Gameday on Rocky Top

The Vols are ranked in the preseason coaches’ poll for the third year in a row, just sliding in at #24. But the more relevant note for Tennessee could be the positioning of the other SEC teams in the poll.

The initial poll has Alabama in the top spot, then four SEC teams between 12-16 (LSU, Auburn, Georgia, Florida). Meanwhile the Big Ten has four teams in the Top 10. Arguments over conference supremacy aren’t settled in the preseason poll. But the trend in both leagues does not project well for the SEC when it comes to bowl selections.

The conversation on which league is better usually centers on who’s at the top. But last year there was a significant difference in who’s at the bottom. In S&P+, the SEC’s worst team in 2016 was South Carolina at 79th. The Gamecocks were 6-7. Meanwhile the Big Ten had four teams – 28.5% of the conference – finish worse than that (Maryland 87th, Illinois 95th, Purdue 105th, Rutgers 114th). Illinois and Purdue were 3-9 (as was Michigan State); Rutgers was 2-10.

Being a top-heavy league doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a better league. But it does give your teams a much better chance to make the New Year’s Six.

This year the College Football Playoff semifinals are in New Orleans and Pasadena, which takes almost all the automatic bids to New Year’s Six games off the table. Last year Alabama made the playoff, but the Sugar Bowl was required to take the next best SEC team; thus Auburn got in at 8-4 (and Tennessee would have gotten in at 9-3 had they beaten Vanderbilt). But with the Sugar Bowl in the playoff, only the SEC Champion is required to be taken…and if that champion is Alabama, as most project, and the Tide are in the playoff, the league could be shut out of the New Year’s Six bowls entirely.

And if that sounds drastic? It’s exactly what will happen if the final College Football Playoff poll looks like the preseason coaches’ poll.

You would have something like this:

• Sugar Bowl Semifinal: #1 Alabama vs #4 Southern Cal
• Rose Bowl Semifinal:  #2 Ohio State vs #3 Florida State
• Orange Bowl:  #5 Clemson vs #6 Penn State
• Fiesta Bowl:  #7 Washington vs #9 Michigan
• Cotton Bowl:  #8 Oklahoma vs #10 Wisconsin
• Peach Bowl: #11 Oklahoma State vs #21 South Florida (group of five)

Four Big Ten teams in the playoff/New Year’s Six. And only Alabama from the SEC. This would leave the rest of the league scrambling for the Citrus Bowl, then a bunch of 8-4 again in the SEC’s Group of Six (Belk, Liberty, Music City, Outback, Taxslayer, Texas).

The last time the semifinals were in the Sugar Bowl in 2014, the SEC put both Ole Miss and Mississippi State in the New Year’s Six as at-large selections. This put Missouri, the league’s fourth-highest-ranked team, in the Citrus Bowl. But the last two years, the Sugar Bowl has had to go outside the Top 11 (#12 Ole Miss in 2015, #14 Auburn in 2016) to fill its automatic bid. If that happens again this year, the league could get shut out of the New Year’s Six.

“Four Big Ten teams in the Top 10 will never happen,” you say? They got four in the top eight last year. While Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State continue to round-robin each other, Wisconsin (presumably) gets the winner in the conference title game; this year they face only Michigan of those three in the regular season. Meanwhile all four get at least two games with the league’s worst with Maryland and Rutgers in the east division and Illinois and Purdue in the west.

The SEC, on the other hand, has a much higher floor (which helps to prevent a higher ceiling). There are no free wins; Tennessee can attest to that. We continue to point out that while Alabama is 40-4 the last three years, look at the next eight SEC teams:

The nature of the beast has turned cannibalistic:  everyone is 8-4 and unhappy. And this year we might feel it even more potently come bowl season:  if the SEC doesn’t get a second team in the New Year’s Six, one of these teams could be headed to the Birmingham Bowl.

In this year especially with the Sugar and Rose out of play, the New Year’s Six will truly take the next best/highest-ranked teams in college football. Will the second-best team in the SEC have a clean enough record to make it?

Yesterday, we ranked the offensive players by which of them was most important to keep healthy. Today, we’ll do the same for defensive players. As we said yesterday, our hope is that no one gets hurt. It’s football, though, and injuries are part of the game, and some position groups are more vulnerable to injuries than others. So while we hope no one misses time, here’s a list of the defensive guys the team will miss the most if they suffer an injury.

6. Shaq Wiggins/Emmanuel Moseley/Rashaan Gaulden/Nigel Warrior

It’s not that these guys aren’t important; they are. And it’s not that they didn’t struggle at times last season; with the exception of Shaq Wiggins (who wasn’t here last year), they did. The relative security we have in the secondary is found (1) in numbers and talent, and (2) in the fact that we believe that the problems last year were due to coaching, which has hopefully been fixed in the offseason.

