Gameday on Rocky Top

Last summer, we looked at some of Tennessee’s best and worst surprises in the post-Fulmer era. We used UT’s performance relative to expectations: how much did Tennessee over-or-under-perform against the spread?

In the negative department, four of Tennessee’s five worst performances against the spread post-Fulmer came from 2017-2020, and each of those happened in Knoxville. There’s a reason it felt the way it did walking out of the stadium.

So then, we wondered how much a good surprise might be worth to Josh Heupel in year one. And that’s exactly what we got: the Vols went to Missouri at +2.5 on October 2, and won 62-24. That 40.5-point over-performance was the best of the post-Fulmer era, topping Tyler Bray’s coming out party in Knoxville against Ole Miss in 2010 (a 52-14 win at -2.5). And it was indeed no fluke: the Vols over-performed the line by 14.5 points the very next week against South Carolina, and off we went.

I don’t know if the Missouri game is your dominant image from 2021. But historically, it might be the most significant outcome from last fall.

So looking forward to 2022, I celebrated two holidays this weekend: Independence Day, and Phil Steele’s arrival. If you love stats and history, I highly recommend his online access, which includes every team’s performance against the spread going back some 40 years. So I spent some time these past few days digging deeper than just the post-Fulmer era on these questions: what are Tennessee’s best and worst performances against the spread? And how high on those lists do the struggles of 2017-2020 and the unexpected delight of 2021 rank?

I went back as far as 1985, using that SEC Championship season as a benchmark for both my lifespan and our modern conversation. We’ll save the best for last, and look at Tennessee’s best performances against the spread later this week. Today, here’s a look at Tennessee’s worst performances against the spread. Can’t appreciate the good without the context!

Tennessee’s 10 Worst Performances Against the Spread, 1985-Present

10. 1993 vs Penn State (Citrus Bowl): favored by 10, lost 31-13

We’ll see more from Heath Shuler’s squad tomorrow, which was so dominant it confused Vegas more than once, then did so again in the finale. This team, still Tennessee’s all-time best in SP+, lost at Florida by seven and tied Alabama in Birmingham. They destroyed everyone else. And then in the bowl game, they took a 10-0 lead…before Penn State closed on a 31-3 run. Ki-Jana Carter ran for 108 of their 209 yards, and the Nittany Lions had their second bowl victory over Tennessee in three years.

9. 1999 Memphis: favored by 30, won 17-16

Beware the orange pants! With everyone expecting bloodshed following the events of the next game on our list, the defending national champion Vols were perhaps still thinking about the loss at Florida the previous week. Tennessee needed a last minute drive to get the win on a very nervous homecoming Saturday. This was my freshman year at UT, and I’m not sure I’ve ever spent more of a game thinking about how bad it would be to lose. But we didn’t!

8. 1996 at Memphis: favored by 26, lost 21-17

Kevin Cobb was down.

6a. 1988 Washington State: favored by 3, lost 52-24

An 0-4 start became 0-5, with Tennessee surrendering more than 600 yards of offense. A Host of Volunteers has a great podcast about the 1988 season, which started 0-6 but ended 5-0, setting the table for Tennessee’s golden era to begin in 1989.

6b. 2017 Georgia: 10-point underdogs, lost 41-0

Tennessee’s run on the national scene from 2015-16 came to a firm halt on this day, dominated by Kirby Smart’s year two Bulldogs in Knoxville.

4a. 1995 Vanderbilt: favored by 32, won 12-7

This line will make more sense when you see what happened in this match-up the previous year. In the 1995 regular season finale, the Vols were ranked fifth, but almost stumbled the week before in Lexington. Against Woody Widenhofer’s year one Commodores, the Vols struggled offensively, but got the job done in a 12-7 victory. (The next two years against Vanderbilt, with some guy named Manning at quarterback: 14-7, 17-10). The Vols struggled into the Citrus Bowl…then beat maybe the most talented team they’ve ever faced from Ohio State.

