Gameday on Rocky Top

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.

Ye olde GRT Expected Win Total Machine has been on quite the ride. Expectations at the start of fall camp hovered around 6.9 wins, rising to 7.2 last week with Trey Smith and Aubrey Solomon eligible and kickoff knocking on the door. But in the aftermath of the Georgia State game (and after removing a few entries that gave the Vols an 80% chance to beat Chattanooga and a 0% chance against the rest of the field, which might be allowed by next week!), things are…less exciting.

The average expectation among our readers is now 3.92 wins on the year. If we’re still allowed to round up, that would put the Vols at 4-8, 5-7, and 4-8 the last three years.

No one’s projection was worth anything against Georgia State, but looking at things through more objective eyes is – hopefully, in this case – still helpful. SP+ and FPI were both high on the Vols coming into the year due to plenty of returning experience. No one lost like Tennessee last week, but several of our opponents didn’t flatter themselves either. As a result, here’s the projected margin of victory for Tennessee in SP+ and FPI going forward:

	SP+	FPI
BYU	9	6.9
Chattanooga	N/A	N/A
at Florida	-15.4	-12.5
Georgia	-18.4	-14.5
Mississippi St	-7.6	-2.7
at Alabama	-32.7	-25.3
South Carolina	0.4	0.3
UAB	22.5	23.5
at Kentucky	-5	-4
at Missouri	-9.8	-3.5
Vanderbilt	5.6	7.4

Both models have the Vols favored by at least 5.5 points in four remaining games, plus a clear toss-up with South Carolina. From there, it gets trickier: the two models continue to disagree on Mississippi State and Missouri, with FPI now listing the trip to Lexington as Tennessee’s most difficult game after the usual suspects from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

The date with the Gamecocks is of obvious importance from seven weeks away. Not only might it be one of Tennessee’s best chances to scratch and claw their way back to six wins, but if things go bad against BYU on Saturday it could become the game that eliminates any final hope of bowl eligibility in October.

But first, the Cougars. Vegas still likes the Vols in the neighborhood of a field goal, and both advanced statistical models like Tennessee by more than that; SP+ gives Tennessee a 70% chance of victory, which is what I gave us in the Expected Win Total Machine before the Georgia State loss. So far our readers this week give the Vols a 42.9% chance of victory against the Cougars (again, after removing the zeroes).

I’m more curious than anything, about everything. How many people will show up? How soon would booing commence? And the bigger picture questions: what percentage of Tennessee’s problems from last week are easier to fix – alignment, assignment, etc. – and what percentage of them can’t get fixed any time soon, because they’re the same problems from last season without enough new faces to solve them? And if the latter list is longer, what percentage of fight does this team have in its tank?

There’s some “most important game since ____________” floating around. A couple thoughts about that. The last “most important game” we played was against Georgia in 2017; its importance became the end of the Butch Jones era, not the beginning of any short-term good. The ones before that were all in 2016 with stakes both higher and more tangible. You can argue the long-term stakes are really high for Tennessee right now, and that’s true…but those won’t be ultimately decided by what the Vols do or don’t do against BYU. Tennessee was always playing the long game here. We’ve played games of actual importance recently enough, and been through enough change for longer than that to think anything program-related is going to get decided on Saturday.

In the short-term, this game matters a lot. It might also help us see how long the long-term really is.

If Vegas and the statistical models are right, the Vols will course correct, at least this week, and our scenarios will improve. Or if what we saw defensively for much of last season and the Georgia State game shows up against BYU, we’ll lean hard into the abyss and its enveloping apathy. This is a week when we’ll either be forced to embrace a worst-case scenario, or find a Tennessee team capable of making the best of it. I’m genuinely curious to see which way it goes.

The SPM finished Week 1 (and Week 0) at a modest 28-27 (50.91%) on all games. Above the magic confidence level, it went 20-13 (60.61%) and within the magic confidence range, it went 13-4 (76.47%).

Like everyone else and their dog, it was shocked — SHOCKED! — at the outcome of the Tennessee-Georgia State game, although I will say that it was not nearly as wrong as the rest of us. Tennessee was a 25.5-point favorite, and the SPM liked the Vols only by 11.6. It didn’t predict Tennessee to lose, but it warned that they wouldn’t cover.

Tennessee vs. BYU

So, what does the SPM say about the Vols’ game against BYU Saturday? Bottom line, it thinks Vegas hit the nail firmly on the head with a swift single strike of a sledgehammer. Don’t play this one, is what it’s saying, as it has near-zero confidence in it.

