And thus, Week 8 of the Expected Win Total Machine rides on (slightly) steadier legs:
The Vols opened at +29 against Alabama, which is down to +27.5 on Monday afternoon. Before the South Carolina win (and Bama’s loss to A&M), our expected win percentage in this one hovered around 6%. It went up to 13% last week. We’ve had plenty of years of, “I’m putting 0% for this game.” How are we feeling this week?
What’s the most meaningful story for Tennessee coming out of that game?
The way Tennessee played
Tennessee’s health going forward
Poor officiating
Injuries, real or otherwise
Some fans throwing trash onto the field
Spoiler alert: the answer should always be the first one.
Controlling the controllables, as multiple coaching staffs and several good therapists would say. Tennessee’s controllables were again pretty good, and are becoming pretty consistent. Hendon Hooker basically hit his average through the air: 17-of-26 (65.4%) for 233 yards (9.0 yards per attempt) for a touchdown and zero interceptions. Tiyon Evans couldn’t go, but Jabari Small was game for 92 yards on 21 carries. Hooker’s throws went almost exclusively to wide receivers, a passing game that opened up nicely in the second half: 6 for 93 for Velus Jones, 7 for 84 for Cedric Tillman.
Also approaching “pretty good, pretty consistent” status way ahead of schedule: Tennessee’s defense. Ole Miss gained 510 yards in 101 plays. That’s 5.05 yards per play. Alabama held them to 4.62. No one else has held them to less than 7.5 this season. Only Arkansas (4.86) held them to less than 5.5 last season.
Tennessee’s defense – even when facing two of college football’s best offenses from Pittsburgh and Ole Miss – has made the requisite stops to give the Vols a chance to win.
Why didn’t we win in the controllables department? Aside from not dropping a punt after you’ve earned a stop on the opening series, Tennessee’s greatest weakness is also consistent. The Vols are 121st nationally in sacks allowed, surrendering 3.57 per game. And Tennessee’s protection has also been guilty of holding penalties in crucial moments.
The Vols cut it to 31-26 with 13:41 to go last night. The next Ole Miss possession ended with the Trevon Flowers diving interception. Tennessee picked up two first downs for 1st-and-10 at the Ole Miss 42 with 11:37 to play. But they were hit for holding on 1st-and-10, and punted on 4th-and-17.
Ole Miss bled 3:30 off the clock, but the defense got a stop when Matt Corral came out of the game on 3rd-and-10. Ninety yards away from the lead, the Vols picked up three first downs on two Hendon Hooker runs and a pass to JaVonta Payton. The Vols had 1st-and-10 at the 50 with less than three minutes to play. But Hooker was sacked on first down, followed by a holding penalty on second down.
We can get in our feelings about the spot on 4th-and-24, and perhaps rightfully so. What the Vols can do better is not get in 4th-and-24.
…except now, that might be a little harder. Because Hendon Hooker went down after all the craziness, and as I write on Sunday evening, we’re unsure for how long. He did all that, plus 108 yards on the ground, behind an offensive line without the Brothers Mays and with guys that would’ve been considered third string at some point in their careers.
Through seven games in SP+, the Vols rank as the 15th best team in the nation with a rating of 16.0. Again, I think the best context for that is this:
The 2015 Vols are easily the best play-for-play team of the last 14 seasons in Knoxville. After that, in SP+ you’ve got 2016 (16.3), 2009 (16.2), and this team through seven weeks (16.0).
We might want to put a pin in this, because how many injuries until “this team” isn’t “this team” anymore?
But whatever happens from here, there’s so much to like about what we’ve seen from this team and this coaching staff in year one. Not in wild near misses or even a stunning upset. But in the way they play every play, which is a far, far greater positive for the future.
The simultaneous is important here. The simplest version of the truth – usually a good place to start – is that there were legitimate reasons for Tennessee fans to be upset, and that there is never a legitimate reason to throw something on the field. The vast majority of us experienced the former without engaging in the latter.
Beyond that, there’s also a lot of nuance here, which we waded into for a bit on our podcast. Like why is it hard for people to admit both of those things are true? Who gets to be the expert on Tennessee’s reputation? Have we gotten better or worse at learning how to lose?
It’s in the nature of trash to be worthless. That’s why you’re throwing it away. I actually think garbage can be a meaningful metaphor for hell, especially the ways it might be present here on earth. Garbage tends to be obvious, it tends to smell, and thus it has to go.
I also like the way the New Testament plays with fruit and rotten as opposites. So there’s this truth that throwing something on the field is fruitless: it doesn’t do any good, it’s worthless, it stinks, etc.
