Gameday Today: Six quarterbacks in play for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff

 

We’re five days away, and the options at quarterback for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff have been narrowed down all the way to six people. Also, everyone has an opinion on the outcome, but nobody’s putting any money on it. This and more in today’s Vols link roundup.

Georgia Tech

247Sports says the smart call on the Tennessee-Georgia Tech game is to not bet any money on it due to neither team having named a starting quarterback yet. Well, that’s not exactly accurate: Georgia Tech has published a depth chart that identifies the starter as Matthew Jordan. Or TaQuon Marshall. . . . Or Lucas Johnson or Jay Jones.

I’m going to check again tomorrow to see if maybe I’ve made the list.

And, of course, Butch Jones hasn’t announced yet whether he’ll be starting Quinten Dormady or Jarrett Guarantano, so that’s six potential quarterbacks for the season-opener.

So yeah, most folks don’t have any firm feeling about this game, but that doesn’t stop any of us from making our picks now, does it? A couple of 247Sports staff members have picked Tennessee to cover the three-point spread, even with linebacker Darrin Kirkland out. After all, Georgia Tech is without running back Dedrick Mills, who was dismissed from the team last week, and might also be without running back Clinton Lynch, who’s not been practicing.

Quick hits

  • We posted our sort of unique method for baselining preseason expectations this morning. I’m settling in at 9-3 and won’t be surprised by 8-4.
  • The staff at GoVols247 have all weighed in with their own predictions, and they’re all saying 8-4 overall and 4-4 in the SEC. They’re also marveling at the effectiveness of the buzzkill that was the end of the 2016 season, noting that many Vols fans are still wandering around in apathy even a mere five days away from kickoff.
  • Paul Finebaum, though, thinks that Tennessee is going to have a big year, so there’s that. Which is nice.
  • The Times Free Press seems to maybe sort of agree, as long as they do three things: Start well, stay healthy, and value the football. Good goals.
  • Tennessee is sending the Big Orange Caravan to Atlanta for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game, and it’s just what it sounds like: a pre-game party for Vols fans. If you’re going to be in Atlanta, you should be there.
  • I do love offensive coordinator Larry Scott’s no-nonsense answer to the question about his expectations for the Vols opener. Scott said, “Realistic expectations are to win — to score points and win, that’s the realistic expectation.” He sounds grumpy. Good.
  • 247Sports thinks you should expect a breakout year for Vols wide receiver Brandon Johnson.
  • Tight end Ethan Wolf is loving the competitive depth on the team this fall and says that it should help them overcome any injury attrition.
  • When former 5-star recruit Jonathan Kongbo says that fellow defensive end Darrell Taylor is more athletic than Kongbo, it speaks volumes. Kongbo is also trying not to sound overconfident, but he can’t keep regular confident from escaping his lips: “I don’t think there will be a drop-off. I’ll just say that.”
  • We’ve been hearing all offseason about the growing maturity of Vols cornerback Justin Martin, and Martin recently informed his Twitter followers that he’ll be avoiding the social media channel starting Sunday because he doesn’t want it to be a distraction. If you don’t think that’s a big deal, stop what you’re doing right now and count the people around you currently staring at their phones instead of lifting weights or studying playbooks. #GetOffMyLawnAndYourPhone
  • CBSSports has an amusing and informational post of 25 things to watch this college football season, including a “Netflix or Ole Miss” quiz. Examples: “House of Cards,” “Stranger Things,” and “Walking Dead.”

 

A different way to set expectations for the Vols’ 2017 season

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.

Tennessee Game-by-Game & Record Predictions with Win Probability

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.

Is Florida’s current recruiting class a house of cards?

 

Despite backing his way into two SEC East titles (and a 46-141 point differential vs. FSU and Bama to end each of those seasons, along with a 41-7 beat down at the hands of Michigan in his first bowl game), Florida Coach Jim McElwain has recruited incredibly poorly relative to both what Gators fans had grown accustomed as well as his SEC rivals.

