Gameday on Rocky Top

Most weeks in this space and time slot, we’ll be firing up the Statsy Preview Calculator to see what it says about Tennessee’s upcoming matchup and then concluding that it’s a crazy, stupid machine and making our own predictions anyway. But the SPC is just now emerging from its long summer hibernation, and it is raging mad, ravenous for data. Alas, the cupboard is bare before the first kickoff.

So this week instead, we’ll just take a peek at Georgia Tech’s data from last year to see what, if anything, it can tell us about what to expect Monday night in Atlanta in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff.

The first question, of course, is how similar the 2017 team is to the 2016 version. The Yellow Jackets ranked 29th on SB Nation’s preseason returning production chart back when it was published in January this year and ninth on Phil Steele’s returning starters chart when it was published in February, but since then their most productive rusher, Dedrick Mills, has been kicked off the team, and their next most productive rusher, Clinton Lynch, is still questionable for the game. That would suggest the answer is “mostly no,” but then again, Georgia Tech is one of those teams where the Xs and Os might actually compete with the Jimmys and Joes for importance.

So let’s look at last year’s data for Georgia Tech.

Offensive Rankings

Offensive observations. First, as you’d expect, Georgia Tech’s rushing offense is a locomotive built on top one of those zero-turn lawn mowers. Last year, they averaged 258.1 yards per game. So imagine a John Deere tricked out by NASCAR coming at you with sharp blades spinning. That really should be their logo.

[bctt tweet=”Georgia Tech’s rushing offense is a locomotive built on top one of those zero-turn lawn mowers.” username=”GamedayRockyTop”]

On the other hand, the Yellow Jackets are almost certainly not going to throw an interception, most likely because they’re not going to throw the ball very much at all. They finished last season first in number of interceptions thrown and near the bottom in passing yards gained. But look at how many yards they get on the few occasions that they do entrust the ball to the gods of the air: Over 20 yards per completion, good for second in the nation. I’ve heard coach Jones and the players say a lot this week that they need to guard against being lulled into boredom on defense. It’s true: Georgia Tech sings you a lullaby on offense and then throws it over your head when doze off.

[bctt tweet=”Georgia Tech sings you a lullaby on offense and then throws it over your head when you doze off.” username=”GamedayRockyTop”]

Defensive Rankings

Defensive observations. These numbers are not nearly as likely to induce nightmares. Not particularly good overall, against the run, or against the pass. Terrible on third down and not much better on first. Not going to sack the quarterback or tackle you for a loss. Okay, good.

Special Teams and Turnovers Rankings

Special teams and turnovers observations. From this, it appears that the Yellow Jackets are a disciplined bunch from a penalties perspective, but maybe not so much from a turnovers standpoint. And did they really block four kicks last season? Something like that matters when points are at a premium in a run-heavy football game.

Players to Watch

The following is last year’s stats from last year’s roster. Guys who are no longer on the team are noted.

Offensive Observations. Well, Matthew Jordan better be productive, is all I have to say. Of course, he’d not even been named the starting quarterback as of yesterday, so you know.

Defensive Observations. So, it looks like the twins are maybe the main guys to watch out for, especially for Tennessee’s new quarterback.

Special Teams Observations. Redshirt senior J.J. Green ran a kickoff back for a touchdown last year against Pitt, so he’s definitely capable back there.

Butch Jones released the season’s first depth chart, and although it’s largely what you’d expect, it does include a few surprises.

First look at #Vols "projected 2-deep." No decision on QB, LG, WR, WLB, FS and K. pic.twitter.com/WujjPN8DvV

— Jesse Simonton (@JesseReSimonton) August 30, 2017

The expected

The depth chart shown in Simonton’s tweet was obviously printed before they wanted to announce Drew Richmond’s suspension, but it does make clear who they thought were the best five offensive linemen. Jashon Robertson, a natural left guard but also probably the team’s best offensive lineman, slides to center so that either Jack Jones or Venzell Boulware can be the next guy in at left guard. That leaves out Coleman Thomas, although Jones did praise Thomas at his press conference today and said that he actually could still start at center. But this lineup appears to be the coaching staff’s preference at the moment.

Also not news is that tight end Ethan Wolf, receiver Jajuan Jennings, and running back John Kelly are starting. Nor is it really news that the coaches aren’t going to name the starting quarterback and will instead let Quinten Dormady and Jarrett Guarantano duke it out all the way through pre-game warmups.

