Gameday on Rocky Top

When Tennessee beat LSU, we wrote this about the week to come:

You can think whatever you want about “back”; that’s a question we already learned we can’t really even answer until the entire story of this season has been written. This team has skipped so many steps in this rebuild – in that rebuild? – comparisons are hard to come by.

So never mind back. The Vols are here. Beat Bama.

In our Expected Win Total Machine, the Vols finish the regular season exactly who we thought they were on that day:

Beating Bama, of course, will make you believe everything is possible. No complaints or apologies about that; we’ll look forward to having that problem anytime the Vols want to give it to us. But on the other side of two losses and a rousing response from the defense, the entire story of the regular season is now told. Because of the injury to Hendon Hooker, the bowl game will include a higher percentage of next season than usual.

So here, at the end of the regular season, try this one on for size: are the Vols back?

Can you be back and lose to South Carolina the way we did?

It depends, of course, on what you’re looking for when you say “back”. But to me – and I would submit, for all of us – the answer to that question is absolutely yes.

Not because they beat Vanderbilt. Not because they avoided collapse after the South Carolina loss. And not because of the individual highs of Bama, LSU, Florida, you name it.

But in the landscape of college football, the ways we judge a season’s success are about to crystallize. Division titles, BCS/NY6 bowl appearances, all of that is about to merge into a single question: “Can we make the 12-team playoff?”

If we were asking that question right now, the answer would be yes. Best way to believe you can do it again is to know you can do it now.

“Back” was never about winning a national championship and calling everything else incomplete. “Back” is about playing your way into the conversation. Fewer teams and different names back then, but every year from 1989-2007, you went into the year believing the Vols would be in the conversation.

Tennessee’s own strategic plan uses Top 16 finishes to help define success for its programs. It’s in the “chase championships” language from the top: win some, absolutely. But chase them, always. In that sense, conversations will begin to sound like:

• Are we in the hunt for the 12-team playoff in football?
• Can we earn a Top 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament in basketball, to be favored to make the Sweet 16?
• Can we host a regional in pursuit of the College World Series in baseball/softball as one of the Top 16 teams?

In the biggest of pictures, it’s the greatest gift and the greatest accomplishment of this team: they put the Vols back in the championship conversation. More than beating Alabama by itself – but in large part because of it – this team got Tennessee in a four-team playoff chase, and would be hosting a first round game in a 12-teamer right now. This team, who was still that team just 24 months ago.

This team.

And yeah, that South Carolina loss hurts. It’s supposed to. That’s part of being in the conversation too. It hangs in limbo for the moment; if TCU and USC win next weekend, it may not have ultimately mattered. It could ultimately end up sharing that space with the Hobnailed Boot: an incredibly painful Saturday that didn’t end up costing Tennessee much of anything. We’ll see.

But no matter what anyone else does, including Tennessee in its bowl game, this team has already given us the best gift we could’ve asked for this season. The Vols are back in the chase. The past was great, the future is bright. But it’s the present that always matters most; it’s all we’ve ever really got.

And this year, Tennessee gave us an incredible gift.

It’s not over yet. Clemson vs Tennessee in the Orange Bowl will be the leading projection for the Vols this week, if the College Football Playoff poll continues to reflect what we saw in the AP poll today. It would be Tennessee’s most prestigious bowl appearance since a BCS at-large at the end of the 1999 season. It would give us a look at Joe Milton against a Top 10 team.

And – no matter the opponent, but especially if it’s them – it will give us one more meaningful look at this team. If it came against another program chasing championships, that’s a bonus. But this team – this team – has been such a gift, I’m so excited for the opportunity to see them one more time. When the Vols are in a good bowl, it’s like your Christmas extends out another week. For many of us, there’s almost a childlikeness to this group, because they’ve taken us back to those days ourselves.

What a gift this year has been. One more left.

And from here, make no mistake: the chase is on. In the most important conversation? The Vols are back.

This week, our community gives the Vols a 72.1% chance of victory at Vanderbilt. Some of that is the Dores, for sure: even coming off the Georgia loss, fans gave the Vols a 94.1% chance against Vandy two weeks ago.

