Tennessee Volunteers vs. Ohio Bobcats: game preview

by Joel Hollingsworth on Sep 23, 2009 7:00 AM EDT in Tennessee Volunteer Football

Keys to the game

This may not be the right game to have Jonathan Crompton practice his passing. The Ohio Bobcats' secondary appears to be an interception machine.
Ohio's offense should be no match for Tennessee's defense, which should spend a great deal of time in the Bobcats' backfield on Saturday.

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts


Connecticut Huskies	9/5/09	loss 16 - 23	coverage
@ North Texas Eagles	9/12/09	win 31 - 30	coverage
Cal Poly-SLO Mustangs	9/19/09	win 28 - 10	coverage

FULL SCREEN VERSION

Wow. Lotso punts for Ohio against the Huskies, but somewhat surprisingly, Connecticut's defense is currently ranked 20th in the nation. Yet, the Huskies are not quite Monte Kiffin's defense, either, so you'd think that Ohio would have at least as much trouble scoring points against Tennessee. Figure 13 points or fewer.

FULL SCREEN VERSION

Yikes, that's a lot of green. The Bobcats won this game despite getting out of the gate with two punts, a fumble, an interception, and another fumble. Why'd they go for two after the TD in the second overtime? Maybe because a roughing the passer penalty changed the post-TD field position from the three yard line to the two? I don't know. In any event, the two-point conversion was good, and it ended the game with the Bobcats up by one.

FULL SCREEN VERSION

Well. Just like last week, the drive chart program has an unidentifiable opponent and simply defaults to the NCAA FCS logo. This time, it's Cal-Poly, but the relative weight of the text in each team's end zones is characteristically unbalanced. Note Cal Poly's second drive. That's right, two interceptions returned for touchdowns in the last two games for Ohio.

National Unit Rankings

Now on to the national rankings, with the caveat that Ohio has only played three games and really, what can we know after three games anyway?

Category	National Rank	Actual	National Leader	Actual	Conf Rank	Mid-American Conference Leader	Actual
Rushing Offense	95	103.33	Air Force	344.33	6	Northern Ill.	208.00
Passing Offense	79	199.67	Texas Tech	444.33	8	Toledo	313.00
Total Offense	104	303.00	Texas A&M	589.50	8	Toledo	442.33
Scoring Offense	75	25.00	Houston	50.00	4	Northern Ill.	29.67
Rushing Defense	T-110	204.33	Oklahoma	40.67	10	Akron	119.00
Pass Efficiency Defense	9	83.10	Arizona St.	64.46	2	Eastern Mich.	79.69
Total Defense	T-41	312.67	Arizona St.	149.50	2	Central Mich.	300.00
Scoring Defense	52	21.00	Oklahoma	4.67	4	Central Mich.	15.33
Net Punting	45	37.29	Georgia	47.36	4	Ball St.	40.00
Punt Returns	76	6.11	Louisiana Tech	45.50	9	Central Mich.	21.14
Kickoff Returns	71	21.13	Arizona St.	50.75	6	Western Mich.	26.15
Turnover Margin	T-12	1.33	Arizona St.	4.00	1	Northern Ill.	1.33
Pass Defense	8	108.33	Eastern Mich.	78.00	2	Eastern Mich.	78.00
Passing Efficiency	54	128.91	Notre Dame	186.14	3	Buffalo	157.60
Sacks	T-92	1.00	TCU	5.50	9	Temple	3.50
Tackles For Loss	T-62	5.67	Oklahoma	11.33	4	Temple	7.50
Sacks Allowed	T-93	2.67	La.-Lafayette	.00	9	Toledo	1.00

Observations

Offense. Not so good. They're averaging just over 100 yards on the ground, just under 200 yards through the air, and right smack dab on 25 points per game. They're allowing a lot of sacks -- 2.67 per game -- and tackles for loss -- 5.67 per game.

Defense. Uh-oh. The Bobcats defense only averages one sack per game, but they're very good against the pass in spite of it (9th in PED and 8th in PD). Fortunately for the Vols, they're not so good against the run (110th). Who wants to carry the football?!

