by On Saturdays you can find Monte Kiffin, master of the Tampa Two, standing in the shadows of his outspoken and controversial son. Tennessee is 3-4 (1-3), but hardly a pushover and with five games left to play the Vols have a realistic chance of making a bowl. They’re gaining respect, winning games, keeping losses from turning into blowouts and making up for the own offensive inadequacies with defense. Through seven games Monte’s Vols are ranked 10th in total defense*. More impressive than that, to me at least, is that they’re holding opposing offenses below their season averages in points and yards.
| Team | Points/Game | Yards/Game | Points vs Tenn | Yards vs Tenn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | 20 | 296 | 19 | 186 |
| @Florida | 35 | 457 | 23 | 323 |
| Auburn | 32 | 430 | 26 | 459 |
| Georgia | 27 | 335 | 19†| 241 |
| @Alabama | 32 | 410 | 12 | 256 |
| †16 of 19 points were scored by means of a safety, kickoff return and interception return ‡I gets mah statisticals from the N-C-Double-A. |
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Monte is quietly keeping Tennessee from floundering and it’s about time someone toot his horn because he won’t.
Update. As Djohnson pointed out in the comments it wouldn’t be a true analysis unless we also compared each offense to Tennessee’s season average on defense. From now on I’m writing these more intelligent posts while sober. Tennessee is allowing 269.71 yards and 18.43 points per game. So out of the teams analyzed above only two, Auburn and Florida, gained more than Tennessee was allowing and, in addition, only UCLA gained more points. Georgia scored 16 points via defense and special teams (Beamer Ball is ours assholes) so counting them doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense. Given just how wrong regime change game go I still think Monte has done one helluva a job.
*Finished 2008 T-3 in total defense.
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1Magglio Merkin on Oct 26, 2009 at 1:06 pm:
I can think of nobody better to toot a mans horn than you, CGB.
2cgb on Oct 26, 2009 at 1:13 pm:
I’ve been burned.
3Djohnson on Oct 27, 2009 at 8:08 pm:
This is a bogus stat. Especially in the SEC — with the cream-puff non-conference schedules those teams play — you’d *expect* to hold every decent team below its season averages. All this means is that Tennessee is better than Lower Mississippi A&M, or whoever Auburn is playing these days. If you want to be fair about it, you’ve also got to ask whether those same teams held Tennessee below *its* season averages.
4cgb on Oct 28, 2009 at 4:35 pm:
@Djohnson Fair enough point, every statical analysis is going to have outliers. However, I would argue that because Tennessee and every other I-A school has played a, relatively speaking, cream puff (Western Kentucky [63-7]), it’ll all balance out in the end. As for your second point, I’m not sure I understand.
5Djohnson on Nov 11, 2009 at 11:05 pm:
What I’m saying is, SEC teams run up big stats out of conference against bad teams. So any time they play each other (especially early in the year) both teams can probably say, Hey, we held them below their season average! High five.
To illustrate, let’s imagine Florida plays three non-conference games to start the season: Sisters of Perpetual Sorrow Tech, DeVry Institute Junior Varsity, and the Friday Night Lights stand-ins. Florida averages 1,623 yards of offense and 74.2 points in these games. Then the Vols roll into the Swamp. They get crushed 28-14 (or whatever) and give up 642 years (or whatever). But, hey, they have done better defensively than the average team Florida faced (i.e., they’ll hold Florida below its season average)! Great job, guys. Rocky top will always be…
All that means is that Tennessee is better than the Friday Night Lights stand-ins. Will that be enough for Lane Kiffin to keep his job? Probably not, although he’s a reasonably handsome man so maybe NBC will give him a cameo.
Meanwhile, Tennessee had played UCLA (one of the worst three teams in the Pac-10) and some other schools I can’t be bothered to remember. So it’s a good bet Florida held Tennessee below its season averages, too. All in all, we haven’t learned much.
Maybe the best approach would be to use only games against BCS opponents in the calculation. Unfortunately, your point about posting sober reminds me that my drink needs freshening, so I won’t be doing it.
(By the way, I like your site quite a bit. I’m not in ACC or SEC territory, but I like what you guys have to say. Good stuff.)