The rest of it, of course, is Tennessee. The 72.1% number against Vandy is most similar to the 73.8% chance fans gave the Vols against #19 Kentucky a month ago:

2022 Expected Win Percentage at Kickoff via GRT Win Total Machine

Ball State	97.5%
Pitt	62.9%
Akron	98.6%
Florida	66.1%
LSU	59.9%
Alabama	38.3%
UT Martin	98.5%
Kentucky	73.8%
Georgia	45.7%
Missouri	82.7%
South Carolina	86.7%
Vanderbilt	72.1%

We need the full season, including the bowl game, to put this year in its proper context. But a win on Saturday would separate past from present in clear and tangible ways. The Vols would secure their first 10-win season since 2007, could play for their first 11-win season since 2001, and should position themselves nicely for a New Year’s Six bowl. That’s the kind of tangible prize the 2016 team missed out on at the end, something that goes on a t-shirt the way we haven’t seen since the last division title 15 years ago. And if you like looking ahead, every program’s goal is getting ready to be, “Can we make the 12-team playoff?” – win at Vandy, and the Vols would be in good position in a hypothetical expanded playoff if it existed this year. It’s the kind of thing that makes you believe we could do it again.

In that Vanderbilt game six years ago, with the Vols a win away from the Sugar Bowl, things changed very quickly. That Tennessee team had already lost thrice, and was in position to make New Orleans based on the strength of the SEC that season. This Tennessee team can make New Orleans, Miami, or Dallas on their own merits.

But just as Tennessee’s narrative shifted rapidly last week, that 2016 team took a 34-24 lead on the Commodores with three minutes to play in the third quarter. The defense missed opportunities to get off the field on 3rd-and-6 and 3rd-and-10 on the next drive, a Vanderbilt touchdown that cut it to 34-31 in the final minute of the third. Three snaps later, Josh Dobbs fumbled at midfield. Vandy scored again to take a 38-34 lead with 12 minutes to play. The Vols had 1st-and-10 at the 12 on their next drive, but settled for a 37-yard field goal…that missed with 6:46 to go.

Then Vandy went 39 yards on 3rd-and-1. Then they scored two plays later. And just like that, it was out of reach at 45-34 with four minutes to play. The Vols were stopped on 4th-and-4 at the Vandy 13 with 1:37 to play to make it official. Josh Dobbs in that game: 31-of-34 for 340 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. 31-of-34, but we lost.

It’s the “but we lost”, of course, that the Vols want to avoid this weekend. As we’re still thinking about last weekend, we’ll need this one to help put it into full context too.

There are still a handful of “worst loss since” going around late this week; I get it. I think it is definitely the most surprising loss I can remember; it easily clears that bar relative to expectation at kickoff via Vegas (favored by 22, lost by 25). We’ll still need the rest of the year to see what happens – for instance, one of Tennessee Basketball’s toughest losses became Loyola Chicago, not just for how it happened, but for the way the bracket broke wide open and the sense of what could have been. If TCU and USC keep winning, the Vols may not have made the playoffs either way. We’ll see.

One thing I’ve done this week is track down other bewildering losses of the playoff era among contenders. It’s not to explain away what happened last week; honestly, any real off-the-field issues would actually make it more understandable that the Vols allowed nine touchdowns on ten drives. It’s more to say, for at least one and perhaps all of these programs, you’d still believe they can contend again.

The best comparison comes from friend of the blog Jay:

• 2017: #6 Ohio State lost at unranked Iowa 55-24 as a 21-point favorite. Iowa scored 27 combined points in the previous two weeks, including an overtime loss to Northwestern. A trap game between wins over #2 Penn State and #12 Michigan State, this November 4 loss clearly cost the Buckeyes the playoffs in the long run. One-loss Alabama still got in (and won it all) over these two-loss conference champions, who also fell to #5 Oklahoma in week two.