Special teams. Sortakinda average on punts and nothing special on either punt or kickoff returns.

Players to watch for

Category	Player	National Rank	Actual
Rushing	Chris Garrett	T-97	56.33
	Gary Fortune		18.33
Passing Efficiency (Min. 15 Att./Game)	Theo Scott	49	137.76
Total Offense	Theo Scott		124.33
	Chris Garrett		56.33
Receptions Per Game	Taylor Price	T-38	5.67
Receiving Yards Per Game	Taylor Price	43	82.33
	Terrence McCrae		38.67
Interceptions	Gerald Moore	T-19	.67
	Patrick Tafua	T-70	.33
	Errik Ejike	T-70	.33
	Kenny Jackson	T-70	.33
	Melvin Payne	T-70	.33
Punting (Min. 3.6 Punts/Game)	Matt Schulte	59	39.41
Punt Returns (Min. 1.2 Ret./Game)
Kickoff Returns (Min. 1.2 Ret./Game)	Chris Garrett	78	21.57
Field Goals	Matt Weller	T-38	1.33
Scoring	Matt Weller		6.33
	Taylor Price		6.00
	Riley Dunlop		4.00
All-Purpose Runners	Chris Garrett	80	115.33
	Taylor Price		87.67
Sacks	Lee Renfro		.33
	Dak Notestine		.33
Tackles	Noah Keller	T-4	13.00
	Lee Renfro	T-23	10.00
Tackles For Loss	Noah Keller	T-40	1.50
	Lee Renfro	T-56	1.33

Observations

Running backs. Nobody here to get too worked up about. Chris Garrett is tied for 97th in the nation, but he's only getting 56.33 yards per game.

Quarterbacks. Theo Scott appears to be a fairly efficient passer, ranked 49th in the nation. For the sake of comparison, Jonathan Crompton is 84th.

Receivers. Scott's favorite target appears to be Taylor Price, who's getting 82 yards per game.

Defense. Uh-oh. More Moore. Not UCLA's Rahim Moore, but Ohio's Gerald Moore, who's tied for 19th in the nation in interceptions with two. The Bobcats also have four other guys who have intercepted a pass and are therefore ranked nationally. No wonder their pass defense ranks 8th in the nation.

Also, watch out for linebackers Noah Keller and Lee Renfro. Keller's averaging 13 tackles per game and is ranked all the way up at 4th in the nation. Renfro isn't far behind with 10 per game and a rank of 23rd. For comparison's sake, Eric Berry is 90th with 8 per game.

Special teams. There doesn't appear to be anything special about Ohio's special teams.

Conclusions

If the Vols had any notion of using this game to boost Jonathan Crompton's confidence by giving him practice reps throwing the ball, they might want to reconsider against a defense that is surprisingly ball-hawkish for the MAC. On the other hand, Tennessee should be able to run the ball fairly well, especially if they're able to get past LBs Keller and Renfro.

Monte's defense should spend a lot of time in the backfield and should have little trouble stopping the Bobcats from moving the ball.

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Comments

Joel, I agree !!

Crompton will have to have a good game against their defense or it could look a lot like the UCLA game. And I think if it is Nick will start the second half and Crompton is done as the starter. And I’m not a Crompton hater I hope he does great ! But thats what I think will happen .

Phil,GO VOLS !!!

by bulldurham on Sep 23, 2009 8:48 AM EDT reply actions

Their pass defense numbers are inflated

because Cal Poly runs the triple option and passed 1 for 11 for 12 yards. Their secondary is still better than average, but probably not truly a top 10 group nationally.

Will - Rocky Top Talk

by Will Shelton on Sep 23, 2009 10:47 AM EDT reply actions

Oh, good

I sincerely hope so, because our passing game is in desperate need of some positive reps.

Rocky Top Talk

by Joel Hollingsworth on Sep 23, 2009 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions

The Pass Efficiency Defense is a scaled metric.

It looks at the performance on a per-pass basis instead of total yards as a standalone metric. That 1 for 11, 12 yards scores the same as 2 for 22, 24 yards and so on.

It’s the uncertainty of the score that is affected, not the score itself.

by David Hooper on Sep 23, 2009 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions