University of Tennessee Athletics
Inside The T Mailbag - Orange > Blue
September 23, 2015 | Football
Welcome to another edition of the Inside the T Mailbag! Each week this is your opportunity to send in your questions about Tennessee Athletics or anything else to me, Brian Rice, the fan that gets the inside look on your Volunteers.
Serious questions are good, questions with a little personality are better. I take questions all week long on Twitter: @briancrice or via email: UTSportsMailbag@gmail.com.
This week, never feeling blue, eye-popping offensive numbers and winning on turnovers:
Ben: What did you think about Florida tweeting out a map of the stadium to tell fans to wear blue for Saturday's game? A shot at #CheckerNeyland?
Well, my first thought was that it was remarkable that they needed a seating chart to tell fans to all wear the same color.
When I sat back and realized it was a bit of a shot at how our fans organized #CheckerNeyland last season for the Florida game, I was more than a little bit disappointed.
Look, I love school and team official accounts having some personality and going back-and-forth on Twitter. I think it's fun and can add a lot to a game or a rivalry. I follow the Los Angeles Kings and Atlanta Hawks on Twitter even though I have zero interest in either team just because of the really entertaining things they do on social media.
That said, this wasn't a lighthearted shot at us as a school. We can take that, and I wouldn't mind that. But #CheckerNeyland was a fan-driven idea from the start last year and again when we did it this year. To belittle it, even in a backhanded way is a shot at our passionate fans, and I take issue with that.
Any school can tell its fans to wear one color. It's slightly more difficult to get a stripe effect. But to have an initiative driven completely by the fans that requires those fans to check every ticket? That's unique. That's why our fans are the best. If other schools want to belittle that, then that's their business. But I wouldn't trade our fans for anything.
Justin Miller: Is Joshua Dobbs playing to his full potential? Should we press the panic button on the kicking situation?
The rare two-question tweet. I like it.
First, on Dobbs. Certainly the passing performance we saw from him in the opener against Bowling Green was impressive, 15 completions on 22 attempts, 205 yards and two touchdowns. Since then, the numbers have not been as strong, but his impact on the game has still very much been there.
As far as his "full potential" that's a tough thing to determine because he didn't play much or any of the fourth quarter in two of Tennessee's games, and only took five snaps in the fourth quarter of the other. When you take out an fourth of the game time played by Tennessee this season, an entire half against Western Carolina, it's tough to compare his stats to players that have had to play complete games.
He ran for 89 yards against Bowling Green, taking full advantage of his dual-threat reputation. The final play that he ran against the Falcons was an 18-yard touchdown on one of his nine snaps in the fourth quarter. Against Oklahoma, he gained 45 yards on the ground, but lost yardage from three sacks took his rushing total down to just 12, which was a career low at the time.
Against Western Carolina, he was not called upon to run the ball, as Tennessee worked extensively on the passing game and setting up the pass using the running backs. Once the margin became what it was, keeping the starting quarterback healthy became the primary focus and he came out of the game shortly before halftime. That also allowed the coaching staff to give significant reps to Quinten Dormady in situations that allowed him to run the full offense, not just handing off to running backs behind the second team offensive line, as he did late in the game against Bowling Green. So, in some ways, they sacrificed a potential stat-boosting opportunity for Dobbs in order to get Dormady the experience that he needed.
As far as the kicking situation, the perception is that Aaron Medley is off to a slower start than he was last year. The numbers say otherwise and the coaching staff doesn't feel like it's reason for concern just yet.
Medley has missed just three field goals this season, only one of those was a kick that would give me a concern. He missed from 29 yards and 42 yards against Bowling Green in Nashville, and, like I said, the 29-yarder is one that a kicker should always hit. He knows that and the staff still has full faith in him that he would hit that kick tomorrow if the situation presented itself. His other miss was a 48-yard attempt against Oklahoma.
He is 4-7 on field goals this year, 18-18 on extra points. At this point last season, Medley was 4-6 on field goals, 10-10 on PATs. Take away the kick he mis-hit against BG and he's on the same pace as last year. Funny how expectations change perception, isn't it?
He had a couple of kicks out of bounds against WCU where they were working on some situational kicks. You'll notice on some of the other kickoffs, he placed it high and just short of the end zone. When the game was still in doubt early, he was booting them through the end zone.
Because of the risk of injury, teams do not do a lot of full-speed work on kickoff coverage during the season, so you will often see them work on situations like that when games have a wide margin late.
Dave: Why do you feel the offense has struggled at times this season?
Well, I would take issue with the idea that the offense has struggled at all. The Volunteers have 138 points over the first three games. The total marks the most points through three games since scoring 171 to start the 1914 season. That's a pretty impressive number.
Of those points, only two scores have been generated by a unit other than the offense, the punt return touchdown from Alvin Kamara and the kick return TD from Evan Berry, both against Western Carolina.
From a yards standpoint, there has been a significant increase, especially on the ground. A year ago, Tennessee had 390 rushing yards and four touchdowns through three games. This season, the Vols have 738 yards on the ground and 10 TDs. Sure, the passing yards have dropped slightly from 721 to 567, but the touchdowns are even at six each season. Total yards are up from 1,111 a season ago to 1,305 this year.
One thing that is remarkable about the passing stat is that the 721 yards through three games last season was on 71-of-122 passing, an average of 10.15 yards per completion, just 5.9 yards per attempt. This season, Vol QBs have completed 49 passes on 83 attempts, an 11.57 yards per completion average and 6.83 yards per attempt.
Frank: The Vols have won the turnover battle in every game this season, does that continue Saturday?
To start, I'll let Butch Jones answer this one, then spout some of the numbers at the end.
"It's absolutely critical. It all boils down to Maxim 1: The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win. We talk about that everyday. Obviously, we have a Maxim 1 period in practice. But we have to be able to be opportunistic, take the football away, but then also on top of that is what you do once you generate the turnover. There's also sudden change offense and that was an area last year where we struggled in. Football's a game of momentum and I always talk about momentum plays. Every game comes down to two to three plays that can make the difference, but there's also momentum plays. What do you do with the momentum plays? Do you give the momentum back or do you capitalize on the momentum and build upon the momentum that you have? We have to continue to be opportunistic and then offensively - I believe we have one turnover in three games - we have to hang on to the football. As we all know, we're playing a great, great defense. I believe they've generated six turnovers as well this year and they're very opportunistic. So it's going to be a great challenge, but that's the formula for winning. Turnover margin is the number one statistic in winning and losing football games."
Through three games, the numbers look like this. The Vols have one turnover, the Dobbs INT in overtime against Oklahoma. Tennessee has forced six turnovers, three interceptions and three fumbles.
Even more impressive than the +5 turnover margin is what the Volunteers have done with those turnovers. UT has 31 points off of turnovers, just a hair over five points per. The only turnover the Vols have not scored on was Todd Kelly Jr.'s second interception against Oklahoma. On the other five turnovers, Tennessee has four touchdowns and a field goal.
Zack: Is this finally the year we break the Florida streak?
I'm always picking the Vols. See you all in Gainesville!
Brian Rice is the writer for UTSports.com. You can contact him on Twitter @briancrice or via email: UTSportsMailbag@gmail.com.
