It’s only the third week of the 2019 college football season, and the Vols ease out of unconsciousness at the bottom of a hole wondering how they got there. But before they can climb out, they first must take care of Chattanooga, who must be wondering whether they can make magic against an unsteady and rattled Tennessee team.

Here’s when and where to find the games that matter to Vols fans this week, along with some suggestions on how and why to watch them. First up is the list curated just for Vols fans. The full schedule follows that.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Hey, if you’re just hanging out wondering what to do on Friday, there’s stuff to watch. Catch former Vols coordinator Dave Clawson — the original Pants! — plus Les Miles back on the field and the almost-hired Mike Leach. Woo?

Gameday, September 14, 2019

The Vols kick off at noon against Chattanooga on the SEC Network. Meanwhile, future Vols opponents Georgia and Mississippi State are in games they should win, but if you want a look at them, DVR the games and watch them later.

The CBS SEC Game of the Week is Alabama against South Carolina, two future Vols opponents, although it could get out of hand in a hurry. Other games of interest to Vols fans in that time slot are USC-BYU and a midwest rivalry game between the Hawkeyes and the Cyclones.

In the evening, it’s Tennessee’s next opponent — Florida — against another future opponent in Kentucky. This is where we really start to see the SEC East race take shape. Root for chaos and the ‘Cats. If there’s nothing of the sort on tap, there are other games to channel-hop as you wind down your day.

Enjoy!

Full searchable college football TV schedule

In a sea of sound bites this week, I thought this one was interesting:

#Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt on his aggressive fourth-down mindset: I’m trying to instill a mindset in these guys that Tennessee goes out there to win games. We want to attack. We want to make you uncomfortable.

— Wes Rucker (@wesrucker247) September 9, 2019

We’ve talked a lot about Pruitt’s nature as it relates to the offense, especially because the Vols ran fewer plays than any team in college football last season. Does he naturally lack aggression? Was he trying to protect a vulnerable defense? And we wondered last week, before Jarrett Guarantano struggled so mightily against BYU, if Pruitt could adapt that kind of philosophy and green light an offense that scored a bunch of points if the defense truly couldn’t stop anyone.

There are fewer questions about the defense and more about the offense after the loss to BYU. But Pruitt’s response about fourth down was noteworthy, especially because the numbers already show a significant change in that department.

The Vols have gone for it five times, which is tied for 14th-most in college football (stats via SportSource Analytics). Your eyes immediately jump to the fact that Tennessee is just 1-for-5 on those conversions, and rightfully so. But big picture, I think five tries in two games is more significant…especially because Tennessee only went for it on fourth down 11 times last year.

That ranked 126th in college football; among teams that missed a bowl game, only Maryland had fewer attempts last season. In 2018 Tennessee came out of this particular gate fast: 2-of-3 on fourth down against West Virginia, successful conversions against ETSU and UTEP, and an 0-for-2 as part of a hyper-aggressive gameplan against the Gators. The Vols also went 0-for-2 against South Carolina on their final two drives…then didn’t try it again the rest of the year.

We saw a conservative nature on fourth down for the entire Butch Jones tenure:

Year	4th Down Att	Rank	Per Game
2019	5	14	2.5
2018	11	126	0.92
2017	10	124	0.83
2016	9	126	0.69
2015	17	84	1.31
2014	12	115	0.92
2013	11	114	0.92
2012	19	65	1.58
2011	28	10	2.33
2010	17	61	1.31
2009	24	13	1.85

The last consistently aggressive coach on fourth down was Lane Kiffin, who tried one in every game except the blowout win over Georgia. It doesn’t always work: the Vols were denied twice in a frustrating loss to UCLA. And when it does, it doesn’t guarantee victory: the Vols went 5-for-5 combined in narrow losses to Auburn and Alabama. But the willingness to go is something we never saw with Jones, and only saw as a reaction to Dooley’s least competitive team with an injury-riddled offense in 2011. Seventeen of those 28 attempts that season came in games featuring Matt Simms or Justin Worley at quarterback.

I like Pruitt’s quote, and I like the idea. Football coaches find forgiveness much faster for sins of aggression than the other way around. Had the Vols trotted out Cimaglia (and he continued to be automatic) on 4th-and-1 at the BYU 30 with 4:15 to go instead of trying Josh Palmer on the end around, Tennessee leads 19-13 and now BYU needs two hail maries instead of one.

