Tennessee Vols At Vanderbilt Commodores: Game Preview And Stat Comparison

A weekly look at our upcoming opponent's recent history, with animated drive charts, links to SB Nation game pages, and statistical comparisons.

CAVEATS: You know the drill. Also, this: all of the following information is gleaned exclusively from the NCAA statistics and does not account for things like injuries, shared playing time, and other stuff difficult to see in the stats from a bird's eye view. As always, this is a long post, so I've put the conclusions and predictions before and after the meat. You're not seeing double.

Sketchy Conclusions

• Tennessee and Vandy have played a very similar schedule and have had very similar final results, although UT generally showed better in those results.
• Vanderbilt is one of the 11 worst teams in the nation in four of six offensive categories, and losing their top two running backs has, of course, not helped.
• The Commodore defense can't stop the run, can't stop the pass, and generally can't stop the opposing offense from doing whatever it wants, but they will tackle your running back for a loss like it's nobody's business. You know, right before they let him score on the next play. DB Casey Howard is an interception machine, though, too, so that's the one guy Tyler Bray should avoid.

Predictions

• Tennessee 38, Vanderbilt 17.

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts

Northwestern Wildcats	9/4/10	loss 21 - 23	coverage
LSU Tigers	9/11/10	loss 3 - 27	coverage
@ Mississippi Rebels	9/18/10	win 28 - 14	coverage
@ Connecticut Huskies	10/2/10	loss 21 - 40	coverage
Eastern Michigan Eagles	10/9/10	win 52 - 6	coverage
@ Georgia Bulldogs	10/16/10	loss 0 - 43	coverage
South Carolina Gamecocks	10/23/10	loss 7 - 21	coverage
@ Arkansas Razorbacks	10/30/10	loss 14 - 49	coverage
Florida Gators	11/6/10	loss 14 - 55	coverage
@ Kentucky Wildcats	11/13/10	loss 20 - 38	coverage

Tennessee and Vandy, both being from the SEC East and playing each other late in the season, have several common opponents. We both lost to LSU (yeah, I know), Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Vols' losses have generally not been as bad as have Vandy's. Both teams beat Ole Miss, but UT beat 'em better. Let's take a quick look at the drive charts for the most recent common opponent, South Carolina. Here's how Vandy fared against the Gamecocks on October 23:

Oh, Vandy. No matter how bad their record gets or how bad their stats look, they still always seem to play teams tough and just lose out in the end.

Anyway, here's how we did against South Carolina a week later:

Yeah, sort of Vandy-esque there, although you could also point to the difference being two different QBs losing their heads too close to their own end zone and giving 14 points away.

National Unit Rankings

Offensive observations. Oh, wow. The best thing the Commodores do on offense is run the ball, and they're nearly in the bottom fourth in the nation in that. Everything else? Bottom fourth. They're one of the 11 worst teams in the nation in four of six offensive categories.

Defensive observations. Oh, no! Vandy's one of the best defensive teams in the nation!* (*in tackles for loss). Seriously, how does a team become the 8th-best team in the nation in TFLs and end up 71st in sacks? If I was a running back, I'd sue that deep pocket University for position discrimination.

Everything else, bad, bad, bad. Can't stop the run, can't stop the pass, can't stop the offense from either gaining yards or scoring. They will tackle your running back behind the line when they're not letting him loose for 20-yard runs and scores, though.

Special teams and turnovers observations. Hey, we're not really in a position to make fun of special teams returns now, are we? Vandy has a decent punter, and they're not as bad at returning punts or kickoffs as they are on offense and defense, so there's something nice to say.

Stastical Comparison

Here's how the teams looked when the RTT BlogPoll Computery Thing chewed them up and spit them out.

Rank	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	OPPG	TO	3DD
68		74	19	37	70	95	74	44	68	73	51
112		101	14	99	100	119	106	116	91	115	52

Woo for all that orange. Note that Vandy does not shy away from tough schedules, though, so give them props.

