seasons at quarterback. The Vols finished in the Top 20 in each of Battle’s first five seasons.

But the Vols went 7-5 in 1975 and 6-5 in 1976, ran their losing streak to Alabama to six straight, and Battle was replaced with native son Johnny Majors fresh off his national championship at Pittsburgh.

Majors’ first four Tennessee teams had a combined record of 21-23-1 and only one bowl appearance. If you’re just looking at wins and losses, his fifth team in 1981 appears to have broken the trend with an 8-4 season. But estimated S&P+ rates that team as the second-worst of the last 50 years behind 2017. Here’s a closer look at Majors’ first five seasons:

Going 6-0 in one possession games (including 24-21 over Wichita State and 38-34 vs Vanderbilt) is a great way to mask a negative point differential. In reality, these first five years should be grouped together as the downturn before we start talking about Tennessee’s slow and steady ascent.

If 1981 was a relative bottom from a competitiveness standpoint, the Vols made incremental progress every year from there. This too didn’t always show up in the win column, but you can see it in the point differential:

(On the strength of the 1983 defense: see White, Reggie.)

In estimated S&P+ percentile, the Vols went from 35.63 in 1981 to 55.46 to 80.07 to 87.26 in 1984. After a 1-2 start in 1983 with losses to #10 Pittsburgh and #11 Auburn, the Vols won eight of their last nine games and just missed running the table in a 13-10 loss to Ole Miss. Three of Tennessee’s four losses in 1984 came to ranked opponents, the fourth to a Kentucky squad that finished the season ranked.

Progress was there, though it might’ve been harder to see in the moment. I was born in 1981, so I can’t really speak to the personal experience of any of these years. But I can guarantee you what made everything better for Johnny Majors was beating Alabama.

The Tide won 11 straight from 1971-81. But Tennessee upset the #2 Tide 35-28 in 1982, Bear Bryant’s final season. In 1983 it was 41-34 over #11 Alabama in Birmingham thanks to a Johnnie Jones run. And in 1984 the Vols erased a 14-point deficit in the final nine minutes to win 28-27 in Knoxville.

When you get three straight against your biggest rival, everything else matters a little less. Consider how many Butch Jones sins are forgiven if the Vols beat Florida in 2014, 2015, and 2016 (and 2017, for that matter).

After going 29-27-1 (.518) from 1977-81, the Vols went 22-12-2 (.688) the next three seasons. Getting back to being a team that averaged 7-8 wins in an 11-game regular season was a big step. But at this point, the Vols had still gone 10 years without finishing in the AP Top 20.

The breakthrough came in 1985:

Not only did the Vols get four straight against Alabama, they dominated Bo Jackson and #1 Auburn 38-20. The Vols won the SEC and, of course, beat #2 Miami 35-7 in the Sugar Bowl, putting an emphatic end to a decade away from the national stage with a top five finish.

It took a little more time for that kind of finish to become commonplace. The Vols yo-yoed with a 7-5 finish in 1986, 10-2-1 ranked 14th in 1987, and 5-6 in 1988. But from there, Tennessee entered its longest stretch of sustained excellence: 129-29-2 from 1989-2001, a .813 winning percentage that was best in the SEC for those 13 years. With the exception of an obvious rebuild in 2000, the Vols played at the 88th percentile or better in estimated S&P+ for that entire stretch. The Vols played at the 87th percentile or below every year from 1975-84.

After last season, Tennessee’s drought in the postseason AP Top 20 reached 11 years, one more than that 1975-84 downturn. To be sure, the Vols seem farther away from a championship breakthrough in 2019 than they were in 1984. But Jeremy Pruitt and the Vols are already following that early 80’s blueprint:

2017 and 1981 are the two lowest seasons of the last 50 years in estimated S&P+ percentile; 2017 is far worse at 17.4%, but remember that 1981 team won six one-possession games. They’re not so dissimilar considering Butch Jones’ last team lost on the final play against Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky.