But also, in the particular context of last night, throwing stuff on the field wasn’t just fruitless. It was also rotten, as in directly harmful to the very person doing it, because we still had a chance to win.
Chances are you didn’t throw a thing. I don’t know what you’re most emotional about, or most want to talk about from that game by the time you’re probably reading this on Monday. There’s a lot of good fruit and even more seeds in what we’ve seen from Josh Heupel and this team so far. How much more fruit is left in this season may depend on the health of the roster. Talking about the way Tennessee played should always be the lead story.
But wherever we may find ourselves tempted to engage whoever about what happened, or to defend an action that just shouldn’t be defended no matter how much we understand the emotion behind it? We might do ourselves a favor by considering the fruitfulness (and lack thereof) in any of this, and in the way we talk about our team.
I’m hopeful the way Tennessee plays is on its way to being not just the lead story, but a good one.
In 2010, updates and renovations to Neyland Stadium capped attendance at 102,455. Gone were the days of, “Let’s see just how many human beings we can get in here,” with a new attendance record always, in theory, just one or two more ushers away. That mark will probably forever stand at 109,061 from the 2004 Florida game; the Vols last crossed the 107,000 mark in 2007 against Georgia.
With those updates – and more coming that will shrink attendance further – the sell-out becomes the go-to statistic. Lane Kiffin correctly noted this week that Saturday night will be the first 102,455 in Neyland Stadium since the 2017 Georgia game. But it’s also just the 17th in the last 11 seasons, not counting last year’s pandemic model.
Those 17 include:
Every Florida and Alabama game from 2010-16, but not 2018 (or 2020)
Every Georgia game from 2011-17, but not 2019
2013 Auburn & 2015 Oklahoma
The Sunday night Labor Day weekend opener with Utah State in 2014
2014 Kentucky, the game after Josh Dobbs exploded at South Carolina
2021 Ole Miss
The Rebels being ranked #13 makes it feel like a fair addition to the list. But it was interesting to me, in going back through all the announced attendance figures at UT’s official site, to see how similar contests faired in Neyland:
2018 vs #11 Kentucky: 95,258
2014 vs #19 Missouri: 95,821
2013 vs #11 South Carolina: 95,736
2011 vs #9 South Carolina: 96,655
As you can see, we’re well past the threshold of, “Ranked non-rival opponent with chance for upset.” Tennessee, of course, did get two of those games. But the house wasn’t quite full to see it.
And it’s not just Kiffin, though he doens’t hurt. But if it was only Kiffin, this game would’ve been sold out long before this week.
When it comes to attendance, here’s the most noteworthy piece of data to me:
Lowest Attendance at Neyland 2010-21
2021 Tennessee Tech: 80,053
2012 Akron: 81,719
2012 Kentucky: 81,841 (shout out Jim Chaney)
2021 Pittsburgh: 82,203
2017 Vanderbilt: 83,117 (SHOUT OUT BRADY HOKE)
2012 Troy: 84,189
2021 Bowling Green: 84,314 (Thursday night)
Our first three home games this year are three of the seven least-attended games of the last 11 years. The other four on the list are from a fired-or-soon-to-be coach’s final season.
Certainly a factor: the pandemic. It’s why I haven’t really worried about it, or thought the comparison really valid. And it’s great that numbers in Knox County and elsewhere are trending in the right direction.
But Tennessee football has been fighting more than just the virus to get people to come. And you could see it start to happen last week. Look at the company last week’s South Carolina game finds itself in on the attendance charts of the last 11 seasons:
2021 South Carolina: 89,437
2011 Vanderbilt: 91,367 (Eric Gordon OT walk-off)
2019 BYU: 92,475
2019 Georgia: 92,709
2014 UTC: 93,097
2011 Cincinnati: 94,207
Last Saturday was already on pace with meaningful games from two seasons ago, when there was no pandemic. It’s also not far from an early temperature-check game from 2011 against Cincinnati, when we’d only been trying to get this thing right for a few years.
And either way, to me there’s nothing more telling than this: the Vols had 82,203 on September 11 against Pittsburgh. And we’ll have 102,455 on October 16 against Ole Miss.
I think the biggest factor isn’t the virus, or Kiffin, or the Rebels’ ranking.
No matter what happens from here, I’m not sure how many people will come to the South Alabama game; Saturdays like that are probably more likely to be lower, even if case counts continue to decline into November. There are things we’ve just gotten used to, including the luxuries of staying home.
But there is no substitute for being there. And tomorrow night, there won’t be an empty seat in the house.
This season began with more reason to stay home than ever. But in no time at all, Josh Heupel’s team brought people to the threshold, even more than we’re used to seeing against this kind of opponent.
