Making Football Fun: Big Plays

What’s the biggest difference between what happened at Central Florida and what’s been happening at Tennessee? 40+ yard plays.

A 40+ yard play is a good benchmark for a true drive-changer. A 20-30+ yard play might still lead to a punt, or down in close perhaps you were already in field goal range. But the 40+ territory tends to directly change the outcome.

Last year, Tennessee hit three 40+ yard plays in 10 games, good for 111th nationally. JG hit his second long completion to Jaylin Hyatt against Alabama; the Vols scored a touchdown on the next play. Harrison Bailey and Velus Jones connected for a 74-yard touchdown against Vanderbilt with the Vols up 35-17. And J.T. Shrout and Cedric Tillman turned in one against Texas A&M that, if you’re like me, you’ve already forgotten about because by that point we were trying to figure out who was getting investigated for what.

That’s three for the Vols in 10 games. In 2019, Tennessee hit 13 40+ yard plays in 13 games, 73rd nationally.

UCF, in 10 games last year, led the nation in 40+ yard plays with 24. Among teams that only played 10 games, Texas was second with 20. In 2019, UCF had 30 40+ yard plays in 13 games, trailing only Memphis (35 in 14 games).

It’s something we heard a lot about Josh Heupel’s offense when he first arrived, so much so we probably became a little numb to it. But the true numbing sensation is from the difference between what Central Florida has done, and the comparison to Tennessee.

In fact, you have to go back to 2012 to find a Tennessee offense that ranked in the Top 35 in 40+ yard plays. Via SportSource Analytics:

That’s Chaney, Bajakian, DeBord, Scott, Helton, and Chaney. And only in 2012 were the Vols truly explosive. You’ll remember the 2015 group winning nine games in spite of this statistic, leading to an off-season of, “Will they let Dobbs throw it deep?”

Consider how football has changed: in 2012, Tyler Bray and company were 15th nationally with 19 40+ yard plays, and only three teams – Baylor, Aaron Murray’s Georgia, and Chuckie Keeton’s Utah State – had more than 25 40+ yard plays. Two years earlier in 2010, only San Diego State had 25+ 40+ yard plays.

In 2019, six teams hit that mark. In 2016, 13 teams did it.

Since Bray’s last hurrah – armed with a defense that required lots of points to keep you in it – the Vols have been mostly managing risk in one form or another. Sometimes that looked like Justin Worley, sometimes it was Dobbs on a leash. It was really only in November of 2016, when the Vols also had a defense that required lots of points, that Tennessee truly lived this kind of life. Since then, whether through Jarrett Guarantano or various attempts to find a better option, whether philosophy or talent or all of the above…Tennessee just hasn’t seemed that interested in big plays.

They may need a bunch this fall. We’ll see. But whether they do or don’t, the pursuit should be enjoyable to watch. And to be sure, that pursuit may come with deep balls that miss their target and more three-and-outs than we can imagine against good defenses. But just the idea of the big play seems like something the Vols haven’t aggressively pursued in a long time. And that pursuit, in and of itself, should lead to more fun this fall.