4b. 2007 at Florida: 7-point underdogs, lost 59-20

An odd game, but not for this rivalry. Florida led 28-13 and was driving for the putaway score in the third quarter, when true freshman Eric Berry picked sophomore Tim Tebow and raced back 96 yards for a score. The Vols got a stop, and got the ball back down 28-20 with five minutes to play in the third quarter. And then, disaster: an Arian Foster fumble was returned for a touchdown, followed by a 99-yard Florida drive, followed by, followed by, followed by. The Gators scored 31 unanswered in the final 20 minutes, giving the Vols their worst margin-of-victory loss of the Fulmer era. Tebow won the Heisman, but the Vols would rebound to win the SEC East.

3. 2019 Georgia State: favored by 24.5, lost 31-23

This game had a chance to play in some real positive history at UT, as the 2019 Vols eventually rebounded from this disaster to finish the year on a six game win streak. The fallout for the Jeremy Pruitt era in 2020 severed that potential chain, leaving this one as one of two notable examples for getting stunned at home by a mid-major, along with…

2. 2008 Wyoming: favored by 27, lost 13-7

The margin of upset is wider here by half a point. But given what was happening at the time, I do think the Georgia State loss hurt more; at this stage in 2008, Fulmer was out, and the team played like it.

1. 2020 Kentucky: favored by 6.5, lost 34-7

Going back through at least 1985, this is Tennessee’s worst performance relative to the spread. The pick sixes in the first half set the tone, and Kentucky’s offense was able to finish things off in the second. The Vols have been blown out by more, for sure, but have never performed so poorly relative to what we thought would happen at kick-off, at least via Vegas standards.

Which is why it’s so amazing to know what they did against Missouri in the opposite direction just one year later. More on that later this week.

It was kind of USC and UCLA, all things considered, to let their news loose on June 30. Nine weeks til kickoff, three weeks til SEC Media Days, baseball season moving into the rear view. It’s great content, thanks!

So now, is there a great version of where all this might be headed for Tennessee?

To me, two questions guide the thought process for the SEC moving forward:

• Who makes it worth it to continue to expand?
• How big is too big?

Football takes the lead on all of this, so a lot of what we’ll look at here in terms of size and scope is based on football scheduling. But I think you have to start with, “Would the league be good at 16 no matter what else happens?”

Who makes it worth it to continue to expand?

Back in the early pandemic days when we were uncertain when football would be played again, we had some fun building a 32-team football superconference. The framework we used is the same one making the decisions now, as usual: which programs are most valuable?

From that 2018 list from the Wall Street Journal, we found 13 programs valued at more than $500 million. With Texas and Oklahoma coming to the SEC, each of those 13 programs was already slated for the Big Ten or the SEC…except for Notre Dame. The Irish remain the white whale in this exercise (which makes them even less likely to be on any fantasy SEC radars).

From there, another 19 programs were valued at $250+ million. Those 32 teams represent:

• 11 of 14 current SEC programs (soon 13 of 16 with Texas/OU)
• 8 of 14 current Big Ten programs (soon 10 of 16 with USC/UCLA)
• 4 of 10 current Big 12 programs, with wide disparity between Texas/OU and Kansas State/Oklahoma State
• 5 of 12 current Pac 12 programs
• 3 of 14 current ACC programs
• Notre Dame

If the SEC and Big Ten remain committed to their existing structures, the biggest winners yesterday were Vanderbilt, Rutgers, Missouri, Purdue, etc. Those programs get a seat at the big table they wouldn’t be able to pull up to on their own.

Based on those 2018 Wall Street Journal rankings, after Notre Dame the next two most valuable programs outside the current 32 team SEC & Big Ten are Oregon and Washington. Again, unlikely to be considered for the SEC. As Stewart Mandel points out in his overarching piece in The Athletic, Oregon holds a lot of power here. If they want to stay, the Pac-12 has a future. If they want to go and the Big Ten is willing to say yes, we’re deep down the path to the Big 2.

From an SEC perspective, in value the two most obvious targets are Clemson and Florida State. Those are three of your last nine national championships, and Clemson just played for another in 2019. Those two would get you to 18. If you wanted to expand from there? Virginia Tech is the next most valuable football program in the ACC, the last in the $250+ million club. Miami is further down the list (behind Georgia Tech among ACC schools, but that seems unlikely from a football perspective), but certainly adds name recognition, history, and expands the footprint.

One other thought among many: the SEC’s last two rounds of expansion always went outside existing territories and rivalries: Arkansas and South Carolina in 1992, Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012. Would South Carolina and Florida protest the most obvious additions of Clemson and Florida State, even in this landscape?