Again, what an incredible job by these guys so far to create this opportunity Saturday night.
On the Monday of Bowling Green week, we wrote our season preview: What Is Possible Today. It was post-idiot optimist, but still preseason, still time for plenty of regular old optimism to creep in. Our community expected win total was 6.74.
We talked about what might take place: struggles, early losses, more patience required. We talked about how patience would make perfect sense, but would likely lead to disengagement.
And then we talked about what might be possible. What could happen for Tennessee to surprise. That list included:
Joe Milton as a significant upgrade at quarterback
Junior college transfers Tiyon Evans and Byron Young made immediate impacts
The offensive line won’t suffer additional significant injuries
The transfer portal speeds up some of the rebuilding process
The window of opportunity to enjoy this team is wider than usual
At the midway point of the season, Joe Milton is no longer the starting quarterback, and Cooper Mays – perhaps the most important offensive lineman to the work of the whole – has missed significant time from the get-go.
And yet.
I’m not sure even the optimists among us saw where we are right now as possible today. And the window of opportunity to enjoy this team is due for some renovation.
Here’s our updated community expected win totals, higher in Week 7 than Week 1 for the first time since probably 2006:
Our community gives the Vols a 47.2% chance to beat #13 Ole Miss on Saturday night.
In SP+, here’s every Tennessee team of the last 14 seasons:
By tenths of a point, the current squad is playing at a more efficient level than the full-season version of 2016, and Lane Kiffin’s year one squad in 2009, just two seasons removed from Atlanta. Only the 2015 Vols have been better over the course of an entire year than the 2021 Vols have played, snap-for-snap, to this point.
Sure, we’re only halfway home, and sure, it’s tenths of a point. But if you’ve been through what we’ve been through, you celebrate anything. And this team is giving us something much closer to everything than we thought we’d come this year.
This Tennessee team has already made Saturday night possible. It is the most anticipated game in Neyland Stadium since 2016 Alabama. And it carries glorious purpose: the opportunity to announce one’s presence. Do it to Mizzou and South Carolina, okay. Win this game, and…
Well, that’s one thing about it. So often, we’ve come to a game like this and missed the opportunity for something more. Last year at Georgia. Butch Jones in a pair of checkered Neylands, against the Gators in 2014 and Oklahoma in 2015. Derek Dooley against Florida in 2012.
But we didn’t see any of those in year one.
There’s little pressure here; we’re not even entirely sure what we’re doing with this team as fans. But most of us were unsure a game like this was even possible in this year one especially.
It’s a credit to Lane Kiffin too, for getting Ole Miss to #13 in year two. Voices I trust and respect say to make this week about this Tennessee team and not about Kiffin, and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. But I also don’t think the healthiest break-ups are between two people who totally ignore each other when their paths cross a dozen years later.
One thing we’ve always loved about blog form is the way words can last. Within that, there’s plenty of room for the ways we were wrong to last, for sure.
There was a period there, somewhere in the Derek Dooley years, where seeing if Kiffin lost at USC felt like the best we could hope for. Then the first time he returned, as an Alabama assistant in 2014 – now seven long years ago – Josh Dobbs impressively grabbed our attention and held it for another two years.
The idea then, and now, was that the best revenge is living well. It was, of course, a lot to ask for the kind of living that comes from beating Alabama.
On Wednesday evening, Tennessee is +2.5 against Ole Miss.
We’ve seen big upsets in year one. Butch Jones got #11 South Carolina at +7, Jeremy Pruitt got #21 Auburn at +14.5. They were incredible surprises on a Saturday afternoon. But Josh Heupel and his team, in a very short span, have created a virtual toss-up opportunity with a Top 15 team in year one. The kind, like 2012/14 Florida and 2015 Oklahoma, where you know what victory would mean…and know you’ve got a chance to do it.
Just to have this opportunity this week has been a gift, a delightful surprise. Great job by Heupel and these guys to get here. There are plenty of Saturdays out in front of them for their story to be told. We’re already living well.
But what is possible now is to win Saturday night. To speak some words into Tennessee football and make a memory that would have a chance to live for a long time.
Just the thought of it makes me smile. And whatever you think of Kiffin, that’s the dominant emotion for me this week. What a ridiculous, delightful notion that this kind of game even exists for us in Week 7 of Year 1 of Year 13 of trying to get this right. What an incredible opportunity.
When you look at Tennessee’s stat rankings, start at the bottom. In the last few years, there’s always been so much to choose from in how the Vols could improve: 125th in completion percentage allowed. 119th in third down conversions. 105th in throwing touchdowns in the red zone. We could go on.