There are plenty of bodies — in addition to the four guys listed above and Todd Kelly Jr. (discussed below), the unit includes 4-stars Justin Martin, Evan Berry, Micah Abernathy, Marquill Osborne, and Maleik Gray. There are also six other 3-star players in the unit. We’re crossing our fingers that the coaching change in the secondary is going to filter its way through the entire secondary and improve their deep ball coverage across the board. So this unit should not only be improved, they should have the bodies and the talent to withstand normal injury attrition.

5. Jonathan Kongbo/Darrell Taylor

There is a lot of attention on these guys because they’re replacing Derek Barnett and Corey Vereen, but as we’ve said before, the guys behind the guys who are gone are talented. The defensive end position, though, is still not quite deep enough to consider it invulnerable to injury. If either Kongbo or Taylor miss time, Kyle Phillips at least has the resume to presumably step in and contribute without too much drop off, but behind those three, the team would have to look to a group of 3-star freshmen.

4. Todd Kelly Jr.

As I said a minute ago, the secondary is loaded with talent, bodies, and new purpose. Even so, Kelly is the leader back there, and if he goes missing the unit will feel it. The blossoming promise of Nigel Warrior, especially, seems to be yoked to Kelly’s leadership. He needs to stay healthy to keep the unit functioning as one.

3. Kahlil McKenzie/Kendal Vickers

We all have recurring nightmares of life without defensive tackles after last season, but really, the line should be strong and deep enough to withstand usual injury attrition. Assuming Shy Tuttle makes it back to full strength by the beginning of the season, the tackle spots should have at least five bodies available in Vickers, McKenzie, Tuttle, Alexis Johnson, and Quay Picou. And then there’s that group of freshmen that the team can tap into if needed. That said, we witnessed the importance of having plenty of big healthy bodies in the middle last year, so seeing any d-tackle go down will likely trigger flashbacks.

2. Cortez McDowell; and

1. Darrin Kirkland Jr.

The Tennessee linebacking corps really struggled at times last year, although that could have been just what linebackers look like when they’re backing up a defensive line without defensive tackles. Regardless, Kirkland is the leader of the defense, and the team needs him both from a leadership/alignment standpoint as well as a talent standpoint. McDowell, too, is important as the likely second guy on the unit.

There are a lot of experienced and talented guys available, starting with senior Colton Jumper, who not only filled in when the starters were out last year, but played really well. Also available are 4-star sophomores Daniel Bituli and Quart’e Sapp, 3-star Elliott Berry, and 4-star Dillon Bates. Hybrid linebacker/defensive end Austin Smith is also available, and a promising freshmen class is led by 4-star Will Ignont.

Still, if the linebacking unit didn’t appear to do very well last season, it could be because the team played only three games with its preferred starting lineup at the position: Appalachian State (Jalen Reeves-Maybin and Kirkland), Virginia Tech (same), and Nebraska (Kirkland and McDowell). The remaining games featured the following combinations at ‘backer: JRM/Jumper (Ohio, Florida) (and JRM actually missed most of Florida), McDowell/Jumper (Georgia, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt), Berry/Jumper (Alabama), Kirkland/Jumper (South Carolina), and Kirkland/Berry (Tennessee Tech, Kentucky, Missouri).

So, the only time Kirkland and McDowell started together was the bowl game against Nebraska. The good news is that the other guys got a lot of experience and can rightly be referred to as returning starters. But it’s extremely important that Kirkland and McDowell remain healthy this fall.

Injuries are a touchy subject around these parts. Nobody ever wants to use them as an excuse, and yet when the front falls off, you can’t really have an honest conversation without acknowledging them.

Nobody ever wants to see a guy get injured and have to miss time during the season. No player is expendable. And yet it’s a fact of life in football. Guys go down. Teammates step up. Guys rehab and return.

And stuff happens in the interim.

After last season, Vols fans know better than most the dramatic impact players missing time can have on a team’s ability to play well. Just how dramatic that impact is generally depends on how many guys get hurt, which guys get hurt, and how long it takes them to get back onto the field and into playing shape.

It’s doubtful that the Vols will have as many players injured this fall as they did last year. We’re all crossing our fingers that 2016 was an outlier, and to the extent that it wasn’t, we’re hoping that the lessons learned from last season and new strength and conditioning coach Rock Gullickson make a big difference.

But it’s still football, and injuries are still going to happen. And while you never want to see any player get hurt, the team is more vulnerable at certain positions than others.

So, with apologies to the superstitious, we’ve ranked the projected offensive starters in order of which ones the team can least afford to lose. Call it the Injury Uh-Oh Index. If you must find a piece of wood to knock on you’re reading, we’ll totally understand.

