The conversation surrounding the ever terrifying game against Tennessee has revolved around one thing: Is that spread for real?
No, not the spread offense. Literally nobody is worried about Tennessee’s offense.
The point spread for this game is…well, it’s high. It started out with Georgia as a 33-point favorite, and has since dropped down to about 31.5. That hook, man. It’ll get you.
After all, am I more comfortable betting that Georgia will win by more than four touchdowns and a field goal? Because just four touchdowns and a field goal, well, that’s gonna make me feel much more cozy, but more than that is asking a lot.
I’m fooling nobody. I know nothing about gambling and even less about odds-making, but that point spread is enormous. It is the largest one in this series’ vaunted history and it goes to show you just how quickly the Volunteers have fallen off.
After all, they came in to Sanford Stadium two years ago and won. They weren’t a terrible team that year, at least not yet, but they had every reason to believe that they could defeat Georgia at home. With some shady officiating and an unbelievable couple of plays in the final seconds (we’ll talk about that later), Tennessee pulled off the victory and looked poised to win the East and play…Alabama again…for the SEC Championship.
Nobody expected the Vols to beat Alabama in the regular season meeting (spoiler…they didn’t), and nobody would have pegged Tennessee to win the rematch in Atlanta (they wouldn’t have), but even getting to Atlanta would have been an accomplishment for that program that had been shut out of conference title hopes since 2007.
The 2016 Volunteers had to be the team to win, we all knew that, just because of the sheer amount of talent that was leaving. What nobody expected was just how miserable they would look a year later under Butch Jones’ dying gasp.
Maybe after his internship with Alabama he’ll understand how to coach.
Now, two years after the “Dobbsnail Boot” play, Tennessee can cover just by not being abysmal.
Frankly, I’m not sure they can be not abysmal.
Let’s give the Vols a fair shake. Right now, they’re averaging 29.5 points per game. That’s really not bad. Mind you, the Dawgs are averaging 44.5 points per game right now, so compare the two programs right away and you see a problem, but that problem is deeper than you know.
See, the bulk of Tennessee’s 118 points have come against some seriously inferior opponents. Literally half of their points came in a lopsided 59-3 win over East Tennessee State. So there’s one strike against Tennessee’s respectable stats. In fact, if you re-average their points without that game, you get a somewhat more indicative 19.67 points per game. Their other three games were a 40-14 loss to West Virginia on a neutral field, a 24-0 win over lowly UTEP in which the Vols did not look good, and then last week’s laughable 47-21 loss to Florida.
“Tell me the one about Tennessee football’s futility again!” (Photo by Jorge Saavedra on Unsplash)
I’m not laughing because Florida won, I loathe the Gators like any good Bulldog should, but I can laugh because Tennessee turned the ball over six times.
Next we can compare statistical leaders on offense. This is another area where Tennessee doesn’t seem to be that far behind Georgia.
Starting with quarterbacks, Jarett Guarantano is sitting at 46-72 (63.89 percent) with 658 yards through the air, culminating in two scores and two picks. The number of touchdowns aside, he isn’t that far behind Jake Fromm if you’re only watching the numbers. Fromm is sitting at 50-69 (72.46 percent) with 739 yards, nine scores, and two interceptions.
Fromm’s numbers are obviously better. That’s undeniable. But “Guaranteed No” there is looking comparable in that regard. Never mind that he lacks the instinct, the talent, the leadership, or the hair that Fromm possesses, his numbers are similar.
Then we can move on to the team’s respective rushing leaders. Tennessee is led by Tim Jordan, who has 237 yards on 57 carries, with two touchdowns. Jordan averages 4.7 yards per carry, which is a number worth considering.
Georgia is led by Elijah Holyfield, which is itself a surprise, producing 290 yards and two touchdowns. That’s only a few yards more than Jordan, right? Of course, Holyfield has 53 more yards on 21 fewer carries. Holyfield is averaging 8.1 yards per carry on 36 attempts. That is eye-popping.
Oh, and Holyfield isn’t alone, either.