The 2021 Vols having a glaring weakness in allowing sacks: 117th nationally, giving up 20 in the first six games. One silver lining: Tennessee’s shallow pocket means the Vols are giving up only four yards per loss, so a sack puts you in 2nd-and-14 instead of 2nd-and-20. But clearly, there’s much to improve here. For what it’s worth, Missouri and South Carolina were both stronger than Ole Miss in this department coming in.
But after sacks allowed? The rest of Tennessee’s areas for greatest improvement in major statistical categories aren’t hanging out in the 100s anymore. Most of them aren’t hanging out beyond the Top 75.
And in addition to all the things Tennessee is doing exceptionally well – playing fast, scoring points, converting third downs, tackles for loss – the Vols are playing winning, Neyland maxim football in a way we haven’t seen in a long time.
One stat we came across last year in trying to explain what was suddenly going wrong with UT’s offense: Tennessee had a -44 turnover margin from 2011-20 in SEC play. The Vols haven’t broken even in turnover margin in league play since 2010, haven’t finished in the black since 2009. Why did it feel like things were always going against us? Because in one of football’s most telling stats, they were, for a long time.
But this year, through three SEC games? The Vols are +5, with zero giveaways.
That +5 number is sixth nationally in conference play; shout out to Iowa at +11. Since the Pitt game, I’m not sure Hendon Hooker has thrown a ball that even had a chance to be intercepted.
These two stats could be on a collision course: the best way to force turnovers is to hit the quarterback. Tennessee cannot continue to allow Hooker to be hit 3.33 times per game and think they won’t turn it over. Meanwhile, Matt Corral is one of three quarterbacks in college football with 100+ passing attempts and zero interceptions (Hendon Hooker is one of 14 with 100+ and less than two picks).
But overall, the Vols aren’t just winning and aren’t just fun because they’re playing so fast and scoring so many points. Tennessee, so far, is dominating the turnover battle. They are the team making the fewest mistakes, still created in the image of General Neyland while playing a brand of football he’d barely recognize.
And for the first time in a long time, that leads to a small-but-growing feeling that things can indeed go for us, not against us.
Goodness. I am digging this whole Heuper Speed offense and the complementary defense. Plus, a good special teams unit and improvement in penalties and turnovers. It’s all making emotions fun again.
Offense
If that looks wonky on your device, try this link.
High fives: I don’t think I’ve ever had this problem before. There are seven categories in which the Vols’ offense is in the Top 25, and I don’t want to write them all down. Idea: shorter synonyms. Clean, on schedule, running, scoring, total. Woo. Yeah, that’ll do it.
Attaboys (improving): Um, completion percentage?
Fix this next: The offense is still allowing an embarrassing amount of sacks. I’m flummoxed as to how the offense is so good despite wasting so many plays due to sacks.
Defense
If that looks wonky on your device, try this link.
High fives: The Vols are third in the nation in TFLs. They’re also very good at intercepting passes and converting turnovers into touchdowns.
Attaboys (improving): Total defense (yards), sacks, and red zone defense.
Fix this next:Still more work to do on each of the attaboys, plus we’ve slipped a bit on first (and third) downs.
Special Teams
If that looks wonky on your device, try this link.
High fives: Protecting our kickers, blocking punts, punt return defense.
Attaboys (improving): Kickoff returns, punt returns, kickoff return defense.
Fix this next: Net punting.
Turnovers and Penalties
If that looks wonky on your device, try this link.
Penalties. Okay, so the number of penalties is improving, but the ones we do have are of larger denominations. Still, good progress this week and last. We dug a big hole early in the season.
Turnovers. Everything got better again this week, although we still have much ground to make up on fumbles lost.
Joel and Will woo their way through the Vols exceeding expectations for the second week in a row. They then parlay that into a long weekend at Fantasy Island and return home to conclude that the upcoming Ole Miss game looks suspiciously like the earlier Florida game, except that now the Tennessee offense seems to have found its stride.
It’s the midway point of the regular season, and chances are you’re projecting Tennessee to finish with more wins than you did in Week 1. It’s especially impressive considering the way optimism tends to sneak its way in during fall camp, no matter how far down you’ve been, or for how long. We’re living all that good news right now.
When’s the last time you were more optimistic overall in Week 7 than Week 1? Speak of the devil, Lane Kiffin’s 2009 season kicked into high gear with the 45-19 beat down of Georgia on October 10, but by that point the Vols were 3-3 with a disappointing loss to UCLA. So you felt much better at this point 12 years ago, but probably weren’t projecting a better finish for that team than you did in August.