It’s a great comparison for the sudden surprise of a struggling Iowa offense, the spread, and the stakes. It’s also incredibly helpful in knowing that the Buckeyes, as a program, have had plenty of other chances. A loss like this doesn’t guarantee you’ll never get that close again.

Other comparisons:

• 2016: #5 Louisville lost at unranked Houston 36-10 as a 14-point favorite. Similar to the, “What in the world happened to our defense?!” vibes, Houston put Lamar Jackson in a bottle: 20-of-43 for 211 yards, 25 carries for 33 yards. A shocking loss on November 17, one they did not recover from in also falling to Kentucky the next week. A playoffs-to-Citrus-Bowl fall we will not seek to emulate.
• 2018: #2 Ohio State lost at unranked Purdue 49-20 as a 12-point favorite. Again, the Buckeyes: ambushed on the road and ultimately missing the playoffs because of it.
• 2021: #2 Iowa lost to unranked Purdue 24-7 as an 11-point favorite. Again, Purdue. The Hawkeyes, with three Top 20 wins including #4 Penn State leading up to this one, also lost their very next game to Wisconsin.

So yes, it does happen. And yes, your program can contend again.

How that conversation will sound depends a lot on what the Vols do with Vanderbilt. It will deal specifically with what we see from Joe Milton. But in general, how will this season finish? What will the Vols give themselves a chance to do next: break new ground in the playoff era, or end the season on a two-game slide?

In a season with so many big games and big wins, there’s quite a bit on the line in this last regular season game. Can these Vols find one more big win?

Even after losing to Georgia, last week marked the second-highest confidence level of the season overall. After blowing out Missouri, fans were even more confident the Vols would get to 11 wins than we were coming out of the Alabama game. It did not go that way, of course, but this chart is still a wonder to behold over the course of the entire season:

Officially, the Vols will go to Nashville with Joe Milton as QB1:

https://twitter.com/Vol_Football/status/1594447220132270084

So now, the final question of the regular season carries much more weight: how confident are you the Vols will beat Vanderbilt? The Commodores have won two straight over Kentucky and Florida, and are now battling for bowl eligibility. The Vols, depending on how Tuesday’s playoff poll looks, will be positioning themselves for a New Year’s Six bowl. And in the longest of terms, Tennessee will look to finish off its best season in at least 15 years, would earn its first two-loss regular season in 18 years with a win, and give themselves a chance to play for its first 11-win season in 21 years.

Past, present, and future with Milton, there is a ton to play for Saturday night. How are we feeling this Monday morning?

A season that has surprised us all saved another one for tonight. And this time, unfortunately, it was not the fun kind.

These things always need the full season to find their proper place, as much as the moment may invite us to do otherwise each week. This post will go up on our front page next to one breaking down historical precedent for one-loss teams in the College Football Playoff. Guilty as charged for spending more time on that than previewing South Carolina. Couldn’t help myself: how often have we gotten to spend real time discussing the playoff?

Those are the tangled emotions tonight: an unbelievable rise for a team we collectively expected to finish 8-4, an unbelievable setup for your closing playoff argument (so we thought), and now an unbelievable result to remove that option from the table.

I wrote last week about the inevitability that had suddenly surrounded watching this team play, the way they coasted past Missouri when the Tigers cut it to four in the third quarter. And then tonight, South Carolina’s offense carried a similar feeling.

Even when Tennessee cut it to four themselves, 35-31 with almost ten minutes to play in the third quarter? So much time for this team, it felt like. But Carolina’s offense again pounced, a nine-play drive with only one third down, and a 42-31 lead. Tennessee attacked again, because that’s what we do, moving the ball to what should’ve been the South Carolina 30. But a small but dangerous truth showed itself again: the only way to stop this offense is to make it go backward, and an offensive pass interference call wiped away the chance for points on that drive.

And then South Carolina converted 3rd-and-20 on their following drive. Then they got another first down on a hands to the face penalty on 3rd-and-8. Then they scored. Then Hendon got hurt.

There are many things about tonight that will ultimately run together; none of them will add up to scenarios where we could’ve won given those set of plays. And that’s a frustration the Vols will have to play themselves past, into the future. Beat Alabama the way we did, and you’ll rightfully believe you can do anything. Allow nine South Carolina touchdowns in ten possessions, and you’ll rightfully be concerned you might be more vulnerable than you realized on any Saturday.

Whether this is the biggest loss since whatever will need more time; for many of the younger persuasion, it will have fewer competitors. For Tennessee, and it seems for Joe Milton, there are still 2022 pages left to write. How will the Vols respond against Vanderbilt? What bowl destination are we looking at now, as we wait to see how the playoff poll responds for the New Year’s Six?

There is still a tremendous opportunity to finish this chapter and have it be not just overwhelmingly positive, but transformational. That the story of this team would not be what they lost, but what they gave themselves – and those who’ll follow them – the opportunity to do. Those last few paragraphs will still be quite meaningful for things to come. And if the Vols can continue to play at a championship-conversation level? They’ll have their chances to learn from this and grow, still early in Heupel’s tenure, by winning games that carry this kind of meaning again.

For those of us of the older-ish persuasion, or at least the middle-aged ones? I find some comfort in remembering times when we were avalanched by Florida’s offense in 1995 and 1996, Nebraska’s in 1997, or Florida & Alabama in 2007…and still turned something profound out of those seasons. No one is mistaking this South Carolina team for those offenses, just as no one would’ve with Alabama’s in 2007. There’s a shock value that feels hard to find the right comparison for tonight.

But I also would’ve said the same about beating Alabama blow-for-blow, not too very long ago. Or being number one, even for a single week.

So now, how will these final few pages be written? Even tonight, I’m eager to see them try again.

Go Vols.

The Vols remained at #5 in the College Football Playoff poll this week after two overtimes and many of our bedtimes. Shout out to Michigan State, giving the Vols an early transitive scrimmage win over Kentucky in basketball.

The top four speak for themselves, all undefeated at 10-0. LSU trails the Vols at six, and will get their chance against number one Georgia in a few weeks. USC is seven, with Clemson (#9) and North Carolina (#13) also still alive as potential one-loss conference champions.

While the Vols don’t control their own destiny, there are certainly clear-cut scenarios left out there. The happiest of those would include four of these five outcomes:

• The Ohio State/Michigan game is a blowout
• TCU loses at Baylor, then loses again in the Big 12 Championship Game
• Georgia beats LSU in the SEC Championship Game
• USC loses one of its remaining games (at UCLA, Notre Dame, Pac 12 Championship)
• Clemson (Miami, South Carolina) or North Carolina (Georgia Tech, NC State) loses one of its remaining regular season games, then beats the other in the ACC Championship Game

If all of those things happened, there would be no one-loss conference champions. Georgia is number one, the Ohio State/Michigan winner is number two, and the Vols have the no-doubt next best resume. Even if only four of those things happened, Tennessee would still be in excellent position to earn one of the top four spots.

The messiness comes with more and more of those outcomes falling through. TCU obviously controls its own fate and would get no arguments here. But you would get plenty of argument surrounding a group that looked like this:

• 11-1 Ohio State/Michigan loser in a close game
• 11-2 LSU beats Georgia in the SEC Championship Game
• 12-1 USC as Pac 12 Champion
• 12-1 Clemson or UNC as ACC Champion

If TCU is undefeated, you’ve got those four plus 11-1 Tennessee for the final spot. That’s a mess. It’s one the Vols still might come out on top of, currently sitting at number five and thus primed to move to number four after Ohio State/Michigan. But it would be a lengthy conversation.

The most likely outcome is, of course, somewhere between our best and worst case scenarios. But a couple of those would still present brand new scenarios for the committee to consider.

Here’s a look at the eight-year history of the College Football Playoff, from Wikipedia:

A couple things stand out here:

• Two teams made the playoffs without appearing in their conference championship game: 2016 Ohio State and 2017 Alabama. Both of those teams got in without a one-loss conference champion being left out. This made things much cleaner. But this also means if we’re comparing 11-1 Tennessee to 12-1 USC/TCU/Clemson on selection Sunday? Picking the Vols over a one-loss conference champion would represent a scenario that hasn’t happened before.
• 2016 Ohio State does give some precedent to the Vols getting in over SEC Champion LSU. That year, Penn State actually beat the Buckeyes head-to-head, then won the Big Ten. But their two losses – including 49-10 to Michigan – kept them out over Ohio State’s lone 24-21 loss in Happy Valley.

