Gameday on Rocky Top

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.

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?