And I’ve heard zero people make that point.

Call it confidence or aggression, but it tends to be rewarded over time. We’re especially appreciative of it after the previous administration courted close games every year. I’m hopeful Pruitt continues down this path, especially because it would represent doing something different. It’s one thing to say you’re learning, it’s another to demonstrate it.

You also can’t be aggressive for the sake of being aggressive. The Vols still struggle to run the ball in short yardage situations after being last by a mile in that stat last season. In two games, when running on 3rd-and-1-3 and 4th down, the Vols have nine carries for 24 yards. The 2.67 average is better. But those nine carries have still only produced five first downs. The Vols can be both smart and aggressive in their play-calling; again, that’s why I don’t hate the end-around, because at least it wasn’t another stuffed attempt into the center of the pile.

The larger issue everyone is invested in is building the mindset Pruitt references. Coach like you believe in your players, and it’s easier for them to believe in themselves. Belief is hard to come by after two games in Knoxville. But in the big picture, the fourth down mindset represents a hopeful shift in Pruitt’s philosophy, and will hopefully lead to a young team and a young coach continuing to grow in the right direction.

Looking beyond the W-L record, the Vols’ national stat rankings show some welcome progress in rushing offense and sacks allowed, and the defense got better but not as much as you might think. Here’s a closer look.

Offense

Climbed out of the Bottom 30: Rushing offense, sacks allowed

Fell out of the Top 30: 3rd down conversion percentage, red zone offense, passing offense.

Defense

Climbed out of the Bottom 30: Rushing defense

Nearly everything here is better, but most not nearly as much as you’d think. Still major problems on third down.

Special Teams

This is still mostly garbage at this point, but punting remains a strength. Kickoff returns took a hit this week.

Turnovers and Penalties

This table is sorted first by category and then by the BYU column, but you can’t tell because Tennessee is currently good at not committing penalties but bad at turnovers.

Sigh. My physical well-being showed a sudden sympathetic solidarity with my mental well-being all Saturday night and Sunday, so I’ve not yet fully processed what happened between the Vols and the Cougars this weekend. I was much more interested in saltines and ginger ale yesterday, so I don’t really even know the mood out there. I do have a pretty good guess.

My initial inclination is to note the devastation of starting 0-2 in a season for which you only expected 7-5 and having those two losses not only come out of the wrong column, but having them come in two of the four games about which you had the most confidence. Said confidence, shot. Dead.

On the other hand — and I don’t know if anyone is ready or willing to hear this at this point — the team did look mostly better, except for the colossal collapse at the end. This appears to be important. In our Reverse Mailbag from last Friday, one of the questions was what our readers wanted to see out of the team against BYU. The answers included progress, fight, something that shows that the team still cares (i.e., a desire to win), defensive improvement, and a solid running game. Those things were evident Saturday night, right up to the point they got eaten by the result.

But a loss is a loss, and we’re now living 2019 in a deep hole. For me, all of that washes out. I had the BYU game as a tossup, and if a double OT game isn’t a tossup, I don’t know what is.

Therefore, I’m keeping everything right where it was last week, which, with the BYU game going from 50/50 to 0 now gives me an expected win total of . . . 2.37. It’s downright gloomy in here.

• Preseason: 6.55
• After Week 0: 6.6
• After Week 1: 2.87
• After Week 2: 2.37

Details: Alabama and Georgia at 1%. Florida at 10%. Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi State, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt are all 20%. UAB is a toss-up. And I have Chattanooga at 75%.

Here’s the thing, though. Tennessee should have won that game, and they mostly looked like they were improving. We often assume that the team we see today is the same team we’ll see all season long. But it’s only going to take one win against some non-UTC team to shift everything in a more positive direction. But they are going to have to do it first.

The GRT Expected Win Total Machine

Here’s a table with my expectations this week:

Tennessee Volunteers currently

Current record: 0-2 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC East

The Vols’ past opponents

Georgia State Panthers

Current record: 2-0 (0-0), 1st in the Sun Belt East

BYU Cougars

Current record: 1-1 (0-0)

The Vols’ future opponents

Chattanooga Mocs

Current record: 1-1 (0-0), 2nd in the Southern Conference

Florida Gators

Current record: 2-0 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC East

Georgia Bulldogs

Current record: 2-0 (1-0), 1st in the SEC East

Mississippi State Bulldogs

Current record: 2-0 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC West

Alabama Crimson Tide

Current record: 2-0 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC West

South Carolina Gamecocks

Current record: 1-1 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC East

UAB Blazers

Current record: 2-0 (0-0), 1st in C-USA West

Kentucky Wildcats

Current record: 2-0 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC East

Missouri Tigers

Current record: 1-1 (0-0), 2nd in the SEC East

Vanderbilt Commodores

Current record: 0-2 (0-1), 7th in the SEC East

What about you? Where are your expectations for the Vols now?