After Holyfield, Georgia has three backs who have gained 100 or more yards rushing this season. D’Andre Swift has 190 yards, James Cook has 105 yards, and Brian Herrien is right at 100 yards.
Oh, and those guys have plenty of help, too.
Not counting quarterbacks, seven other athletes have helped move the ball on the ground for the Dawgs this season. Seven! And they’re all doing so effectively. Even when factoring in yards lost for fumbles or sacks, the Dawgs are rushing for an average of 6.3 yards per carry with 1,001 yards on the ground through four games. And with just 160 carries.
Tennessee’s top-tier running backs are actually doing a lot of work. Behind Jordan, Ty Chandler has 220 yards, Madre London has 199 yards, and Jeremy Banks has 143 yards. Shoot, Chandler (6.3) is averaging more yards per carry than Swift (4.8), Cook (4.8), and Herrien (5.9). He even has an 81-yard rushing touchdown.
But then after that, the numbers drop significantly. With 186 total attempts, the Volunteers have just 820 yards rushing for an average of 4.4 yards per carry.
You can see where the Volunteers have some talent, they just don’t have the support players to make it work. The offensive line for Tennessee is struggling to make room and help these guys break for big plays.
Oh, and again, almost all of these yards came against UTEP and ETSU. Against real competition, the Vols have struggled. Badly.
Tennessee rushed for 159 yards as a team against Florida, averaging just 2.9 yards per carry.
You run into a similar predicament with the leading receivers for each team. Marquez Callaway is Guarantano’s best guy, with 210 yards on 14 receptions. But no touchdowns.
Mecole Hardman, who has had some Heisman considerations in this young season, also has “just” 14 receptions. He’s turned those catches into 247 yards and four touchdowns. Ignoring the fact that Hardman is also a supreme asset at special teams and running the ball, his ability to find the end zone puts him squarely ahead of Callaway.
Statistically, these two teams are not that far removed from one another. Maybe first-year head coach Jeremy Pruitt can build on that, but the tale of the tape shows another issue. Tennessee struggles to find the end zone.
It doesn’t take an expert analyst to point out that your receivers are missing the point of catching the ball if they have a total of 771 yards on 53 catches, but only three touchdowns.
They are averaging less than one touchdown pass per game.
Three different Tennessee receivers have hauled in passes for more than 50 yards without scoring, including Callaway. His season long is 51 yards. He gained more than half the field on one play and still didn’t score.
“There’s a secret message in the threads. It says, ‘We Are Bad at Football.’” (Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)
I get that it happens. Todd Gurley threw a 50-yard pass that didn’t find the end zone once. But when your offense is defined by long plays that fail to score, you eventually have to realize there’s a pattern here and you’re on the wrong end of the loom.
Tennessee is throwing for 257 yards per touchdown. Georgia, on the other hand, is throwing for 82.64 yards per touchdown.
That’s including the stats against ETSU and UTEP. If you can’t find multiple explosive passing plays against those guys, you’re struggling.
If you do the same touchdown breakdown for rushing, Tennessee actually beats Georgia. The Vols earn a touchdown every 82 yards, almost exactly as frequently as Georgia does through the air. Georgia only scores a touchdown every 125.13 yards rushing.
These numbers are clearly deceptive for so many reasons, mainly our effectiveness at passing the ball that allows us to be more balanced on offense. In total offense, Georgia scores a touchdown every 100.52 yards. Tennessee, on the other hand, has to travel 122.38 yards between touchdowns. Depending on how things shake out, that could be one or two extra possessions.
But the main reasons these numbers are deceptive, again, is because of who Tennessee has played so far. The Vols averaged just 3.39 yards per carry and 4.68 yards per play against Florida and West Virginia.
Georgia, on the other hand, has averaged 4.96 yards per carry in two games against conference opponents and an amazing 6.95 yards per play in those same games.
Admittedly, West Virginia is probably a better team than South Carolina. Florida may or may not be better than Mizzou, but I would say those are probably fairly equitable measures.