Here’s a look at McElwain’s three UF classes* – the 2015 class was a stub year as he was hired in late December/early January.  A combination of low rankings, below-capacity numbers, and attrition has left UF devoid of elite level talent on both sides of the ball, even on defense where UF has even up until last season been an NFL farm club:

2015: Ranked 21st nationally with 20 signees.  Of those, #5/#8/#10 are all off the team, while #4 (Antonio Callaway) has been in trouble more times than the Dukes of Hazzard and two others were part of the group involved in committing fraud with school funds

2016: Ranked 12th nationally with 25 signees.  Of those, #6 is a little-used JUCO who is currently 4th string and #9 is in legal trouble.

2017: Ranked 11th nationally with 23 signees.  Of those, four of them have been suspended already, including #2 and #8.

*247 Sports rankings

That said, while spending time insisting he wasn’t posing naked with sharks this spring he has also managed to assemble the nation’s #7 overall class heading into the 2017 football season.  That ranking, along with some of the high profile prospects that the current class consists of, has at least temporarily alleviated some of the concerns that many Florida fans have had about McElwain’s recruiting prowess, or lack thereof.  The Gators are also contenders for some other very good players that could improve not only the ranking but also the true quality of the class.  The current ranking does not include two FBS transfers that will count as part of this class – DT Marlon Dunlap from UNC and OT Jean Delance from Texas.  Both of them will be a part of the 2017 roster but won’t be eligible until the 2018 season.  These guys have two things in common: 1) they both come from relatively high level programs, and 2) neither of them have accomplished anything in their careers to-date, hence the transfers.  Nevertheless, they are already on campus and both will have a chance to be relatively instant contributors from this class.

However, in my opinion this Florida recruiting class as it stands is extremely vulnerable to a poor showing on the field, especially if their offense struggles yet again and a defensive fall-off reveals that the last two seasons’ success were entirely due to Will Muschamp’s leftover NFL talent.  Here’s why:  one would think that given the level of talent in the state of Florida a highly-ranked Gators class would be filled with Sunshine State prospects, and to a degree that’s true – 11 of the 17 current commitments are Floridians.  Importantly though, five of the top eight ranked commitments are from out of state.  This includes one from CA (#1 – QB Matt Corral, who if he gets his act together will see West Coast powers come calling), one from LA (#3 – WR Jamarr Chase, who LSU absolutely won’t give up on), one from GA (#5 – RB Damon Pierce) and two from the Northeast.  Further, three of the Floridians are from Miami, leaving them vulnerable to the Hurricanes, especially if Mark Richt and Co. have a strong season.  Finally, their #2 recruit – WR Jacob Copeland – is coveted by Alabama, who has very recent success in the state of Florida, specifically with WRs Amari Cooper and Calvin Ridley.  This class is simply not set up to withstand the negative recruiting that would come with a bad season and all of the legitimate questions that would be raised about McElwain and the direction of the program by the media, fans, and opposing coaches.

Contrast that with Tennessee’s current class, in which six of the top nine ranked players are from the state of Tennessee and more than half the class will be early enrollees.  That’s a class built to last from here until National Signing Day (or December, for all of those January enrollees and many of the others who intend to sign with the Vols in the early signing period).

I’m of the opinion that this is the season where the NFL talent drain, and McElwain’s inability to backfill it with anything approximating similar talent (not to mention the suspensions and lack of accountability in this program) will finally show up.  The Gators have had double-digit NFL draftees in total after the last two seasons alone, and the current roster doesn’t have anything near that.  Looking at their schedule there are upwards of seven very losable games: Michigan, Tennessee, LSU, Texas A&M, UGA, @South Carolina, and FSU.  And that doesn’t even account for a possible upset from the likes of @Kentucky, Vandy, or @Missouri – none of the aforementioned seven games will see the Gators favored by more than 4-5 points, and they are underdogs to Michigan and will be to FSU, at the least.  Should the QB situation not magically fix itself like some national pundits seem to think it will; should the stink of a program rife with internal issues and 4th and 5th chances manifest itself; should injuries strike their perilously thin OL, DT, and LB positions; should their upwards of four true freshmen in the secondary two-deep not be ready for prime time and be ready early – should any small combination of these things happen the Gators will likely have a very poor season.  And if that happens, expect to see current Gators commitments, especially those from out of state and from Miami, look hard at their other options.  Their commitment list would look a lot different than it does now, and not in a good way (unless you’re a Vols fan).