Players to watch for

Observations

Offense. A few weeks ago, Stormin' Warren Norman, who is the real deal disguised in black and gold, suffered a season-ending injury. Not longer after that, backup RB Zac Stacy also suffered a season-ending injury. So the 'Dores are essentially without a running back. This is Not Good News for QB Larry Smith, who sorry to say can't really afford to have an entire defense keyed on stopping him. Heck, under those circumstances, getting the ball to the team's leading receiver -- Brandon Barden -- 2.8 times per game is quite an achievement.

Defense. Junior defensive back Casey Howard is tied for 10th in the nation in interceptions with a whopping five on the season, so don't throw in his direction. DB Sean Richardson and LB Chris Marve are nationally ranked in tackles, averaging 8.2 and 8.0 tackles per game respectively.

Special teams. Special teams took as big of a hit as the offense when Warren Norman went out for the season. Sophomore wide receiver John Cole returns punts and does a decent job of it. I'm betting he starts by catching the ball and holding on to it, unlike our guys.

Head to Head Comparisons

How'd we do with the head-to-head comparisons during Ole Miss week? Not bad on UT's offense and the Rebels' ground game. Whiffed in a good way on the Ole Miss passing game and the score on both sides of the board, which, by the way, makes two weeks in a row I've been overly pessimistic on Tennessee's score, so I plan to correct for that this week.

So let's see how we can do this week:

			Best Comparable(s)	Result Against Best Comp	Prediction
UT rush v. Vanderbilt rush defense	118.90 (#97)	196.20 (#100)	Memphis (181) (#90)	130	200
UT pass v. Vanderbilt pass defense	241.10 (#41)	241 (#95)	Ole Miss (241) (#95)	323	300
Vanderbilt rush v. UT rush defense	160.30 (#70)	138.90 (#82)	Florida (146.40) (#70)	150	140
Vanderbilt pass v. UT pass defense	225.70 (#77)	141.40 (#113)	LSU (141.30) (#114)	215	180
UT scoring offense v. Vanderbilt scoring defense	27.60 (#57)	31.60 (#91)	UAB (33.60) (#100)	23/32 (Reg./OT)	38
Vanderbilt scoring offense v. UT scoring defense	27.20 (#68)	18 (#110)	Memphis (14.10) (#118)	14	17

As always, these are informed guesses rather than mathematical calculations. The general analytical framework is this: We are averaging X in a certain category. The opponent averages Y against that, which is most closely comparable to some identified previous opponent, against whom we did Z. All of that leads to an informed guess labeled as Prediction. The less data you have, the more sketchy the guess, and the guesses range from ALL CAPS SKETCHY WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS at the beginning of the season to merely lower case sketchy for the last game.

This week's example: Tennessee is averaging nearly 120 yards on the ground per game. Vandy gives up nearly 200. The closest former UT opponent comparable to Vanderbilt's rush defense is Memphis, who's a little bit better, and UT got 130 against them, ten over their average. Like I said, Vandy's even worse in rush defense, and we saw the passing game last week open up the rushing game late, so I'm guessing UT's yards on the ground will be closer to what Vandy's giving up on a weekly basis than what Tennessee's getting. General optimism gives the prediction a little juice.

Overall, I'm guessing UT will gain something more than 150 yards more than Vandy, will hold them to their average score, and will fall short of the 50-point mark for the first time in three weeks, but will still have more than enough to win comfortably.

Sketchy Conclusions

• Tennessee and Vandy have played a very similar schedule and have had very similar final results, although UT generally showed better in those results.
• Vanderbilt is one of the 11 worst teams in the nation in four of six offensive categories, and losing their top two running backs has, of course, not helped.
• The Commodore defense can't stop the run, can't stop the pass, and generally can't stop the opposing offense from doing whatever it wants, but they will tackle your running back for a loss like it's nobody's business. You know, right before they let him score on the next play. DB Casey Howard is an interception machine, though, too, so that's the one guy Tyler Bray should avoid.

Predictions

• Tennessee 38, Vanderbilt 17.