ESPN’s win probability data is available on their Gamecast page for every game since 2016, one year shy of the most famous blown late leads of this decade. So I can’t quantify the comparison, at least in this way, between the BYU loss and what happened against Oklahoma or Florida in 2015 or the Gators in 2014. Much is being made of BYU having a 99.6% chance of defeat when the ball was snapped on the penultimate play of regulation. The Vols were so fond of close games under Butch Jones, outcomes with a 90+% guarantee often went the other way. In 2016 the Gators had a 90.5% chance of victory up 21-3 midway through the third quarter. The next week the Vols were at 98.6% when Jacob Eason hit his hail mary, then the Dawgs at 99.9% when Josh Dobbs hit his. And against Georgia Tech in 2017, the Yellow Jackets had a 90.6% chance of victory on their snap that became the fumble that gave the Vols a final chance in regulation.

So sure, it’s brutal to lose when you have a 99.6% chance of victory in the final minute. But this one was particularly and uniquely painful because the Vols also controlled the entire game up to that point. ESPN’s win probability had the Vols at better than 60% for the entire game before that play, and better than 70% save for a few moments after Jarrett Guarantano’s third quarter interception and BYU’s lone touchdown in regulation. The Vols never led by more than 10, but the outcome never really felt in doubt once you saw that this team came to fight.

If coming to fight was step one, the defense denying Brigham Young for almost all of regulation was step two. And in passing those two tests, the Vols did take the worst of what we were all thinking off the table: that the team would fold, or that the defensive front was so outmatched it would be as if they did when playing someone better than Georgia State. But by putting this kind of gut-punching loss on the table – a first for Jeremy Pruitt, but not for this decade or the upperclassmen on the roster – the dots stay connected, the team folding creeps back into our thought process, and the big picture gets a little more blurry.

As for where Jeremy Pruitt fits in that picture, I think we can safely say there’s not a knowable scenario where it’s in Tennessee’s best interests to fire him this season. My assumption is it would take a cataclysmic finish like 2-10 to make the Vols eat the $9 million buyout, and even then maybe not. So much of that, and the big picture itself, depends on continuing to recruit at a high level. Tennessee has to play well enough to maintain interest from the kind of talent it will take to turn this thing around.

That, like a lot of things, is less about a specific number of wins and more about what progress looks like on the field. This team could finish something like 2-10 and still not lose six games by 25+ points the way they did last year. Hopefully Tennessee’s actual progress looks closer to six wins than two; I’ve got them splitting the difference at exactly 4.00 in our GRT Expected Win Total Machine.

We’ve spent so much time since 2008 trying to figure out how close we were to the top. Perhaps the better question for the present is measuring how close we are to the bottom.

By bottom, I don’t mean just losing to BYU with a 99.6% chance of victory. And that’s also not all I mean by the present.

This might get worse before it gets better. Chattanooga is likely to give the lowest attendance of my lifetime a run for its money. And if the Vols look bad against the Gators, something worse might happen against Georgia: a sell-off to the red & black, turning Neyland Stadium in 2019 into what Commonwealth Stadium looked like in the mid-to-late 90’s when the Vols came calling.

There is so much we want to embrace about who the Vols have been in our lifetimes. But it’s usually healthiest to embrace the truth of one’s present reality. The Vols are a long way from 2007 and a longer way from 1998. Perhaps it’s better for all of us to stop asking how soon we can get back up there, and instead figure out what needs to happen to simply get back up period.

The proverbial year two magic isn’t working for just about anyone right now, and should be Exhibit A for anyone who suggests you just pay as much as it takes on top of a $9 million buyout on top of Butch Jones to get a “sure thing.” Chip Kelly is 0-2 with two two-possession losses and 28 total points. Scott Frost and Nebraska lost to Colorado and looked bad against South Alabama. Willie Taggart is a missed extra point away from 0-2. Only Dan Mullen, who many of us didn’t want any part of, looks like a real success so far.