What’s on tap from Gameday on Rocky Top this season

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!

 

Tennessee-Georgia Tech Game Week: The Contain Pain

 

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.

Game-by-Game SEC East win scenarios: Vols really need to beat both Florida and Georgia

Last week some time, the SEC Network rolled out a video series that showed its analysts making game-by-game predictions for the season. In the Tennessee edition of that series, Matt Stinchcomb had the Vols going 6-6, losing to cross-divisional opponents Alabama and LSU, SEC East rivals Florida and Georgia, and Kentucky and Missouri to boot.

It’s an interesting exercise and an effective way to pass the time during the offseason, but it’s more helpful to do the same thing for every team in the SEC East to see who is most likely to head to Atlanta to represent the division.

Here’s my version of that exercise:

Tennessee has no margin for error

If the Vols want to control their own destiny, they basically just need to beat both Florida and Georgia (and then not lose other games they shouldn’t). If you assume Tennessee loses to both Alabama and LSU in the West, then you’re already at 6-2, not even accounting for the Florida and Georgia games.

Looking at Georgia’s schedule, the only game you really feel comfortable putting in the loss category is the Auburn game. For the 6-2 Vols to catch the Bulldogs, somebody needs to give them a second SEC loss and Tennessee needs to not lose any additional SEC games. So, Georgia needs to lose to Auburn and Tennessee for the Vols to get ahead of them. They’re really not likely to lose another SEC game unless it’s to Florida. More on the implications of that in a minute.

That also means, of course, that Tennessee not only has to beat Georgia, it has to beat Florida, too. If the Vols fall to 5-3, they’re likely behind Georgia at a likely 6-2 despite beating them head-to-head. At that point, the only real candidate to give Georgia its third loss is Florida. But if the Gators beat both Tennessee and Georgia, then they’re likely at 7-1 and the Vols getting ahead of Georgia doesn’t do them any good.

Bottom line, the Vols need to beat both Florida and Georgia to make it to the SEC Championship.

But wait. What about LSU?

The above scenarios all assume that the Vols lose to the LSU Tigers on November 18, but that may not actually be as much of a given as it seems. Sure, the preseason statistics all give a not insignificant edge to the Tigers, but LSU is a lot like Tennessee this year in that nobody really knows what to make of them. They could be every bit as good as their talent suggests they should be. Or, they could fail to live up to expectations or even totally self-destruct by November.

So yeah, if you assume the Tigers are as good as they should be, then Tennessee essentially starts the season with two losses (Alabama and LSU) while Florida and Georgia each start with only one (LSU and Auburn, respectively). In that scenario, the Vols are at a disadvantage that really can only be overcome by beating both Florida and Georgia and not losing any other games.

But, if you instead assume that LSU is a 50/50 game, then the Vols’ disadvantage in the SEC East is somewhat mitigated. In that case, the Vols start the season with one loss (Alabama) and three 50/50 games (LSU, Florida, and Georgia). Georgia also starts with one loss (Auburn), but has only two 50/50 games (Tennessee and Florida), and Florida starts with three 50/50 games (LSU, Tennessee, and Georgia), but zero losses. Tennessee is still at a disadvantage if LSU is merely good instead of great, but the Vols would be in somewhat better shape than under the alternative.