I count eight one-loss power five teams who got left out in the history of the playoff. Half of them involve the Big Ten. All of them seem to make sense:

• 2014 Baylor & 2014 TCU were famously left out in the first year of the playoff for four other undefeated or one-loss conference champions, which directly led to the return of the Big 12 Championship Game. That year is also the only non-covid time any one-loss team was seeded higher than an undefeated power five champion (Florida State), though the Noles still made the playoffs at #3.
• 2015 Iowa lost to Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship Game, putting 12-1 Sparty in and giving the Hawkeyes their first loss, leaving them out. Ohio State was also 11-1 this year with a narrow loss to Michigan State, but ended the season with just one ranked win. It didn’t matter for making the playoff, but the committee did put them behind 11-2 Pac-12 Champion Stanford in their final ranking.
• 2017 Wisconsin, like 2015 Iowa, was undefeated going to the Big Ten title game, but lost to Ohio State. The Buckeyes still didn’t get in at 11-2, left out for 11-1 (and eventual national champs) Alabama who didn’t make Atlanta. The committee went Alabama #4, Ohio State #5, Wisconsin #6.
• 2018 Ohio State won the Big Ten, but lost to Purdue 49-20 in the regular season. That year three teams finished the regular season undefeated, plus 12-1 Oklahoma, who got in at #4. Georgia was 11-2 and finished #5, then the Buckeyes.
• 2020 Texas A&M finished 8-1 in the pandemic year. They lost 52-24 to Alabama in the regular season, and finished #5 behind three undefeated/one-loss conference champions and 10-1 Notre Dame.
• 2021 Notre Dame lost head-to-head to Cincinnati in the regular season; the Bearcats got in as the first Group of Five teams to make the playoffs while Notre Dame finished fifth.

Purely based on historical precedent, Tennessee’s biggest competition at present among one-loss teams is USC. But I wouldn’t even completely rule out Clemson or North Carolina just yet, or TCU if it loses just one game. The good news is, we’re still talking about two theoretical spots left if/when TCU loses and not just one.

The Vols have to keep winning, and looking good doing it doesn’t hurt. We’d certainly prefer not to be in a situation where the committee has to do something they’ve never done before to put Tennessee in. But the Vols should still have an amazing resume if that conversation ultimately takes place.

We’ll cross more of that bridge when we need to. For now: Go Vols, Go Baylor, Go Bruins.

We’ve reached the final two games of the regular season, which means our boundaries are pretty clearly defined in expected wins. That’s usually true for Tennessee when we close the season with Vanderbilt; it’s especially true for this Tennessee team, playing with an inevitability they’ll take on the road to South Carolina this week. The Gamecocks just got drilled in Gainesville 38-6, and have beaten only Vanderbilt since a brief appearance in the Top 25.

The Vols remain at #5 in the polls this week, continuing to lead the pack among one-loss teams. Yesterday, we also got an old reminder of the intersection between football and basketball when football is having a good year. Tennessee’s unexpected loss to Colorado in Bridgestone Arena – with the Vols shooting just 16-of-63 (25.4%) from the floor – will fall to the outer edges of the radar while the playoff chase is on. It happens in ways we tend not to remember, which is the point: Bruce Pearl’s 2008 squad that eventually went to #1 lost 97-78 to Rick Barnes’ Texas squad on November 24, 2007…but it barely registered, because the Vols beat Kentucky to win the SEC East in football the same day. Buzz Peterson’s first team, coming off four straight NCAA Tournament appearances, lost to Marquette and St. John’s while the 2001 Vols were climbing the BCS ladder.