If so, I wonder about Duke and North Carolina from an all-sports perspective, which would immediately change the calculus in basketball. If Duke is a no go for various reasons, North Carolina and Virginia Tech would still fit the previous model.

Here’s the real question: how many of these teams are worth it?

And if the league decides they’re good at 16, would they still be good if the Big Ten went shopping? Does a 16-team SEC still carry enough weight to lead the conversation if the Big Ten adds Clemson, Notre Dame, Oregon, and Washington?

Some of this will also get down to the future of the College Football Playoff. Does the SEC view the Big Ten as an equal, or at least equalish? As early as 2026, could we see the champion of the SEC play the champion of the Big Ten, and nevermind what anyone else thinks?

There are plenty of dominoes to fall from there, including future non-conference scheduling, etc. But there is certainly a scenario where the SEC looks at all of this, even potential future expansion from the Big Ten, and says, “Nah, we’re good.”

If the league does say yes to expansion, then…

How big is too big?

Let’s start with what feels like the football move that would earn the most head nods: add Clemson and Florida State to go to 18, then stop there. At that point, the league doesn’t need Miami, or the North Carolina and Virginia markets to make that case that it clearly has the only championship-caliber argument in the south.

For scheduling purposes, we’ll attempt to stick to the one thing everyone seems to agree on: teams in the same conference need to play each other more often! Eighteen teams lends itself to two models:

• One annual rivalry, then rotate the other eight opponents every year.
• Five annual rivalries, then rotate four other opponents every three years.

One annual rivalry among 18 teams is a mess, particularly for a team like Tennessee. A quick pass at what made the most sense to me left the Vols and their opponent with the third-best option every year:

• Alabama vs Auburn
• Florida vs Florida State
• Clemson vs South Carolina
• Georgia vs Tennessee
• Texas A&M vs LSU
• Texas vs Oklahoma
• Ole Miss vs Mississippi State
• Arkansas vs Missouri
• Kentucky vs Vanderbilt

Maybe it’s moderately fair, and in this system you’re seeing everyone every other year anyway. But in this format, games like Alabama/Tennessee, Florida/Georgia, Auburn/Georgia, etc. are getting played on home fields only once every four years. Seems unlikely, even in the midst of so many traditions falling by the wayside.

Five annual rivalries with four rotating opponents? Let’s get nuts.

18-Team SEC, Five Annual Rivalries (Plus 4 rotating opponents)

Alabama	Auburn	LSU	Tennessee	Texas A&M	Clemson
Arkansas	LSU	Missouri	Texas A&M	Mississippi St	Texas
Auburn	Alabama	Georgia	LSU	Mississippi St	Florida State
Clemson	South Carolina	Florida State	Georgia	Alabama	Vanderbilt
Florida	Georgia	Florida State	Tennessee	South Carolina	Kentucky
Florida State	Florida	Clemson	Auburn	Vanderbilt	South Carolina
Georgia	Florida	Auburn	South Carolina	Clemson	Tennessee
Kentucky	Tennessee	Vanderbilt	Florida	Mississippi St	Missouri
LSU	Arkansas	Alabama	Texas A&M	Ole Miss	Auburn
Mississippi St	Ole Miss	Arkansas	Auburn	Kentucky	Oklahoma
Missouri	Arkansas	South Carolina	Oklahoma	Texas	Kentucky
Ole Miss	Mississippi St	LSU	Vanderbilt	Oklahoma	Texas
Oklahoma	Texas	Texas A&M	Missouri	Ole Miss	Mississippi St
South Carolina	Clemson	Missouri	Georgia	Florida	Florida State
Tennessee	Kentucky	Alabama	Vanderbilt	Florida	Georgia
Texas	Oklahoma	Texas A&M	Arkansas	Missouri	Ole Miss
Texas A&M	Texas	Arkansas	LSU	Oklahoma	Alabama
Vanderbilt	Tennessee	Kentucky	Ole Miss	Florida State	Clemson

It’s imperfect, for sure, and carries some compromise for many, especially new additions like Oklahoma with few natural fits for so many protected rivalries. But for a team like Tennessee (and others), this system preserves every one of our biggest rivalries, then you’d see everyone else every three years, and in Neyland every six years.