If you can only get one, get Georgia

Even if the Vols manage to win against LSU, the Vols’ hopes are still tied to what happens with the Gators and the Bulldogs, and Georgia appears to matter most.

If Tennessee beats Florida but loses to Georgia, the Vols would likely be 6-2 and ahead of the Gators, who would likely be 5-3. But the Bulldogs would likely be 7-1 and ahead of everybody.

On the other hand, if Tennessee beats Georgia but loses to Florida, all three teams would likely be 6-2, and we’d have rock-paper-scissors with each team having only one head-to-head over another. Florida and Georgia would likely have late losses to Florida State and Auburn, while Tennessee would have a late win over LSU, and perhaps the division tiebreakers that rely on rankings would work in the Vols’ favor.

So if you have to pick one game to win between Florida and Georgia, pick Georgia.

Win ’em all

There are, of course, countless scenarios heading into the season, and if the Vols win every game, nothing else matters. But with a cross-divisional schedule that (inappropriately, in my view) counts toward divisional standings and is less favorable than those of its SEC East rivals, it appears to make the head-to-head matchups with SEC East Rivals all-or-nothing propositions for the Vols.

If you can get both, get both.

If you can only get one, get Georgia.

And if you can’t get either, hope for chaos and magic against LSU late in the season.

 

At defensive end, should the Vols go for plug and play instead of upside?

The need for one more defensive end in this class, and how the Vols address that need, is something that’s been discussed in this space quite a bit.  And while I’ve made the case for a guy with unlimited upside but who is a ways from contributing, there’s a case to be made at the opposite end of the spectrum.  If Tennessee were to go the route of someone who could contribute right away, the guy I would focus on is someone who so far has been little discussed: JUCO product Azur Kamara.

Who is Azur Kamara?

Besides having a last name that will always make Tennessee fans smile, Kamara is a very intriguing prospect in his own right.  He’s a big kid (6’6, 240) with speed who has been productive in each of his stops so far.  In high school he set the Arizona high school record with 25 sacks his senior season, but grades forced him to go the JUCO route.  And last season at Arizona Western CC, he had eight sacks.

He’s also an early enrollee, which means he’s not only going to start the 2018 season two years out of high school, he’ll also have a spring practice under his belt to adjust to the college game and learn the playbook.  He’d be a guy you’d expect to immediately compete for a starting job and at worst be part of the regular rotation.

Where does Kamara’s recruitment stand?

Kamara was initially looking to make a summer decision, but as his recruitment has heated up those plans have changed a bit.  He’s already taken official visits to Louisville and Iowa State, and he had plans to visit Utah in September and make a decision after that.  However, he received offers from Florida State, Oklahoma State and Ole Miss to go along with the Tennessee offer that came in the spring, and all of this attention has caused him to slow things down.  All of a sudden this has the makings of a much more high profile recruitment.

As of now FSU, OSU, and the Vols are in line for the remaining three official visits, with the trip to Knoxville, though not yet set, likely to occur in September or October.

The Vols do have a link to Arizona Western, as current defensive GA Jon Shalala was the OL coach for 11 months before coming to Knoxville.  And of course current Vols starting defensive end Jonathan Kongbo came from Arizona Western as well, so there are a handful of ties.  Kongbo’s status as a starter probably is a great selling point here, and if he were to jump out of the gates strongly that couldn’t hurt, either.  However, it should be noted that Louisville just received commitments from a couple of his AWCC teammates, so they will likely be helping the Cardinals in this recruitment.

Which Direction Do the Vols Go?