The defensive side of the ball is mostly not surprising at all, either, except for the fact that they apparently intend to play 12 guys. Ba dump bump. But seriously, linebacker Austin Smith and nickelback Rashaan Gaulden are both listed as starters, but only one will play at any given time, depending on whether the team is in a standard 4-3 or a nickel package.

With the exception of the free safety position (we’ll get to that in a minute), everything else on defense is what you’d expect: Jonathan Kongbo and Darrell Taylor at defensive end, Kahlil McKenzie and Kendall Vickers at defensive tackle, and Colton Jumper filling in for Darrin Kirkland at middle linebacker with Cortez McDowell at weakside. The two cornerbacks are Justin Martin and Emmanuel Moseley, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Rashaan Gaulden displaced one of them in a standard 4-3.

The mild surprises

The only real surprise on the defensive side of the ball is at the safety positions. Nigel Warrior is given the top spot at strong safety, but the free safety position is apparently still an either/or between Todd Kelly Jr. and Micah Abernathy.

On offense, five players are apparently still competing for the two receiver spots not occupied by Jajuan Jennings. The first name you see, though, is true freshman Josh Palmer, the guy about whom we said last week you’re going to become an instant fan. Jones is apparently also a fan, as he spent a good 60 seconds on Palmer without being asked a single question about him. Brandon Johnson is slotted as the main competitor with Palmer for that spot.

There are three names at the last receiver spot: Latrell Williams, Tyler Byrd, and Josh Smith. It’s a mild surprise (to me, anyway) to see Williams ahead of Byrd, but it’s quite surprising to see Josh Smith’s name there at all, as he was feared injured for an extended period of time. Yes, it turned out that the injury wasn’t quite as severe as originally thought, but up until today it appeared that the earliest Smith would be ready would be the Florida game. You’d be forgiven if you thought that the depth chart was a typo or maybe even error by deadline, but Jones said today in his press conference that there was a chance that Smith could be ready Monday night. I don’t actually see that happening, but anything suggesting that Smith’s going to be ready sooner rather than later is good news.

You get the feeling from Jones’ press conference today that he’s still being a bit cagey about naming starters. This is likely an extended hangover from last year’s misery caused by not having the Plan B guys ready when they were needed. He wants to make sure they are kept motivated. Most of the time when Jones is asked about it, he talks about how much of a good thing it is to have guys continuing to compete right through kickoff. I think that’s mostly what’s happening here, and I think it’s a smart strategy.

 

Butch Jones announced at this afternoon’s press conference that offensive tackle Drew Richmond has been suspended for a violation of team rules and will not play in the season-opener against Georgia Tech on Monday:

“Drew Richmond will not make the trip to Atlanta,” said Jones. “He will be suspended for a violation of team rules. If he does everything that he needs to do, he’ll be available and he’ll be back for Indiana State.”

This is likely the bad news we said we were expecting last week, and all things considered it isn’t terrible. The tackles for the Georgia Tech game will be Brett Kendrick and Marcus Tatum, both of whom should be just fine, and in any event, the bigger challenge against Tech is on the other side of the ball.

One of the things we college football fans naturally do is adjust our expectations for the team each week based on what happened the prior weekend. Did our team do well? How did our past and future opponents look? What does it all mean for what we should reasonably expect the rest of the season?

At the beginning of the season, you really have no idea. Of course, that doesn’t stop anyone from formulating an opinion, and you do try to piece together somewhat reliable data in the form of last year’s stats and this year’s roster in order to better inform that opinion. But even the best prognosticators merely have an educated guess at this point.

So, here’s my guess this preseason, side by side with yours, using the data that Will compiled yesterday from the surveys y’all filled out on Tennessee’s game-by-game win probabilities:

As Will said yesterday, most Vols fans and pundits seem to be hovering around 8-4 for their regular-season predictions, with reasonable cases also being made for 9-3 and 7-5.

Although my calculated win total based on my own game-by-game projections only amounts to 7.57 wins, I’m actually leaning toward a prediction of 9-3. Here’s my thought process:

We tend to head into a season thinking that our team is a certain level of good, that other teams are at their own levels, and that our team will beat every opponent that is worse and lose to every team that is better.

But reality just isn’t as linear as we’d like it to be. Consider last year’s preseason predictions (the locations of the data) and the actual results (the colors of the data; red for loss, green for win):

If the world was orderly, all of the green would be grouped together at the bottom and all of the red would be grouped together at the top. But that isn’t the way it happened, and it doesn’t mean that South Carolina and Vanderbilt turned out to be better than Georgia and Florida. Something else happened. It’s call college football.

So, what I do is look at the top to see which teams I think are clearly better than the Vols and count those as almost certain losses. Then I look at the bottom to see which teams I think are clearly worse than the Vols and count those as almost certain wins.

And then I look at the middle, not for where I draw a line between winning and losing, but to make an educated guess as to how the odds might play out.

Here’s how that method looks in practice. Alabama’s at the top, and it’s an almost certain loss. Indiana State, UMass, and (probably) Southern Miss are at the bottom, so they are almost certain wins. That puts us at 3-1 with eight other teams at which to take a closer look.

LSU, Florida, and Georgia comprise one group (although I feel worse about LSU than most), and Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt comprise another. I’m thinking we lose two of three of the first group and then, maybe, one other game. If I had to pick, I’d say we lose to LSU and either Florida or Georgia, but not both. And I’m not predicting it will happen, but I’m not going to be surprised to lose one other game, either to the other one of Florida and Georgia or to someone in the second group. Disappointment begins to kick in with any additional losses after that.

I’ve been telling people this summer that I believe the team could actually be better this year but not have the record to show for it, and the reason for that is what I see as 50/50 games against Florida and Georgia. I really don’t think the team makes the same mistakes this fall it made last year in losing to two teams it shouldn’t. But it’s also pretty difficult to roll snake eyes on toss up games. We could finish with the same record this fall as last, but lose to both Florida and Georgia this time instead of South Carolina and Vanderbilt.

And yet football isn’t strictly a game of chance, so it could actually be true that Tennessee is just better than everyone but a team or two on its schedule and actually go out and prove it. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Earlier this month we showed you Tennessee’s projected record using win probability with ESPN’s FPI and SB Nation’s S&P+. Add up the percentage chance they give the Vols to win each game, and you’ll get their projection for Tennessee’s regular season win total. Then our staff made their picks using win probability, and we gave you a chance to do the same. We’ve added up all the responses:  here are your projections for the Vols this year:

Opponent	Win Probability
vs Georgia Tech	64.92
Indiana State	98.55
at Florida	46.78
UMass	98.24
Georgia	51.33
South Carolina	68.63
at Alabama	15.31
at Kentucky	68.63
Southern Miss	89.98
at Missouri	73.43
LSU	43.63
Vanderbilt	74.37
WINS	7.94

Our reader projection is in near-full agreement with ESPN’s FPI projection of 7.91, and is an unsurprising consensus expectation in taking the pulse of the fanbase. 8-4 appears to be this year’s bar with 7-5 a hair more likely than 9-3, but neither should shock.

The game-by-game percentages are interesting in a couple of places. Our readers give the Vols a 65% chance on Monday night, but there’s not much difference in how fans view this game and the South Carolina & Kentucky contests later in the year. The odds go just above 50% against Georgia and just below at Florida, and I wonder how much home field advantage has to do with that. And while most don’t give the Vols a significant chance at Alabama, most do with LSU. Eight of Tennessee’s 12 games fall somewhere between 44-74% in our win probability. That’s a lot of potentially close calls, and should make for another exciting season.

You can still use our form to insert your own percentages and find your own projection for Tennessee’s win total.

For those of you who don’t know, we blogged for SB Nation at Rocky Top Talk the past ten years before securing our own piece of internet real estate over here at Gameday on Rocky Top earlier this year. The bones and the skin have changed, but the soul remains the same, and with Game Week finally here, we wanted to let you know that you can expect pretty much the same thing here at GRT this season that you came to expect at RTT over the past decade. There will also be some extras that we didn’t have before, because now that we don’t have a landlord, we can nail stuff to the walls and paint the lawn into a giant checkerboard if we want to.

So here’s roughly what our plans are for the upcoming season:

Most Mondays, we’ll have a regular feature adjusting our thoughts about the rest of the season based on what happened the prior weekend. Whether we keep the 5-30 scale joke going we don’t know yet; we might move to straight percentages now that we have a way to collect that data from the community.

We’ll also watch Butch Jones’ press conference and pull out the meaty pieces for you on Mondays.

On Tuesdays, we’ll review the team’s statistical rankings, watching for trends and issue-spotting the team’s various units, and Brad will have an early morning feature based on whatever issue the team is facing at that time.