7. Brett Kendrick, Drew Richmond, Trey Smith, or Coleman Thomas

The offensive line is the deepest unit on the team, offense or defense, even considering that it requires the most bodies. Coleman Thomas may not even start, and behind Kendrick, Richmond, and Smith there are a ton of strong, versatile, talented, and experienced players like junior Jack Jones, sophomores Venzell Boulware and Marcus Tatum, and a handful of freshmen the team hopes they won’t need. The status of junior Chance Hall is a bit up in the air, as he was expected to be sidelined for some time but is reportedly back on campus after getting a second opinion about his knee. If he’s available, this unit is indeed in great shape and should be strong enough to withstand some normal injury attrition.

6. Josh Smith/Tyler Byrd

We have Smith and Byrd penciled in as starters in the receiving corps along with Jajuan Jennings. The unit does have some options behind these two in senior Jeff George, sophomores Marquez Callaway and Brandon Johnson, and five or six freshmen, so if one of Smith or Byrd is injured, the team has options. Those guys are largely unproven, mind you, but they are at least options.

5. Jashon Robertson

Although the offensive line is deep, they likely depend on senior leader Jashon Robertson. He’s started 35 games in three years, all 13 as a freshman, 10 of 10 as a sophomore, and 12 of 13 last year as a junior. If he misses any time, the team has bodies to plug in to his spot, but his leadership will be difficult to replace. With a new quarterback and mostly-new running backs and receivers, the entire offense would be scrambling for leaders if Robertson were to go down.

4. Quinten Dormady/Jarrett Guarantano

The Tennessee coaches have been saying all offseason that it’s nice to have two qualified guys pushing each other to replace Josh Dobbs at the quarterback position. They’re probably also thinking but not saying that it’s nice to have two just in case one of them gets injured. But while it’s somewhat comforting to know that there’s a qualified guy ready to go if the other guy gets hurt, it would also mean that there is no additional room for error. Behind Dormady and Guaranto is Will McBride and the mysterious Seth Washington, but let’s face it, if both Dormady and Guarantano are unavailable, there are going to be a lot of mopey folks on Rocky Top.

3. Jajuan Jennings

As I said earlier, there are a lot of bodies in the wide receiving corps, and Smith and Byrd are going to be fine complements to Jennings. But just as the offensive line looks to Robertson for leadership, there is little doubt that the entire receiving corps feeds off of Jennings. He’s not just a great receiver, he’s fearless and always primed for battle. Toughness like that is contagious, and the team will miss it if it’s not on the field with them.

2. Ethan Wolf

Wolf has been a fixture at the tight end position for three seasons at Tennessee, having started 35 games in his three years on campus. His primary contributions are probably under the radar in the blocking game, but he has also figured prominently into the passing game at several key moments in his career. The problem here is that the position isn’t especially deep. Senior Jakob Johnson could sub in for Wolf if needed, as could Ethan’s brother Eli, who is a sophomore. There are also four freshmen on the roster who could play in a pinch, but any way you look at it, losing Wolf to injury would likely mean a fairly significant drop off at the tight end position. And because we generally only notice tight ends when they’re catching passes and not when they’re blocking, we may not even realize what’s happening.

1. John Kelly

There are zero senior running backs on the roster this season. The team is in good hands with junior Kelly, though, who proved his mettle last season by outrushing all other running backs with 630 yards despite being third on the depth chart. But behind him, there’s nothing but question marks. Although there are two 4-star talents behind him in sophomore Carlin Fils-aime and freshman Ty Chandler, neither one of them is proven. The same can be said about sophomore Taeler Dowdy and freshmen Trey Coleman, Tim Jordan, and Chip Omer. Basically, the running back stable is John Kelly and then a bunch of young and inexperienced guys we know almost nothing about. Team 121 is going to lean heavily on John Kelly this fall. What they’re going to need the most from him is to stay healthy.

This time of year you can usually tell who Tennessee’s best and/or most popular players are going to be not by fall camp talking points, but jersey sales. I’d expect to see plenty of #15’s on display this fall, and maybe a #12 or #2 if a front-runner emerges in the quarterback battle.

To my knowledge I’ve never seen an offensive lineman’s jersey for sale, for the Vols or for anyone. It is the least sexy and least marketable position group on the field. But, at Tennessee and likely far beyond, you cannot do great things without a great offensive line.

For Team 121, if you were ranking the units? The offensive line would be at the top. It doesn’t generate much noise in August. But when the line leads the way, it can generate something far more memorable in September.

Here are the starting offensive lines (pulled from Tennessee’s media guide, listed from LT to RT) for each of Tennessee’s most memorable teams of the last 30 years. You’ll notice a trend.

