Last year, I declared
that 2016 was the most important Tennessee football season in almost 20 years.
I thought this because Butch, then heading into his fourth year on the job, had
finally assembled a veteran, talent-loaded, top ten team with a favorable schedule,
and that anything worse than winning the SEC East would be a massive
disappointment, and potentially, a fireable offense.
We all know how it turned
out, of course: a series of extreme highs and painstakingly frustrating lows, all
which culminated in a 4-4 conference record and a waste of the most talented
Vol team of the last decade. Sure, I’ll never forget the 21-0 comeback against Florida
that squashed our 11 year streak of misery, or the Dobbsnail Boot across Georgia’s
nose, but along with those glorious moments came the 7 turnover game against
Texas A&M, the bizarre Appalachian State game, ‘Bama’s 49-10 drubbing in
Knoxville, the inexcusable South Carolina and Vanderbilt losses, the 500 different
defensive injuries, Jalen Hurd’s confusing midseason , and
Butch finally proving to everyone that he’s a gym teacher incapable of guiding
the program back to national prominence.
So now we’re in 2017, and
I’m not sure there’s all that much for anyone in Vol Nation to be excited
about. Last year’s quarterback, Josh Dobbs, is in the NFL now, and while Butch has
yet to formally announce the new starter at that position, it’ll more than
likely be junior Quinten Dormady, who has just 39 career pass attempts. There’s
also a new offensive coordinator, Larry Scott, who was Tennessee’s tight end
coach last season. Scott, who has never called plays before, sports a sterling resume:
- · Played offensive tackle at South Florida from 1996-99
- · Had a plurality of different high school coaching jobs in Florida from 2001-04
- · Grad assistant at USF in 2006
- · Tight end coach at USF from 2007-08 and from 2010-11
- · Offensive line coach at USF in 2009
- · Running back coach at USF in 2012
- · Tight end coach at Miami from 2013-15
- · Interim head coach at Miami in 2015 (went 4-2)
- · Tight end coach at Tennessee in 2016
- · Whoops, that’s it
Yeah, because that’s
going to beat Saban!
Other departures include
one of the best pass rushers in school history, Derek Barnett, as well as their
all purpose yards leader from last season, Alvin Kamara. Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Cam
Sutton, and last year’s leading receiver Josh Malone are also all gone to the
NFL. Darrin Kirkland Jr., an All-SEC freshman team performer at linebacker in
2015, is out for the year after having surgery on his meniscus, and receiver
Josh Smith and defensive tackle Shy Tuttle are both game time decisions for
tonight’s opener against Georgia Tech.
On offense, Tennessee
will be relying a lot on junior running back John Kelly to be an absolute
monster and cornerstone piece of their attack. He’s certainly talented enough
to throw up Kamara-like numbers, but it’s concerning that they’ll be depending
this much on a guy who only has 138 rushing attempts and 6 catches in two seasons of college ball. Wide receiver is even more of a problem
area. Sure, Jauan Jennings has great hands, but he’s not exactly a speed guy,
or someone that demands safety help over the top or double teams. Yes yes, I
know he “burnt” Jalen Tabor, but if you go back and watch that touchdown, from
the Florida game, he doesn’t really explode to the end zone. If anything, it
seems surprising that he didn’t get caught by one of UF’s defensive backs
before he crossed the goal line, considering he's running at the speed of an overweight jogger trying to burn off too many Diet Cokes.
And if Josh Smith does miss significant time,
then the Vols will be begging for one of the inexperienced guys from the
Marquez Callaway-Jeff George-Tyler Byrd group to step up and start making
plays. Not great.