Barnes’ team will command a little more attention; the program’s rise under his watch has earned it. The Thanksgiving tournament next week should make for a great weekend build as the Vols prepare to close out the regular season with Vanderbilt. Between now and then, our eyes will continue to follow the teams around the Vols in the playoff chase this upcoming Saturday: TCU at Baylor at noon, USC at UCLA at 8:00 PM.

The football team continues to tread not only 90s ground, but best-of-the-90s ground. At five weeks in the Top 5, the 2022 Vols have been in the national conversation longer than many of the seasons we know and love. And with wins over South Carolina and Vanderbilt, they’ll have a chance to move into at least third place on this list:

(Shout out to the 1967 Vols, quickly becoming a modern-era benchmark, who spent seven weeks in the Top 5 themselves):

Tennessee Most Weeks in the Top 5 (since 1967):

• 13 weeks in 1998: September 19 through end of season (went to #4 after beating #2 Florida, finished #1)
• 9 weeks in 1997: Preseason through September 20 (lost to #2 Florida), November 8 through Orange Bowl (returned after beating #24 Southern Miss, finished #7 after loss to #2 Nebraska)
• 8 weeks in 1995: October 14 through end of season (went to #5 after beating #12 Alabama, finished #3)
• 7 weeks in 1999: Preseason through September 18 (lost to #4 Florida), October 9 through November 13 (returned after beating #10 Georgia, left after loss at Arkansas)
• 5 weeks in 2022 (and counting): October 15 through present

Enjoy the week. Don’t stop now.

When Missouri hit a 38-yard pass to make it 28-24 midway through the third quarter, were you worried?

Tennessee still had a sizeable statistical advantage, turned away twice on fourth down inside the Missouri 40 in the first half. The Tigers, meanwhile, had already gone three-and-out four times. It felt like Tennessee was in control.

And even after last week, Tennessee feeling in control has suddenly become normal.

I know this feeling, from my own childhood. We treated Florida one way, but just about everybody else the other: no matter what happens, we’ve got this. The number of times we’ve sat in Neyland Stadium and watched an underdog show some fight, still knowing the Vols have it under control because that’s what the Vols do…

It stopped being that way for a long time, of course. But again today, the comparisons are less about how different this is than the last 15 years. That’s how long it’s been since we went undefeated in Neyland. That’s how long it’s been since we won nine games in the regular season.

No, the better comparisons are now about how short the list is. This team isn’t just like the 90s. This team would hold its own against just about any of them.

9-1 Starts at Tennessee since 1970

• 1989: Finished 11-1, SEC Champions
• 1995: Finished 11-1, #3 Final Ranking
• 1997: Finished 11-2, SEC Champions
• 1998: Finished 13-0, National Champions
• 2001: Finished 11-2, SEC East Champions
• 2022: Currently 9-1

The Vols will almost certainly add “New Year’s Six”, at least, to that list. The playoff chase continues outside of Neyland Stadium; Oregon and TCU both find themselves in tight games as I write. All of that will or won’t work itself out. But Tennessee, asserting itself in a game it always had control of with national stakes in November?

There’s such comfort with this team.

By asserting itself, I mean three touchdowns in the next seven minutes of game time, 21 points in 13 offensive snaps. That sequence included two more Missouri three-and-outs, just for good measure. Tennessee just moves with such purpose; they are not perfect, but they are coming on every drive. The Vols punted twice today, staying on their average of two punts per SEC contest. One was with a 25-point lead. The other was because a holding penalty put Tennessee in 1st-and-20. Again, the only way to make this offense punt is to make it go backward.

And today, it went forward for 724 yards, a school record. The old record belonged to the 2012 Troy game, a “why aren’t we taking control?!” affair with a coach on his way out. Long live the new record, and this team on its way up.

We took our five year old son to the game today, his first. The weather could’ve been better, but I’m not sure anything else missed. Do I tell him, “Hey, 66 points doesn’t happen every week!” Or, “Hey, 724 yards has never happened, so maybe don’t get used to it?”

Because this – old and new and all of it – oh, we could get used to this.

What a gift this season is.

And it’s not at all over yet.

Go Vols.