The SPM draws on a great deal of data this week. We’re still relying mostly on 2018 data and doing so from each team’s perspective, but we’re sprinkling in what little data we have for 2019, also from each team’s perspective. Here’s what comes out of that pot once it’s stewed a while.

The 2018 data

From the 2018 BYU perspective, Tennessee’s defense looks like Arizona and Northern Illinois (woo) and Tennessee’s offense looks like Cal and New Mexico State. The estimated score from that angle is Tennessee 19, BYU 15.

From the 2018 Tennessee perspective, BYU’s defense looks most like Florida and Georgia (woo) and their offense looks like Kentucky and Vanderbilt. The estimated score for that is Tennessee 20.1, BYU 19.6. Tie game, basically.

The built-in year-to-year adjustment has BYU as being somewhat worse this year than last. Regarding Tennessee, the jury was nearly back with good news when it saw the team coughing up blood in the hall and returned with haste to re-deliberate. (The machine still thinks they’re much better this year than last. Or rather, should be, and is accounting for that assumption.)

Throwing all of that into the pot and cooking it up, the estimated score using 2018 data is Vols 19.5, Cougars 17.2, meaning Tennessee -2.3.

The 2019 data

There’s only one comp for each team so far in 2019, so that data is weighed accordingly. The result is Tennessee 30, BYU 25, but again, it’s not assigned much weight.

SPM Final Estimates

SPM Final estimated score: Tennessee 22.1, BYU 19.2

SPM Final estimated spread: Tennessee -2.9

SPM Confidence level: .1

That confidence level has a decimal, which is SPM-speak for “Nope.”

Eyeball adjustments

Remember last week when I said I wasn’t buying the SPM’s estimate from Georgia State’s perspective? You know, the one that estimated a score of 37-36.6, Panthers? Buyer’s remorse is real.

I’m inclined to trust the machine on this one, as the results seem to be pretty consistent among all of the different angles. If there’s an adjustment to be made, it’s on the defensive side for Tennessee. It won’t take many runs into a defensive front with everybody lined up offstage to get out of hand in a hurry. On the other hand, I do think (hope!) we’re going to see a different team this week.

So, I’m pretty much sticking with the machine for this one but converting the math into actual football numbers. I’m going with Tennessee 23, BYU 20. I’m also guarding my sanity by bracing against the very real possibility that BYU scores a lot more points than that.

Other predictions from other systems

The Vegas line opened at 3 but has now crept up to between 3.5 and 4 with an over/under of 52.5. That basically translates to Tennessee 28, BYU 24.

Bill Connelly’s SP+ (formerly S&P+) likes Tennessee 42-33 and gives the Vols a 70% chance of winning. Connelly was 59% overall in Week 1 and 64% for games in which the difference between SP+ and the spread was three or more points.

ESPN’s FPI gives the Vols a 72.9% chance of winning.

So, will the Vols cover this week? Don’t bet on it.

What are y’all thinking?

Last week’s appetizer gives way to the main course this week as college football kicks off in earnest. Here’s when and where to find the games that matter to Vols fans, 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 6, 2019

Friday is an opportunity to catch No. 24 Boise State in action against Marshall. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Gameday, September 7, 2019

At noon on Saturday, three future Vols opponents are in action. Like Tennessee, Missouri and South Carolina are both coming off disappointing losses, and Vanderbilt is licking its post-Georgia wounds. Here’s the thing, Vols fans. There’s reason to be very concerned about Tennessee this season, but a couple of chief rivals in the SEC East are in the same situation. Among them, it’s a contest to see which of them can pull out of the funk first and best.

The nation’s top three teams are all in action in this Gameday’s 3:30 slot, and two of them are future Vols opponents. The game to watch in this time slot, though, is No. 12 Texas A&M against No. 1 Clemson. DVR the others, and keep a particularly close eye on Mississippi State, as the Vols (presumably) have a legit shot against them later this season.

The evening slot will test your fanhood, as the Vols kick off against BYU at 7:00 on ESPN, but No. 6 LSU travels to No. 9 Texas on ABC at 7:30. Make your own choice there. I’ll be watching the Vols and setting the DVR for LSU/Texas to watch later if I can avoid the score.

Also, there’s a game on Sunday (Oregon State and Hawaii), but it starts at midnight. As an old man who is beginning to really understand the reason for early bird buffets, I am no longer sure midnight even truly exists.

Enjoy!

Full searchable college football TV schedule