Obviously year two isn’t working for Tennessee either. But the Vols are so far behind, that entire conversation needs not just the pause button, but to come out of the CD player or VCR or whatever you had in 1998.

The Vols are 0-2 for the first time since 1988, the year before the best stretch in school history began, and the two losses came to Georgia State and BYU. It’s not in anyone’s best interests for the head coach to be somewhere else this season. And the Vols need to make enough progress to continue to recruit well. Things are bad, worse than we thought, and likely to stay that way for a minute or two. The most important thing is progress.

If the Vols truly don’t know how to win, they won’t learn it from 1998 or 2007. And it’s in Tennessee’s best interests to learn it from Jeremy Pruitt’s staff. We need to start measuring that progress not by the distance to the top, but the distance from the bottom.

So what does that progress look like now? Some good news is in the way you got minor glimpses of it against BYU. Ty Chandler’s 154 rushing yards were the most by a Vol running back since…Rajion Neal went for 169 against South Alabama in 2013. The Vols blocked well for long stretches, and the defense created penetration. BYU had 225 yards of offense before the long pass and two overtimes.

I don’t know what’s happening with Jarrett Guarantano. I do know the Vols were the worst team in college football in short yardage rushing last season by a significant margin. In that sense I don’t mind Jim Chaney’s end-around call in the fourth quarter; maybe the Vols should’ve called timeout or checked to something else, but we learned last year this team doesn’t have the horses to just line up and push for a yard consistently.

And I know we’re only two games into this season and 14 into Pruitt’s tenure. I know we probably underestimated, again, the impact of having two brand new coordinators, even when one of them is Jim Chaney. And I know the worst of this schedule is yet to come.

I don’t know what Tennessee’s best can do against it. But I do believe it’s in Tennessee’s best interests for us to pull for it – all of us in the same direction.

It’s Gameday on Rocky Top, with the Tennessee Volunteers looking to rid themselves of the bitter Georgia State aftertaste with a win against the BYU Cougars. Here’s the Gameday Gameplan for Vols fans. Where and when to find the Vols game on TV, what other games to watch today as well, and what to listen to and read as you wait for kickoff.

When is the Vols game, and what TV channel is it on?

Here are the particulars for today’s Tennessee game:

• Kickoff: 7:00
• TV: ESPN
• Official video streaming: Watch ESPN
• Official audio streaming: Vol Network
• Live stats

The best other games for Vols fans to watch today

Here’s our list of games to watch today, curated just for Vols fans:

And here’s a searchable version of the entire college football TV schedule for this week:

GRT games and contests

While you’re waiting for the games to begin, make sure that you submit your answers to the GRT Guessing Game questions and update your picks for the GRT Pick ‘Em.

GRT game-week audio

Here’s our podcast from earlier this week:

And you can find Will’s regular Friday appearance with Josh Ward and Heather Harrington on WNML’s Sports 180 here.

Pre-game prep

To catch up on your pre-game reading, have a look at our game preview posts from earlier this week:

• Reverse mailbag: 3 questions for the GRT community
• What Can We Expect Now?
• What the SPM comps say about Tennessee-BYU
• Video: The entire Jauan Jennings interview, plus Ryan Johnson
• Tennessee Vols statistical ranking trends – after Georgia State
• Assess the damage to your expectations here
• Where’s the Line Between Perspective and Apathy?

Go Vols!

Life preempted the preview podcast scheduled for Thursday this week, so I thought we would do something new this morning. We can’t have all of you on the podcast, but we can have the same discussion here. Let’s call it a reverse mailbag. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

1. Just how important is a contagious Jauan Jennings focused on infecting his teammates with passion?

If you missed it, go watch Jennings’ interview from earlier this week. If energy is a problem for this team, then Jennings may be the cure. No one doubts that his fire is unquenchable; the question is whether and how fast it can spread among his teammates once he decides to prioritize making it happen.

How much better does it make you feel to see Jennings taking the reins?

2. Is the BYU game a must-win for the Vols?

There’s been some talk about this being a must-win for the Vols. Is it, really? If so, is it a must-win just for the 2019 season or do you think it’s possibly even more important than that?

3. What do you most want to see out of the team this Saturday against BYU?

A little defense? Fewer mistakes than the other team? Fight? Heart? What’s at the top of your list?

We’d love to hear your thoughts below.