Either way, you don’t need to look real hard at the numbers to see that Georgia is a demonstrably better team than Tennessee. Obviously on offense, that’s the case.
Defensively, I offer you just this. The Volunteers are allowing 22.5 points per game to Georgia’s 13.3 points per game. Tennessee has allowed 40 or more points twice this year. Nobody has yet scored more than 30 against Georgia, and Mizzou is the first team to score more than 20 points against the Dawgs this season.
So does Tennessee have a path to victory?
Well…yeah. It’s college football. This is the sport that lives and breathes chaos, and anything can happen.
I was listening to 960 The Ref Thursday afternoon when Chris Brame asked Jeff Dantzler one simple question as part of the Five at 5, my favorite radio segment. Brame asked, “If you’re Pruitt, what do you tell your team in preparation for this game?”
I don’t tell my team anything.
I just sit them down and make them watch the 2001 edition of this rivalry, where the sixth-ranked Volunteers were upset by an upstart first-year head coach named Mark Richt. I make them watch that footage and tell them that this game took a scrappy young team playing with confidence and boldness in a hostile environment.
Most of the kids who are going to take the field in this game tomorrow were still wearing Pull-Ups when that game happened, so who knows how much they know about it? But I would make them watch that game and remind them that a team unwilling to quit is a team that can still win a football game.
Conversely, if I’m Kirby Smart, I’m showing my team the exact same footage. When they all finish cheering and hootin’ and hollerin’ after the now-famous call of P-44 Haynes, otherwise known as the “Hobnail Boot” play, I somberly stand up and say, “You’re not Georgia in this scenario. You’re Tennessee.”
Now, we’re the established, ranked team. We’re the big boy on the field and Tennessee is coming in upset-minded. We don’t want to let the same thing happen to us that we did to Tennessee in 2001 and that warning needs to be very, very fresh on their minds.
Then again, more than half of this team was standing there, front and center, for the “Dobbsnail Boot” from two years ago. I know Tennessee fans don’t generally like that nickname, which I can’t understand. It’s a great name and it does a good job of co-opting one of our best moments and turning it into one of our worst.
In the last 10 years or so, the Georgia/Tennessee series has turned pretty one-sided. We squeaked by the Vols in 2008 and then 2011-2014. We drubbed them heavily in 2010 and then again in 2017. We lost some tight games in 2015 and 2016, two games we should’ve won to build a huge streak against the Vols, and then we had our own drubbing handed to us in 2009.
We’ve built up a lovely little 7-3 decade against the Vols with a chance to keep that going tomorrow.
But nobody will be thinking of that.
We have a chance to once again even the all-time series with Tennessee at 23-23-2.
But nobody on the field will be thinking of that.
Honestly, I don’t even know if they’ll be thinking about going 5-0 in the pursuit of an unlikely 15-0, but maybe.
I doubt very much that most of our players will be thinking of that 31.5-point spread. I doubt they’ll be thinking of any of those numbers.
But I can imagine that a few of them will be thinking of one number in particular: 4. The four measly seconds left on the clock when Josh Dobbs lobbed an impossible pass into the end zone to steal a win in Athens in 2016.
Our guys will be thinking of that moment, and maybe even the old P-44 Haynes, and saying these two words. Two simple words that express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Never again.
Three Picks and a Score
My picks the last two weeks have been pretty awful. I’m a combined 1-5 in the last two weeks, so let’s not bother recapping those, shall we?
Which brings us to this week. I’ve been struggling with what to do for Tennessee, and I think I’m going to focus more on them this week than Georgia. So without further ado, here we go.
The Vols will not complete a pass more than 20 yards downfield. (This is not counting YAC, just where the catch is made compared to the line of scrimmage.)
Georgia will hold Tennessee to less than 3.0 yards per carry.
At least three ball carriers for Georgia will have gains of 25 yards or more.
Dawgs win 45-6.
So what predictions do you want to make for tomorrow’s game? Throw them here in the comments or over at the Reddit thread we do every week on r/GeorgiaBulldogs.