So we’ve already seen the Vols make progress from the bottom. But like those early Majors teams, Tennessee had a hard time just getting in one-possession games last year. The trap Butch Jones’ teams fell into was believing being close was a good thing, playing far too many one-possession and even final-play games to escape a treadmill that topped out at 8-4. But for Jeremy Pruitt in year two, courting heartbreak via close games would look like progress. It can’t be confused for the destination – Pruitt’s time at Florida State and Alabama blowing teams up should assure he’s already learned that lesson – but it’s a step the Vols can take along the way.

Being gone longer than any other blue-blood program should remind us of the task at hand. But Tennessee’s climb in the early 1980’s – slow but steady – should remind us that such a feat can be accomplished at this university. It may not happen as fast as any of us want, but progress is both readily available and already underway. Keep recruiting and developing well. Get competitive but don’t settle for living there. Make 8-4 an average expectation and not something you have to rebuild after. And, you know, beat Florida.

Tennessee has a long way to go, perhaps longer than any other program with our past can appreciate. But the Vols have made this climb before, and came out of it with their very best days ahead of them. I’m eager to see what the next step will look like this fall.

According to the official NCAA data, a total of 18 players who were brand new to the Tennessee program last fall played in at least one game. Four of those were junior college players, and 14 were true freshmen.

That’s a bunch, and I doubt that we’ll see that number again this fall, but we could still see a lot of new faces. Well, jersey numbers anyway.

Whether a guy makes it onto the field in his first season on campus depends on a variety of factors, but chief among them are (1) the opportunity at his position, (2) his own talent level, and (3) the talent level of the guys already there at the position.

Taking all of that into consideration, here’s a look at the new guys ranked by their likelihood of playing time this fall.

1. DL Aubrey Solomon

Assuming his request for immediate eligibility is approved, of course, the Michigan transfer is not only really talented, he’s walking into vacuum along the defensive line. Kyle Phillips, Alexis Johnson, and Shy Tuttle are all gone, so there are three starting spots up for grabs, and they’ll go to the three best bets. If Solomon is eligible, he’s almost certain to be one of those guys.

2. OL Darnell Wright

Wright is the highest-rated newcomer on Tennessee’s roster, ranking GDS4 (No. 4 in our magazine’s SEC rankings for the Class of 2019). Assuming he is indeed as talented as his ranking suggests, there are only two hurdles for him to overcome. First, the offensive line returns 80% of its starts from last season, and second, Wright did not participate in spring practice, so he only has a short time to win the spot.

No offense to the starters from last season, but they’ve been “recruited over,” meaning Wright is probably already more talented than they are, and he definitely has a higher ceiling. I’m expecting him to start, if not in the season-opener, then pretty soon thereafter.

3. DL Savion Williams

Williams is only GDS133, but he’s the 14th-best junior college prospect in this year’s class, according to 247Sports. You know what they say about JUCO guys — they’re not recruited to sit on the bench — and Williams is a particularly good one. Plus, the defensive line needs somebody, and Williams seems well-positioned to compete with the non-starters already on the roster for one of the three empty spots.

4. DB Deangelo Gibbs

This may come as a bit of a surprise to some, as Gibbs didn’t get as much press as you would have expected this spring for a former highly-touted transfer from Georgia. Plus, the 2017 season provided a lot of starting experience to a lot of young and talented DBs who are now presumably ahead of Gibbs in the rotation. But Gibbs is really talented and has experience with a winning program, and Pruitt seems to use a lot of bodies back there, so I expect to see Gibbs a fair amount at some point this season.

5. OL Wanya Morris

Many would put Morris higher on this list and probably even above Wright just because Morris has already been seen working with the ones at left tackle in spring practice. I do think that’s a good indication that he’ll be starting on the line early, but his ranking is not as high as Wright’s and if Morris can win a position in a short spring camp, Wright can win one in a short fall camp. Fussing about the pecking order of these two newcomers is a nice problem to have.

6. LB Quavaris Crouch

Crouch (GSD30) is yet another exceptionally talented young guy, and with the retirement of Darrin Kirkland Jr., Crouch will now have an even better opportunity to get into the mix early and often. He gets the nod over fellow incoming LB Henry To’oto’o because he was here for spring practice.

7. LB Henry To’oto’o

Vol Nation was excited to get To’oto’o (GDS49) as a late pickup over some elite recruiting competition. Like Crouch, he’s talented enough at a position with enough opportunity to earn a fair amount of playing time this fall. Unlike Crouch, though, he was not an early enrollee, so he has to navigate over the learning curve before he can get on the field.

The complete list

Here’s the entire list of guys, ranked by likelihood of playing time this fall:

Notes on positional need

As noted earlier, the team’s need is greatest along the defensive line, so the opportunity for playing time there is wide open.

The offensive line is wide open, but for another reason. Most of the starters are back, but the unit has underperformed for many years, and so there’s early opportunity for anyone to dislodge the starters, especially for elite-level prospects.

Opportunity in the defensive backfield is currently a mixture of experienced upperclassmen and guys who are still young but have already been through the fire for a season. That said, there were some key departures from last year’s team, so there is an opportunity there.

With the retirement of Kirkland, there is also a degree of opportunity in the linebacking corps, and that unit, like most others, could use some additional depth.

Barring injury, there is not much opportunity at quarterback, running back, wide receiver, or tight end, at least for starting gigs. The coaches do generally like to rotate a lot of bodies in at running back and wide receiver, though, so although the starting positions are locked up, there are opportunities to get on the field in a back-up role.

There are plenty of scenarios we wouldn’t enjoy this fall – no playmakers emerge on the defensive line, freshmen don’t emerge to build hope for the future – but it’s probably fair to say nothing would impact Tennessee’s ceiling like losing Jarrett Guarantano for any length of time.

Some of that is the possibility of what Guarantano could be with another year under his belt. Tennessee’s starter was seventh among SEC quarterbacks in completion percentage, and higher than that before a banged-up 13-of-31 finish in the last two games. He finished sixth in the league in yards per attempt, and was one of only five quarterbacks in the nation to throw just three interceptions with 200+ passing attempts.

Some of that is the mystery of what’s behind him. This will be the fifth time this decade Tennessee’s backup quarterback(s) has never attempted a pass. Brian Maurer and J.T. Shrout could blossom into real options for the Vols in the future, but Tennessee’s best path in the present is for neither of them to take a meaningful snap.

In the post-Fulmer era, only Jonathan Crompton in 2009 and Josh Dobbs in 2015 & 2016 took every meaningful snap as the starting quarterback (throw in Tyler Bray in 2012 if you don’t count his in-game removal against Vanderbilt). In 2010 Bray took command in November as a true freshman.

But four times in the last eight years, Tennessee’s starting quarterback was lost to a multi-game injury: five games for Tyler Bray’s broken thumb in 2011, a combined ten missed starts for Justin Worley in 2013 and 2014, and a shoulder injury taking out Quinten Dormady for the second half of 2017.

From a history standpoint, the game has changed plenty in the last three decades, but consider how, with the exception of Jerry Colquitt’s tragic knee injury on the first drive in 1994, Tennessee’s starting quarterback took every meaningful snap from 1989-1999. A big part of all that winning was having Andy Kelly, Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning, and Tee Martin out there every Saturday. And in ’94 while the Vols worked Todd Helton, Manning, and Brandon Stewart into the mix, they could also hand the ball off to an NFL running back playing behind NFL offensive linemen. If the Vols have those pieces in 2019, we don’t know it yet.

It’s all of these variables – inexperienced backups, starter prone to getting hit, offensive line still young, and the simple math of QB’s anywhere struggling to take every meaningful snap – that cause concern. An injury to Guarantano would create a need for the pause button on Jeremy Pruitt, but that’s easier said than done. In 2011 Tyler Bray put on one of the best passing days of any Vol quarterback against Cincinnati, then got hurt weeks later (along with Justin Hunter) when things felt too far down the road to just say, “Well, this year shouldn’t really count,” effectively.

I think there’s talent on this team, young and old, that’s going to manifest itself this fall in ways that excite us. That can be true on the defensive side of the ball no matter what happens, and can show signs of progress even if the Vols lose their quarterback early in the year. But it does feel like an awful lot of the progress we want is tied into conversations about Guarantano working with this receiving corps for the last time.

It’s also tough to call a conservative game – at least in theory, since Tennessee did it plenty last year – when you’re still playing catch-up in the talent pool. Justin Worley got hurt both times because the Vols were playing to score points and make big plays, but couldn’t keep him upright long enough to do so against the best defenses in the SEC. Tennessee’s best football involves Guarantano, Callaway, and Jennings making a difference. That will involve, on some level, Guarantano facing pressure behind a young offensive line against great defenses.

It’s a fine line to walk, and it’ll be interesting to see how Pruitt and Jim Chaney choose to handle it. You can’t coach or play scared; I think the Vols have a chance to have a really good passing game. It may just require putting the most important piece of that puzzle at risk to earn that reward.

Tennessee’s non-conference schedule isn’t the monster it has recently been. In our 2019 Gameday on Rocky Top magazine, we have the Vols’ non-conference schedule ranked the 12th-most-difficult. Only Kentucky and Arkansas have it easier.

This is all relative, of course, as part of the reason Tennessee is so far down the list is that some of its SEC brethren have leveled up their non-con scheduling. South Carolina, for instance, not only has defending national champion Clemson, but also giant-killer Appalachian State and North Carolina.

Tennessee’s non-conference slate this year features the Georgia State Panthers, the BYU Cougars, the Chattanooga Mocs, and the UAB Blazers. That’s a much more manageable slate than it has been in the past as none of those teams rank above No. 63 in our power rankings.

So, which of these teams presents the biggest challenge for Tennessee this fall? No offense to Chattanooga or Georgia State, but we can quickly dispense with those teams, as the Mocs are literally in a separate category and the Panthers were a woeful 2-10 last season and finished last in the Sun Belt East with a 1-7 conference record.

Of the other two non-conference opponents, most will immediately default to BYU, a traditional brand name with a rich history of on-field success. There’s also good support for this instinctive conclusion, as the Cougars had consecutive 9-4 seasons as recently as 2015-16, and its defense last year ranked 18th in the nation. That defense could present a real challenge to a Vols’ offense still getting used to new offensive coordinator Jim Chaney in the second game of the season.

On the other hand, BYU has struggled the past couple of seasons, going only 4-9 in 2017 and 7-6 last year, and last season’s offense ranked only 100th in the nation. Unless they’ve improved dramatically on that side of the ball, the Vols should have a decided advantage even if they do struggle against the Cougars’ defense.

But do not overlook the UAB Blazers. It’s certainly tempting to dismiss a school that didn’t even have a football program two out of the last four years. If you over-focus on that, though, you’ll miss the fact that these guys are actually pretty good despite taking a two-year sabbatical in 2015 and 2016.

The Blazers didn’t miss a beat when they rebooted the football program in 2017, promptly going 8-5 (6-2) in Conference USA. Last year, they posted an impressive 11-3 (7-1) record and finished first in the C-USA West. Like BYU, UAB has a surprisingly stout defense, their strength of schedule notwithstanding. They were ninth in the nation in total defense last season, seventh in scoring defense, 14th in passing yards allowed, and 17th in rushing defense. And unlike BYU, UAB’s offense isn’t pulling the rest of the team under. This fall, the Blazers return both quarterback Tyler Johnston and running back Spencer Brown.

And just in case you’ve forgotten, the last time Tennessee and UAB met, the Vols needed double-overtime at home to put the Blazers away. UAB actually dominated the Vols statistically, but Tennessee finally won 32-29 when Matt Simms connected with Denarius Moore on a 25-yard touchdown on the first play of the second overtime. And we celebrated like we’d won a championship.

The timing of the games against these two non-conference opponents also comes into play. BYU will come to Neyland for the Vols’ second game of the season when both teams are fresh. In contrast, UAB comes to town after the Vols have played Georgia, Mississippi State, Alabama, and South Carolina in consecutive weeks. The Vols’ bodies are more likely to be strong and their minds more likely to be right against BYU than they are against UAB.

I’m not necessarily more concerned about UAB than I am about BYU, but I would say that I am equally concerned about both. Tennessee should be favored against both teams, but either or both of them could spell trouble if the Vols aren’t ready to play.