I think you have to go back 15 years to 2006, when the Vols rebounded from a 5-6 disappointment the year before to blow out #9 Cal in the opener. The Vols lost to eventual national champion Florida by one, but played the perfect fourth quarter in rallying to beat #10 Georgia 51-33 in Athens on October 7. That team was ranked #23 in the preseason AP poll, and was #7 at this point in the season.
Back in the present day, it was a Saturday of mixed results for the rest of Tennessee’s schedule. Alabama’s loss and Tennessee’s continued success should drive those numbers up north of…well, 1% or so. But how far? Not sure we’re ready for that yet.
Meanwhile, after disparaging Kentucky’s win over Florida in this space last week, you’ll find no such thing from me this week. The Cats got an incredibly efficient performance from Will Levis and ran for 7.3 per carry on the Tiger defense in a 42-21 win.
And what do we do with Ole Miss?
We’ll spend the rest of the week answering that one. As always, leave your win totals in the comments, and we’ll see just how good we’re feeling this week.
It’s just hard to know what to expect, at least for me. What’s an appropriate level of cynicism after all these years? What are healthy boundaries around our hearts: still beating orange blood, but hey, our doctor said to take it easy?
Even after last week. And even after last week set up this week as a gatekeeper of sorts: just win it, by any form or fashion, and six wins are there for the taking. A month of opportunity on the other side. Just avoid the letdown. Just find a way to win. Just.
Turns out, ain’t much just about this team.
Tennessee was efficient: 14 plays, 66 yards to open, converting three times on 3rd-and-3-or-less. Tennessee was explosive: a nice playcall got Velus Jones 15 yards on the first snap of the next series, then they lulled Carolina’s defense to the right before throwing back left, 39 yards to a w-i-d-e open JaVonta Payton.
Carolina’s offense has struggled all year, so a 14-0 lead felt huge. But, to their credit, here came the Gamecocks, gashing the defense to 1st-and-Goal at the 1. Then they went backwards. Then they got cute.
What happened after Jaylen McCullough’s interception is the best sequence of football I’ve seen from Tennessee this season:
Hooker to Tillman for 20 yards
Hooker run for 8 yards
Evans run for 10 yards
Hooker to Velus for 31 yards
Hooker run for 11 yard TD
Total drive: 5 plays, 80 yards, 1:18
What was one yard away from a 14-7 game was also 78 seconds away from a 21-0 hole. Then Carolina graciously fumbled their next snap, and the Vols scored on 3rd-and-7. Two drives later, the Vols converted 3rd-and-8, then Tiyon Evans went 45 yards on the next snap.
Remember last year, when the Vols went 1-of-11 on third down at South Carolina? Today: 12-of-17. That puts the Vols at 40-of-81 on the year, absurdly close to breaking 50%.
Also impressive: the way Tennessee is diverse in the passing game. After throwing to the tight end at a historic rate through the first two Saturdays, wide receivers caught 16 of 17 passes today. Velus Jones and Cedric Tillman remain threats all over the field, with JaVonta Payton now rocking nine catches for 216 yards (24 per catch!) for 4 touchdowns.
So we’re up 38-7 at halftime and mostly begging Ole Miss to hang on in their game. Then the Vols opened the second half with four straight punts, starting with a pair of three-and-outs.
One difference from last week: Carolina got home a lot in this sequence. The Vols ran it 11 times in 17 plays (64.7%) en route to those four punts, with the six passing plays resulting in three sacks. Carolina’s defense was solid coming in: much better than Mizzou’s, but better than Ole Miss’s too.
Still, credit Tennessee’s defense: without the fake punt, the Gamecocks finished with just 13 points offensively. And when they turned Carolina away on fourth down, the Vols did respond with a great run by Hendon Hooker to set up the final touchdown of the day.
Hooker was on pace early to vastly eclipse the 22 passes per game he attempts coming in. Then in the second half, sacks and score left him with…23. But he hit 17 of those (73.9%) for 225 yards (9.8 ypa) for three touchdowns and zero interceptions. Accurate, explosive, and clean, again.
It’ll get dirtier now: depending on what Kentucky does with LSU, Georgia, and Mississippi State, the Vols may face four ranked opponents in a row. But we’ll face them with our orange hearts beating a little louder; especially so next Saturday night, in what will be the most anticipated home game since Alabama five years ago. There will still be nerves, especially with so little depth. There will still be caution, especially because we’ve been down for so long.
There’s always hope; that’s why we’re here. But today, there was just joy. Unexpected, unfiltered joy.
There will be a lot of emotions this week. We’ll get to all of them.
But the Vols enter it with more optimism than we thought we’d see this season. Full credit to Josh Heupel and this team: so far, these guys are a delightful surprise.
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