Wednesdays will generally focus on features based on whatever is happening at the time. We’ll also have a What to Watch and Rooting Guide post, and we’ll be recording our weekly Gameday on Rocky Top podcast that night. Will Shelton will host when he can, and I’ll host when he can’t. We’re not sure yet whether it will be live.

The podcast will go live on Thursdays, and I’ll be doing a statsy game preview with predictions for the week’s upcoming game that morning as well. We’ll also remind you to get your picks in for the Gameday on Rocky Top Pick ‘Em.

Fridays are busy. The day kicks off with Will’s always-awesome narrative game preview, and Brad will have a Staff Picks post go up shortly after that. I’ll post the week’s Guessing Game questions sometime that day as well, probably around noon, so y’all have a chance to answer the questions before you get in the car and head to the game Saturday.

Will is also on WNML’s Sports 180 radio show with Josh Ward and Will West every Friday at 1:30, which you can listen to live online here. You can find the show’s podcasts after the fact here.

And if Tennessee’s playing a big game that weekend (such as a season-opener, a home-opener, or a big rival), I’m often on WXSM with Bobby Rader for three hours as he broadcasts live from our store in Kingsport. You can listen to that live here.

On Gamedays, we’ll all be watching, and we’ll have posts about the game after it is over, along with an image gallery if we had a photographer at the game.

And then on Sundays, we’ll have more post-game stuff, along with the results of the Pick ‘Em and the Guessing Game, and probably a post on the Top 25 as long as it matters to Vols fans.

On top of all of that, we’ll have daily-ish link roundups and video roundups, posts reacting to breaking news, recruiting features, and quick hits of cool videos and interesting tweets and quotes.

We’re really looking forward to the season, and we hope you’ll join us. If you haven’t done so already, take two seconds to register for a free account so you can enjoy all of the features.

Go Vols!

 

 

As injuries continually decimated Tennessee a season ago, simply slowing any opponents down became a chore, especially when it came to stopping the run.

It got horrific down the stretch with Kentucky churning out 443 yards on the ground, followed up the next week by Missouri gaining 430. Unbelievably, those were games the Vols wound up winning. Though Vanderbilt finished with 192 rushing yards in the season-ending loss, the defense was atrocious overall once again.

The season-ending debacle may seem like an anomaly due to the injuries, but it was poor all year for Tennessee attempting to stop the run. Remember Texas A&M chewing up the Vols for 353 rushing yards, followed by Alabama adding 409 the week after? It was brutality at its finest in 2016 as first-year coordinator Bob Shoop found it impossible to plug-and-go once the bumps, bruises and — in senior defensive tackle Danny O’Brien’s case — losses mounted.

I’ve said all that to say this: If you want to worry about one thing for the season, the biggest question mark remains Tennessee’s ability to generate a pass rush. But if you want to worry about one thing against the Yellow Jackets, you need to fear just what GT is going to do to UT’s defense on the ground.

Unless there’s a complete turnaround from a season ago, it could turn into another shootout, and with so many new faces on offense, that’s not something I’m sure the Vols want to endure in the season-opening showdown on Labor Day night.

You can forget about rushing the passer against the Bees, because, there’s really no such thing as a “passer” in a Paul Johnson-led offense. The quarterback is the point guard and pitch man in a run option. There’s nothing more vital for defending this offense than discipline and containment, and that’s why we should all be concerned.

Linebacker liabilities?

After missing plenty of action last year with a high ankle sprain that kept him hobbled for the last part of the season even after he returned, junior middle linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. had returned to form this summer, looking like the budding star he was as a true freshman in 2015. Then, he got hurt and likely won’t play against Georgia Tech.

While the Vols have plenty of talent at linebacker, nobody has proved he can get players lined up and still perform at the high level Kirkland did. Most likely, Colton Jumper will be inserted at middle linebacker to take Kirkland’s place, and while Jumper is an admirable fill-in against most defenses, his lack of SEC-level speed isn’t such a good fit in defending the complex run fits against Tech. Cortez McDowell isn’t anywhere near the best athlete in UT’s linebacking corps, and he could be a liability in this particular game, too, even though he should be an asset much of the year.

Want to insert your most talented ‘backers? That’s an understandable desire, but none of Daniel Bituli, Quart’e Sapp or true freshman Will Ignont have played very many meaningful defensive snaps. Throwing them to the wolves in a game like this likely will wind up showing up in the statistics.