Despite everything that’s happened the last 11 years, Tennessee is still 11th in winning percentage all-time, still second in the SEC behind Alabama. This is Tennessee’s historical DNA in both football and basketball: the first challenger to the thrones in Tuscaloosa and Lexington.

But Tennessee’s struggles from Phillip Fulmer’s final season through Jeremy Pruitt’s first are unique among their blue-blood brethren. I’m not sure any of the 15 winningest programs in college football history have seen a stretch of sub-.500 football in the modern era like the one Tennessee is currently enduring.

We already know 2017 was Tennessee’s worst season of at least the last 50 years, and not just in wins and losses: that season finishing in the 17th percentile in estimated S&P+ means Pruitt inherited a deeper hole than any of his current SEC contemporaries in year one. That appears to have been rock bottom, but as we know it took more than a one-year drop-off from 2016 to 2017 to truly get there.

From 2008-18, the Vols are 67-70. That .489 winning percentage is 73rd nationally in that span, better only than Kentucky (.457) and Vanderbilt (.428) in the SEC. Some Top 15 programs have hovered around .500 or even further below for several years in the modern era, but I couldn’t find any stretch of sub-.500 football for this long.

Before we spend some time looking at how the Vols have gotten out of similar holes (if not quite as deep and complex) in their own history, I wanted to see if there were comparisons with other historic programs. Here’s as close as I could reasonably come in search of those comparisons:

Oklahoma 1994-99

• All-Time Winning Percentage: .724, fifth
• 1994-99: 30-38-1

Oklahoma went 6-6 in Gary Gibbs’ final season, then hired Howard Schnellenberger. He went 5-5-1 in 1995, then resigned. They hired John Blake, who went 12-22 in three years. Then Bob Stoops went 7-5 in his first season. Of course, they won the BCS title in year two.

Southern Cal 1996-2001

• All-Time Winning Percentage: .698, seventh
• 1996-2001: 37-35

John Robinson won the Rose Bowl in 1995, but went 6-6 and 6-5 the next two years and was out. Paul Hackett came in and went 8-5, 6-6, and 5-7; Wikipedia notes it was USC’s first consecutive non-winning seasons since 1960-61. Pete Carroll went 6-6 in his first season. After that: 11-2, 12-1 and a title, 13-0 and another title.

LSU 1989-94

• All-Time Winning Percentage: .652, 13th
• 1989-94: 25-41

Mike Archer went 4-7 and 5-6 in his last two seasons. Curley Hallman went 16-28 over the next four seasons, never making a bowl game and leading a 2-9 squad in 1992. Gerry DiNardo was hired and went 7-4-1, 10-2, and 9-3 his first three seasons, but stumbled to 4-7 and 3-9 to close out the 1990’s. LSU hired Nick Saban and the rest is history.

So we’ve seen top-tier teams struggle as much or more than Tennessee in recent history, but only for about half as long. Programs like Oklahoma had unusual coaching turnover that contributed to the problem. While it’s difficult to duplicate Tennessee’s weirdness in the last 11 years, programs we might point to with similar circumstances both found their way out of it sooner and weren’t as bad for as long. Alabama had Mike DuBose in 2000, Dennis Franchione for two seasons, the infamous Mike Price hiring and firing, then Mike Shula to take over in 2003. But the Tide still went 53-40 on the field between DuBose’s final season and Saban’s first, though the official, post-violation record books have them at 32-46 in that span. Other programs had individual coaches that definitely didn’t work – Rich Rodriguez, Gerry Faust – but the next guy brought an upswing.

It’s obvious Butch Jones wasn’t that guy, but it’s still interesting to note how close he was to breaking Tennessee’s down cycle for at least one or two seasons. If the Vols stop Florida on any fourth down in 2015 to win the SEC East, and/or beat Vanderbilt to make the New Year’s Six in 2016, Jones would’ve been seen more like LSU’s DiNardo: not the guy long-term, but brought Tennessee back to tangible prominence for at least a moment and made life easier on the next guy. But you can’t really say the same thing about a pair of 9-4’s when they’re followed by the worst season of at least the modern era.