So in addition to playing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt every year, you’d get something like this:

YEAR A: Clemson, at Texas A&M, at Texas, Missouri

YEAR B: at LSU, Florida State, Ole Miss, at Mississippi State

YEAR C: Oklahoma, at Auburn, at South Carolina, Arkansas

(then switch the home-and-away for the next three years)

Or go to 20, and you’ve got:

20-Team SEC, Four Annual Rivalries (Plus 5 Rotating Opponents)

Alabama	Auburn	Tennessee	LSU	Ole Miss
Arkansas	LSU	Missouri	Texas	Texas A&M
Auburn	Alabama	Georgia	Mississippi St	LSU
Clemson	South Carolina	Florida State	Virginia Tech	Miami
Florida	Florida State	Georgia	Tennessee	South Carolina
Florida State	Florida	Miami	Clemson	Virginia Tech
Georgia	Florida	Auburn	South Carolina	Vanderbilt
Kentucky	Tennessee	Vanderbilt	Mississippi St	Virginia Tech
LSU	Arkansas	Alabama	Texas A&M	Auburn
Miami	Florida State	Virginia Tech	Clemson	South Carolina
Mississippi St	Ole Miss	Auburn	Kentucky	Missouri
Missouri	Arkansas	Oklahoma	Texas	Mississippi St
Oklahoma	Texas	Texas A&M	Missouri	Ole Miss
Ole Miss	Mississippi St	Vanderbilt	Alabama	Oklahoma
South Carolina	Clemson	Georgia	Florida	Miami
Tennessee	Kentucky	Vanderbilt	Alabama	Florida
Texas	Oklahoma	Texas A&M	Arkansas	Missouri
Texas A&M	Texas	Oklahoma	LSU	Arkansas
Vanderbilt	Tennessee	Kentucky	Ole Miss	Georgia
Virginia Tech	Miami	Florida State	Clemson	Kentucky

No matter which way you do it, there are compromises. These are just first draft ideas.

These exercises are fun, especially in July. Are either of them better for Tennessee than the SEC staying put at 16 teams?

The real answer to that question, I think: what will access to the College Football Playoff look like?

You need enough carrots out there for everyone in your league, as we wrote when Oklahoma and Texas headed our way last July. One way to make such a thing at least possible: an eight-team SEC playoff, which would instantly become a pass/fail benchmark for the entire league. Send the winner to face the champion of the BIG Whatever, and you’ve got a deal…it’s just one that cuts out everyone else in college football from the national championship chase.

If the sport isn’t headed in that direction, you’re still talking about x number of SEC teams chasing College Football Playoff bids…but for the rest? Is the Outback Bowl or whatever it’s called today still going to cut it when an increased playing field inherently leads to more losses to go around?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, though I do enjoy the conversation.

The best thing Tennessee can do: keep getting better.

https://twitter.com/Vol_Sports/status/1542161218277892096

And what you learn along the way is, these little moments are always available. Your team doesn’t have to win it all before they can do something meaningful, before we can enjoy them.

Whenever I hear people asking if this – right now – is as good as it’s ever been, I feel my age. In March and April of 1998, the men’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nine years, and the Lady Vols went 39-0 to win their third straight national championship. You’re probably aware of what the football team did that fall. Those were some pretty good days.

But what I really think back to is 2007-08. In the summer of 2007, Lady Vol softball played for the national championship. That fall, we won the SEC East in football. In February, we beat #1 Memphis and went to the top of the polls ourselves in basketball. And in April, the Lady Vols won their second straight national championship. It felt like a time less reliant on purely what we did in football, and more about the overall health of the athletic department.

There’s an image from back then that I can’t find, but often reference: Pat Summitt, Phillip Fulmer, and Bruce Pearl sitting together at a Lady Vol softball game. Two Mount Rushmore faces of Tennessee Athletics, and a young (47 at the time!) coach you thought might join them one day. You just knew we were in good hands, and those hands would have us in the hunt.

That’s the real prize, to me: are we in the hunt?

Define success only by winning championships, and you will spend most of your fandom disappointed. But are your teams capable? When you sit down to watch, do you believe they can win? That’s the prize.