Ultimately the Vols will have to decide which direction they want to take with the last defensive end spot.  And that decision is likely to come down to a lot of factors – as The Dude would say, lotta ins, lotta outs here:

  1. How do the current DEs on the roster perform, especially early in the season? For example, does Jonathan Kongbo start the season playing like the former 5-star and #1 JUCO prospect he is, setting himself up for a possible early jump to the NFL?  Because in that case the staff has a different 2018 roster to think about.  Conversely, do freshmen like Deandre Johnson or Matthew Butler look like future SEC stars, in which case the need for another instant impact DE is a lot less pressing?  In a worst case scenario, do none of the DEs play well, such that the staff feels like they need more immediate help in 2018?
  2. Another factor is the status of Dorian Gerald, a current jewel of the class and an expected immediate contributor in 2018 as a JUCO early enrollee. While Gerald maintains he is 100% committed to the Vols, not only are other schools still after him, he’s also actually in the process of setting up official visits to places like Louisville (less of a threat) and South Carolina (the home-state school).  The Vols definitely have to have a contingency plan were he to bolt.
  3. Finally, depending on how the season goes, we may see the defensive end board expand to include no-brainer studs that aren’t currently strongly considering the Vols. Someone like Adam Anderson, who has been to campus and is being recruited hard by good friend and UT commit Jamarcus Chatman, or a guy like UGA commitment Azeez Ojulari could reignite their interest in the Vols, especially if UGA struggles on the field again in Year 2 for Kirby Smart.

As we’ve discussed, I like prospects like Caleb Kelly, Caleb Johnson, and Andrew Johnson just fine.  They seem like likely SEC contributors but not likely NFL prospects – kind of like Corey Vereen – and there is nothing wrong with that.  But in my opinion, the DE roster has enough low-ceiling/high floor players.  To me, if they indeed are going to add another DE in this class, the staff should be targeting upside now that they’ll have fixed the numbers (and talent issue) at the position.

There is obviously the issue of how interested Kamara and any of the other remaining DEs on the board actually are in Tennessee.  With Kamara, if he’s got a committable offer from a place like FSU it’s not like UT can simply call him up and land him.  They would need to recruit him very hard.

Interestingly, Oladele (who is also an early enrollee) is scheduled to make his official visit for the UGA game in late September, which could coincide with Kamara’s official visit.  That should mean that the staff has a pretty good idea of what they think the 2018 DE roster is going to look like, both in terms of numbers and in terms of talent.  It also means that they might have to make a decision on how they want to handle the spot if either/both of Oladele and Kamara want to commit.

The best case scenario is that the Vols are 4-0 when the Dawgs come to Knoxville, the DEs have played well and shown promise for the future, and that the on-field success has created increased interest in some of the elite DEs mentioned above.  While it can be difficult, it’s always good to have options, and the more you win the more options you have.  How the staff handles those possible options at the DE position in particular will be fascinating to watch.

 

 

Report: Darrin Kirkland Jr. out indefinitely with a knee injury

 

GoVols247 is reporting, based on multiple sources, that Tennessee middle linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. suffered a knee injury during practice on Friday. SEC Country cites a source in saying further that the injury is a torn meniscus, although the chatter is that nobody will know until further tests can be done. Officials are mum on the matter.

This is a huge blow to the team and could border on catastrophic depending on how long Kirkland will be out. We put Kirkland first on our list of Vols defensive players who had to remain healthy earlier this month, along with Cortez McDowell, because he was one the team’s two best linebackers on a defense that desperately needed improved performance from the position. The unit and the defensive will miss Kirkland’s leadership, talent, and intelligence, and although there are still some other good guys available, the linebacking corps did not do so well last season when Kirkland wasn’t on the field and at full speed.

While Kirkland is out, expect Colton Jumper to fill in, with sophomore Daniel Bituli and freshman Will Ignont also on standby, although Bituli has had his own injury issues recently. It looks like the best case scenario right now is for news that Kirkland’s injury is not as bad as feared and that he can somehow return at full strength against Florida, meaning the impact of the injury would make the team more vulnerable to Georgia Tech, but probably nothing more.

If he is instead out for Florida and beyond, it could spell trouble and cause flashbacks for players, coaches, and fans, as the crumbling of the defense last year also seemed to begin at the linebacker position. But we’ll just have to wait and see.