And then there’s the offensive
line, a unit that was leakier than Travis Henry's condoms last season. If they
aren’t any better, then it won’t matter how great Dormady and Kelly could be,
because everything they’ll try to do will get blown up behind the line of scrimmage
before it even gets going. I was critical of Josh Dobbs last year because of his
inaccuracy as a passer and his recklessness with the football, but to be fair, it'd be difficult for anyone to look composed behind that offensive line. I mean he was pretty much running for his life every single week, and the only reason Tennessee ended up being a competent offense last season was because Dobbs was a super athlete who could escape the pocket and make plays. Dormady isn’t a statue, but he’s also not close to the athlete Dobbs
was, so if they can’t block for him, he’ll either guide the Vols to single
digit points every week, or get carted off the field with like 15 different
fractures by the Florida game. If the hype is correct, true freshman guard Trey Smith should help, because from all accounts he's an animal who absolutely whoops everyone that's ever been put in front of him. Let's hope so.
Defense isn’t as up in the air.
Sure, losing Barnett, Reeves-Maybin, Kirkland, and Sutton isn’t a great thing,
but they’ve got enough talent and experience on that side of the ball to be a
quality unit. Senior Todd Kelly Jr. led the team in tackles last season, and
the Tech game will be the 36th game of his college career.
Linebacker Colton Jumper is limited athletically, but he plays hard, and he was
probably the Vols second best front seven player after Barnett last year. The
Kahlil McKenzie-Shy Tuttle-Kendal Vickers-Alexis Johnson defensive tackle
rotation has a chance to be really good if they can stay healthy, and defensive
end Jonathan Kongbo, linebacker Cortez McDowell, safety Nigel Warrior, and defensive
back Rashaan Gaulden are all somewhat experienced players who were highly
sought after before they chose to come to Tennessee. On paper, they should be
able to push people around and generate a consistent pass rush. Whether they do
or not remains to be seen, of course.
The schedule, like most
years, is brutal. Playing Georgia Tech in Atlanta isn’t really a road game, but
I wouldn’t say it’s a neutral site game either. In conference, they have road
games against Florida (The Vols have a tortured history in Gainesville, and
have only won three times there since 1971), ‘Bama (probably the best team in
the country), Kentucky (a supposed dark horse in the SEC East), and Missouri
(they put up 72 points on Saturday). Georgia, LSU, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt
all come to Knoxville, and besides Vandy, which of those games are definite
wins? Georgia should be better in year two under Kirby Smart, LSU looks like a
competent, bruising squad (they absolutely dominated BYU on Saturday night) and
South Carolina beat Tennessee last year and scored one of the more impressive
wins in the country over the weekend, a seven point victory on a neutral field over
a veteran NC State team. Oh, and the Gamecocks’ head coach Will Muschamp is 3-0
against Butch. Good luck!
And finally, there’s
Butch. Entering his fifth year in Knoxville, the only thing he’s proven so far
is that he likes platitudes and slogans, and that no matter what the
expectations are, he can always underperform them. I think we have pretty good
evidence that Tennessee is never going to win anything substantial with him at
the helm. Last year was pretty damning; how do they, with as much talent as
they had, beat Florida and Georgia and still not win the East? How do they blow
the Vanderbilt and South Carolina games? How do they look unprepared and flat
in almost every first half?
I’d love for Butch to
prove me wrong. Seriously. Jones seems to be a nice guy who tries to do things
the right way, but hugging babies, rolling out new catchphrases every week, and
recruiting players with “five star hearts” shouldn’t be his top priority, or
the main selling point for him keeping his job.
The Vols should win
tonight. They’ve got more talent than the Yellow Jackets, and they’ve had an
entire off-season to prepare for Tech’s unusual triple option attack. Of
course, there’s a lot of things they haven’t done during the Butch era that
they were supposed to do…. like win the SEC East. So I’d basically believe any
outcome. Winning by three touchdowns seems just as likely as losing by three
touchdowns and giving up 400 yards rushing.
Regardless, 9-4 and
another January bowl game victory against a middling Big Ten team seems about right for
this squad. And if that’s the case, then Butch’s seat keeps getting hotter. I
wonder when it will explode.
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