Things changed faster than any of us would’ve guessed from those 2007-08 seasons, now 15 years ago. There have still been moments along the way, always accessible. We’ve just had a really hard time lining them up:

• Men’s basketball went to the Elite Eight in 2010, two months after Lane Kiffin left in the middle of the night.
• Pat Summitt was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2011, still helping the team win the SEC Tournament and reach the Elite Eight in 2012, her final season.
• Cuonzo Martin’s 2014 team came within a charge call of the Elite Eight. He left for Cal soon after.
• The 2015 and 2016 football Vols went 9-4, 3-1 against Florida and Georgia in those two years. Those seasons carried their share of what could’ve been, but still represent the high-water mark for football since 2007. Meanwhile, men’s basketball had their low-water mark for the same span in 2015 and 2016 during the transition from Donnie Tyndall to Rick Barnes.
• Barnes got it going with an SEC Championship in 2018 and a month at #1 in 2019. Those years were preceded by a 4-8 football season in 2017, then a handful of 25+ point losses in 2018.

We got close enough to consider asking the question two ago, after football rallied from a 1-4 start to finish 8-5 in the fall of 2019. Some of those moments were both fun and meaningful. And that remained the struggle soon after, certainly impacted by the pandemic: how to string meaningful moments together, to make one year build on the next.

On the football side of things, credit Josh Heupel and his staff for making his year one far more competitive and exciting than most had planned, then building on it with real momentum in recruiting. And since football season ended, we’ve seen this:

• Men’s basketball won the SEC Tournament for the first time since 1979
• The Lady Vols made the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2016
• Baseball spent most of the season ranked #1, winning the SEC regular season and tournament crowns

It’s not that every program on campus is ready to be considered the best in the land. But in those sports, Tennessee is in the hunt. Softball hasn’t left the hunt.

And that question now turns to football, the biggest hunt of all. The Vols haven’t won 9+ games in the regular season since 2007.

Meaningful Saturdays are out there, and not too many from now. What will this team do this fall?

On a personal note: I started writing about Tennessee 16 years ago, about 10 days after I became a pastor. I’d lived in Knoxville all my life, then moved to Virginia to begin serving churches. And I just missed talking about the Vols.

I did that for a few years just on my own, as it fit into the rhythm of my life. And then Joel Hollingsworth asked me to join the team at Rocky Top Talk, which I did right after Kiffin was hired. And it had such a profound and positive impact on my life, all those years getting to talk about the Vols with so many people, even if the years were often confusing and it felt like no two sports could get it going at the same time.

We left RTT and restarted over here five years ago now, with kids on the way and another move back to Virginia, and more time to write about other things. And through all of that, up to and including a pandemic, sitting down at the keyboard to do this has remained such a positive thing in my life.

Two weeks ago, after 16 years away, my family and I moved back to Knoxville. And starting this Sunday, I’m elated to be joining the team at Powell Church. We’re so thrilled to be part of such a great community, and to be back home in the area. More than anything, we are incredibly grateful.

I still plan on sitting down at this keyboard trying to figure things out, with the Vols and otherwise, and finding its fit in the rhythm of our lives here. Frankly, I don’t know how to be a pastor without it. I just wanted to say thanks – for wherever you’ve read for however often – for making a difference in my life.

The good old days are always out there. And sometimes they seem closer than others.

But they look pretty good from here.

Go Vols.

In the last 10 years, 20 different schools signed at least one Top 10 recruiting class (via the 247 Composite):

• 10x: Alabama
• 9: Georgia, Ohio State
• 8: LSU
• 6: Auburn, Clemson, Michigan, Texas, Texas A&M, USC
• 5: Notre Dame, Oklahoma
• 4: Florida, Florida State
• 2: Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee
• 1: Miami, UCLA

This list makes sense, right? Wins follow talent, rinse, repeat.

Here’s the question, especially as it relates to Tennessee: how often does talent follow wins?

Do you have to win at an elite level before you can recruit at one? For this exercise, let’s ask it this way: how many programs have signed a Top 10 recruiting class without winning 10+ games in any of the four previous years?

That’s the question for Tennessee’s program right now, sparked by the commitment of Nico Iamaleava, the Vols’ highest-rated prospect since Bryce Brown in 2009. With NIL opportunities and a record-breaking offense, the Vols have momentum.

It didn’t translate into adding more blue chip players into the fold this week, though the Vols have several more on campus this weekend. Missing out on guys we may have talked ourselves into can send the narrative back in the other direction. So maybe it’s helpful to take a more objective look: how realistic is it to expect the Vols to land a Top 10 class before they “prove it” on the field by winning 10+ games?

In the last six years – so 60 Top 10 classes – I count two instances of a program landing a Top 10 class without having won 10+ games in the four previous years (or Texas A&M going 9-1 in 2020).

Let’s start there, in fact: the Aggies finished with the #6 recruiting class in February of 2020. That followed years of 9-4 and 8-5 in Jimbo Fisher’s first two seasons, 8-5 and 7-6 in Kevin Sumlin’s last two. At that point, the Aggies last won 10+ games with Johnny Football in 2012, eight years earlier. Jimbo Fisher, however, won 10+ games at Florida State every year from 2012-2016, including a national championship. That certainly earned them a little extra juice, and A&M paid it off with just one loss in 2020 and a win over Alabama in 2021.

The only other instance in the last 10 years of a team landing a Top 10 class without a recent year of 10+ wins also comes from Texas: the Longhorns finished #3 in the 2018 recruiting rankings. Tom Herman went 7-6 in his first season just before that, and followed three years of seven losses under Charlie Strong. At that point, Texas hadn’t won 10+ games since making the BCS Championship Game in 2009, a nine-year gap. Herman also immediately paid that class off with a 10-4 season in the fall of 2018.

For both Texas in 2018 and Texas A&M in 2020, it wasn’t so much that a ton of true freshmen from one elite class made all the difference, but that the program had real momentum which manifested itself in both recruiting and on fall Saturdays. It became sustained success at A&M, less so for Texas (though shout out to the Mannings).

Either way, these are the only two examples of a program signing an elite recruiting class without a recent season of 10+ wins in the last six years.

So yeah, it’s hard to do and clearly the exception to the rule. The rich tend to get richer in this sport. But Tennessee is a good fit for the kind of “formerly rich” program that could potentially pull it off. We know that’s true, because if you back it up to the last 10 years, you find a few more examples:

• Texas also signed Top 10 classes in 2015 and 2016 under Charlie Strong, despite having no 10+ win season since 2009
• Tennessee did it under Butch Jones in 2014 and 2015, despite having no 10+ win season since 2007
• UCLA and Ole Miss did it in 2013. The Bruins last won 10+ games in 2005. The Rebels did it with Cutcliffe and Eli in 2003.

Is this happening less often these last six years as part of more overall talent consolidation? Could be. Given who is still doing it – and that Tennessee almost did it with Jeremy Pruitt’s 11th-rated class in 2020 – it may be as much resource consolidation as anything.

Maybe the more relevant question for Tennessee is, how different is the challenge facing Josh Heupel right now than the one Butch Jones faced when he signed Top 10 classes in 2014 and 2015? Those groups certainly had the advantage when it comes to proximity to Tennessee’s on-field success. Our last 10+ win season was in 2007. That’s a greater distance than any of these other programs faced. Butch’s classes were also heavier on in-state and legacy kids, an advantage that also becomes weaker the farther you get from on-field success.

But Heupel and company have already landed a bigger fish than any cycle this century other than Bryce Brown in 2009 and Eric Berry in 2007. And those NIL opportunities and the SEC’s overall profile give the current administration some new advantages.

Creating a hardline expectation of a Top 10 class before winning 10+ games on the field seems unrealistic. But believing the opportunity for such a thing can exist at Tennessee? That, thankfully, still appears to be true here. The Vols are 15th in the 2023 ratings right now with only 10 commits. There’s a lot of work left to be done, on and off the field. Nothing will help Tennessee more in recruiting than doing more work on the field; this week was a reminder that you tend not to skip steps in this process, and there are still real stakes in this thing every Saturday.

But the work Tennessee has already done in recruiting, and the surge in competitiveness in year one under this staff, has given the Vols a chance to make that next step in recruiting, even 15 years removed from a 10+ win season. It still speaks to the overall strength of the program, all these years later, that multiple coaches have had those opportunities. And both in recruiting and on Saturdays – and not too many from now – I’m excited to see what this group can do with their chance.

Go Vols.