The bottom line is this: Tennessee hasn’t consistently recruited as well on the second level of the defense as it has at other positions, and it’s an ideal time for the player development that was lacking a season ago to shine through. This is going to be an all-hands-on-deck game where the Vols must throw out seasoned-yet-unspectacular veterans along with unproven, more talented youngsters. How Shoop and Tommy Thigpen have coached them up will go a long way in determining whether the Vols win this game.

I’m not suggesting the Vols are in trouble. There’s just a lot of unproven players who must step up to slow down a rushing attack that may not have elite players but is still really difficult to defend. Thankfully for UT, it has had months to game-plan rather than days.

I’d be remiss not to mention the Vols held Nebraska to just 61 rushing yards in the Music City Bowl last year when Shoop had time to dial up a perfect game plan. This type of GT scheme, of course, is different, but a big game in the opener could set the tone for a turnaround season on that side of the ball. The Vols are certainly capable from a talent perspective, but they’ve got to do worlds better than a season ago to thwart the attack.

What about the dive?

Beyond the (potential) linebacker problem is another, perhaps even more worrisome, situation. Honestly, it’s an extension of Tennessee’s pass-rushing worries that may materialize across the season, and it centers around a lack of experience on the defensive ends.

In case you forgot, Derek Barnett is gone. So, too, are Corey Vereen and LaTroy Lewis, who are both on NFL rosters.

That leaves Jonathan Kongbo, Darrell Taylor, Kyle Phillips and true freshman Deandre Johnson as the quartet of defensive ends that will get the bulk of the rotation on Monday night. For the future, the concern there is that, even though there’s plenty of athleticism, will there be an aggressive pass rush?

The concern against the Yellow Jackets isn’t aggression but discipline. None of those guys have that much experience playing the position, so how well will they be able to contain? How well will they be able to fit runs, and, when they don’t, what’s going to be behind them?

The ball isn’t always going to the outside, either. It’s unclear whether or not Shy Tuttle is going to play in this game, and while UT is pretty excited about the way its defensive tackles, led by Kahlil McKenzie, Kendal Vickers, Alexis Johnson, freshman Matthew Butler and others have played this summer, a large portion of the rushing yards allowed by UT a season ago were between the tackles.

Granted, that was a defense that didn’t have McKenzie and Tuttle for a large chunk of the season, but the point remains that this team must be vastly improved against the run up front. They’ve got to get off blocks, plug holes and move plays an extra foot or two in the other direction, allowing pursuit to crush plays before they get to the second level.

You get in trouble trying to defend this type of offense once you get 3 or 4 yards downfield, and UT must get off blocks, blow up plays and finish tackles.

If the Vols don’t, it’s going to be a long night and a rough start.

Help from the back

If you think this is all painting a pretty dour picture thus far, that isn’t my intent. It’s very possible that, in the second year of the Shoop scheme and with real health, talent and depth, this UT team will be better-suited to battle the run than last year’s team.

But the questions abound, especially in this game.

To be honest, I’m more concerned about this game than any other outside of Alabama, Georgia or LSU this season. I think it’s that much of a matchup issue for a young UT team searching for playmakers and still smarting from the defensive disappointments from a season ago.

A major X-factor for the Vols in combating this Tech scheme is putting five good-tackling defensive backs on the field, and that’s what UT will likely do a lot with its linebacker concerns.

I could see a scenario where Rashaan Gaulden plays a cornerback position and Micah Abernathy, Nigel Warrior and Todd Kelly Jr. all three are on the field alongside Justin Martin, and, at times, Emmanuel Moseley. If you can creep TKJr. up in the box (really, he’s more an asset playing nearer to the line than he is in coverage at this point of his career, anyway) it may give you your fastest, most aggressive, best-tackling defense.

I mean, had you rather an inexperienced linebacker be on the field or Nigel Warrior/Micah Abernathy? That’s the type of trade-off we’re looking at. Had you rather a guy like the skinny Moseley be on the field or a tackling machine like Gaulden at defensive back, where you can slide Abernathy into the nickel role and not lose much coverage concerns because there’s no real threat of Tech flinging it all over the field against you, anyway?

Shoop needs to get creative in this game, and you know he will. How the Vols respond will go a long way in determining how well they play in this game.

There are plenty of concerns for UT’s defense in this type of game. The Yellow Jackets cut-block you on every play, bruising knees and just genuinely making it an uncomfortable situation. Misdirection, quarterback reads and deception are the names of this game, and UT has to prove it can be disciplined enough to stop the different things GT will throw in their direction.

It may just mean the difference in 1-0 and 0-1.