So we rightfully keep looking at the valley Tennessee has been in as a continuous walk for the last 11 years, with the sub-.500 football to prove it. If there’s a benefit here, it’s the way the length of the journey has forced healthier expectations upon us for Jeremy Pruitt’s second season. It wasn’t one bad hire or even six years away as was the case for Oklahoma, Southern Cal, and LSU. One great hire put a national championship in their hands in year two for Stoops, year three for Carroll, and year four for Saban. Given the length of Tennessee’s absence from that conversation, it should rightfully take a little more time to figure out if Pruitt is that kind of great coach, with other steps rightfully celebrated along the way.

We saved the worst for last. In our series on where Tennessee can make the most progress in 2019, we’ve explored:

• A defense with just 15 turnovers in each of the last two seasons
• The Vols running fewer plays than any team in the nation last year
• Opponents scoring points on 41 of 45 red zone trips
• A higher percentage of explosive plays than we thought in the passing game, but not in the running game

But if you’re looking for the thing Tennessee was absolutely, positively worst at last season, it’s third-and-short.

Last year Tennessee ran the ball 21 times on 3rd-&-1-to-3. They gained just 20 yards. Those 0.95 yards per carry on third-and-short weren’t just last in the country: Liberty finished 129th, and averaged 1.52 yards per carry. The Vols were the only team in America to average less than a yard-and-a-half per carry on third-and-short, and the Vols averaged less than a yard period.

(Stats, as always, via SportSource Analytics)

Those 21 carries led to 10 first downs, meaning the Vols converted just 47.6% of the time when running the ball on third-and-short. By comparison, here’s what Tennessee did in other situations last fall:

Statistically speaking, it was better for the Vols to be in 3rd-&-4-6 and pass than 3rd-&-1-3 and run. And Tennessee had more or less the same chance of getting a first down on a third-and-short run and a third-and-long pass.

The truth is, if you’re in third-and-short, you’ve done fairly well on first and second down. But Tennessee struggled mightily to convert from there. Here’s what the rest of the SEC did when running it on third-and-short:

Obviously, it would be hard to get much worse in this department. The good news is, because you’re already in a short yardage situation, a little improvement goes a long way toward keeping a drive alive. There may also be a stubbornness component here: I’d imagine Jeremy Pruitt/Tyson Helton had to see it several times to believe the Vols really couldn’t move the pile on third-and-short. Pruitt and Chaney are likely to believe it sooner if it happens again this fall.

We rolled out several new features in the 2019 edition of our Gameday on Rocky Top preseason football magazine, one of which is an eight-page Unit Rankings spread in the SEC section.

The GRT 2019 Unit Rankings section analyzes all 14 SEC teams by position and then ranks them for the upcoming season. The analysis varies depending on the position, but generally speaking, it’s based on how productive the unit was the prior season, how much of that production is returning, and how well the team recruited that position this cycle.

Tennessee, unfortunately, did not fare very well in most of the rankings. If you’ve purchased the magazine, you’ll know that the Vols rank first in the league in returning production percentage. According to our formula, Tennessee returns 89.47% of its offensive production, 68.07% of its defensive production, and 76.63% of its overall production. LSU is right behind the Vols with 76.29% overall, but there is a fairly significant gap between those two teams and everyone else.

Of course, returning production percentage tells only part of the story. It speaks to a team’s continuity, but it says nothing about how productive the team actually was the prior season, and it’s that second part that doomed the Vols in this year’s rankings. They simply weren’t very productive on either offense or defense in 2018.

Based on our calculations, here are the top SEC teams at each position for this fall:

And here’s where Tennessee came in at each position:

As you can see from the table above, Tennessee’s offensive and defensive production in 2018 is an anchor weighing down expectations for this fall despite the fact that the Vols return a larger percentage of that production than any other team in the SEC.

Even the Vols’ highest ranking — No. 3 at linebacker — was recently rendered incorrect with the announcement that Darrin Kirkland Jr. is indeed retiring from football. Kirkland’s status was still up in the air at our early press time, so his contributions were included in the calculations. Removing Kirkland’s contributions (and adding those of Darrell Taylor, who the official source data incorrectly identified as a DL despite him playing OLB all season) results in the Vols dropping down to No. 5. Shame, too, because those pages could really have used some of the right shade of orange.