1989 SEC Champions:  Charles McRae, Tom Myslinski, John Fisher, Eric Still, Antone Davis

1990 SEC Champions:  McRae, Myslinski, Fisher, Doug Baird, Davis

Consider the overall talent on these two teams: in the 1990-1992 NFL Drafts, Tennessee had 11 players selected in the first three rounds. Those names include future Pro Bowl selections Dale Carter and Carl Pickens, first round selections like Alvin Harper and Chris Mims, and absolute program legends like Reggie Cobb and Chuck Webb. But of those 11 in the first three rounds in this three year span, the two who were drafted highest were offensive tackles Charles McRae and Antone Davis, going 7th and 8th in the 1991 NFL Draft. Why were Andy Kelly and the Cobb-Webb attack so dominant? These boys up front didn’t hurt.

1995 #2 Coaches’ Poll:  Jason Layman, Trey Peterson, Jeff Smith, Bubba Miller, Robert Poole

Smith and Miller had started since they were freshmen, Layman since he was a sophomore. They joined Trey Peterson to make for four seniors up front along with junior Robert Poole (plus tight end Scott Pfeiffer). Layman, Miller, and Smith all earned first-team All-SEC honors in 1995, and Layman was a second round draft pick. If you compare the ’95 and ’96 offenses, the quarterback and skill positions are identical (Manning, Graham, Kent, Nash). But in conference play the ’95 squad averaged an absurd 38.9 points per game, compared to a merely really good 34.4 in ’96. The Vols rebuilt the offensive line with youth in 1996, then this happened:

1997 SEC Champions: Chad Clifton, Spencer Riley, Trey Teague, Mercedes Hamilton, Cosey Coleman

1998 BCS Champions: Clifton, Hamilton, Riley, Coleman, Jarvis Reado

1999 BCS at-large: Clifton, Fred Weary, Riley, Coleman, Josh Tucker

Only a select group started all three seasons in Tennessee’s most successful three-year run:  Jamal Lewis, Raynoch Thompson, Dwayne Goodrich, and three offensive linemen:  Chad Clifton, Spencer Riley, and Cosey Coleman. This group lost away from home to #2 Florida, #2 Nebraska, #4 Florida, Clint Stoerner’s karma, and #3 Nebraska. They beat everyone else, winning two SEC titles and the 1998 national championship. Trey Teague earned first-team All-SEC in 1997; Cosey Coleman did that twice in ’98 and ’99 with All-American honors to boot in ’99. He played seven years in the NFL and won a Super Bowl ring with Tampa Bay. But I’d put Chad Clifton’s career up against any offensive tackle:  in college and the NFL he protected the blind sides of Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Tee Martin en route to a national championship.

2001 SEC East Champions: Reggie Coleman, Fred Weary, Scott Wells, Jason Respert, Will Ofenheusle

Weary was still around two years later and, other than Cosey Coleman, is the highest-drafted offensive guard in program history. No season’s losses were more fluky or painful than 2001’s, but this line had little to do with them. They did have a hand in the season’s biggest win:  Travis Stephens and Jabari Davis get remembered, but this group took on one of Florida’s most talented teams and paved the way for them. I was a student at UT at the time, and Will Ofenheusle might still be the biggest person I’ve seen up close.

2004 SEC East Champions: Michael Munoz, Rob Smith, Jason Respert, Cody Douglas, Arron Sears

True freshmen quarterbacks need friends, and there’s no better friend than a strong offensive line. In the 2004 Florida game they helped produce one of my favorite drives of all time:  12 plays, 80 yards, four different ball carriers, all runs for Tennessee’s first touchdown. Sears would go on to be a second round draft pick, and though the NFL never worked out for Munoz and Respert, they were two of Phillip Fulmer’s biggest prizes in recruiting:  Munoz is the fifth-highest rated prospect the Vols signed since 2000, Respert 12th. Munoz was a first-team All-American in 2004; knee injuries cost him on draft day.

2007 SEC East Champions: Eric Young, Anthony Parker, Josh McNeil, Chris Scott, Ramon Foster

Ramon Foster has been so successful for the Steelers for so long, I’d forgotten he was an undrafted free agent. The up-and-down 2007 Vols had issues with youth on defense, surrendering 145 points in three regular season losses. But this line was spectacular with David Cutcliffe at the controls:  they surrendered a national-best four sacks all year on 538 passing attempts, helping Erik Ainge turn unheralded receivers Lucas Taylor and Austin Rogers into 1,000 yard threats.

What does this mean for 2017? There is, of course, no guarantee. A great offensive line can’t do it by themselves (see:  2013) and skill position injuries can cost the most talented groups (see:  2002). But recent history shows every time the Vols have a big year, it comes behind a talented, veteran offensive line.

There’s a lot we cannot say for sure about Team 121. But a talented, veteran offensive line – give or take a five-star freshman – could lead the way.  And when that happens at Tennessee, big things tend to follow.