Tennessee Volunteers At Memphis Tigers: 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

• In its only win of the season, 21 of Memphis's 24 points came on drives that started on the opponent's side of the field. Their loss to UTEP was by three points. Every other game has been a blowout.
• The Tigers rank in the bottom fourth in every offensive category, in the bottom ten in two, and in the bottom 20 in four.
• With the exception of tackles for loss, in which they're just barely above average, Memphis is in the bottom 20 in every defensive category and in the bottom six in four of them. They're dead last in pass efficiency defense. They're no better in special teams, although they do have a good punter.
• The diamond in the rough is senior linebacker Jamon Hughes, who appears to be a very good player, as he ranks 2nd nationally in tackles per game.
• Although Memphis is a bad team and Tennessee ranks better in almost every category, the Vols don't outrank them by much in any category with the possible exception of pass efficiency defense.

Predictions

• Tennessee 38, Memphis 17.

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts

@ Mississippi St. Bulldogs	9/4/10	loss 7 - 49	coverage
@ East Carolina Pirates	9/11/10	loss 27 - 49	coverage
Middle Tenn. St. Blue Raiders	9/18/10	win 24 - 17	coverage
@ UTEP Miners	9/25/10	loss 13 - 16	coverage
Tulsa Golden Hurricane	10/2/10	loss 7 - 48	coverage
@ Louisville Cardinals	10/9/10	loss 0 - 56	coverage
Southern Miss. Golden Eagles	10/16/10	loss 19 - 41	coverage
Houston Cougars	10/30/10	loss 17 - 56	coverage

Tennessee and Memphis have had no common opponents this season. Just for flavor, though, here's the drive chart for the one game the Tigers have won so far:

Even in that game, all three of Memphis's TD drives were on the short side of the field.

National Unit Rankings

Now on to the national rankings.

Offensive observations. My mother always told me that if I couldn't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all, so . . . .

Defensive observations. . . . Memphis is a little better than average in the tackles for loss category. . . .

Special teams and turnovers observations. . . . decent punter, too.

Stastical Comparison

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

R	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	OPPG	TO	3DD
90		94	6	67	83	110	87	74	93	90	80
117		104	71	120	100	107	119	92	118	115	113

The good news: It's almost a clean sweep for the good guys. The bad news: Tennessee might be better in a lot of things, but it 's not a lot better in most things, and its third down offense is still really, really not good. Really.

Players to watch for

Observations

Offense. Only two Tigers make the national rankings: QB Ryan Williams, who's 79th in passing efficiency, and running back Gregory Ray, who's 87th in rushing with an average of 62.12 yards per game. Ray ran for 176 yards against Houston last week.

Defense. Hey, looky here. Senior linebacker Jamon Hughes is an absolute legit star, ranking second in the nation with 12.62 tackles per game. Also not shabby is defensive lineman Frank Trotter, who's tied for 43rd in the nation in tackles for loss. Freshman DB Todd Washington ranks nationally in interceptions, averaging one every three games.

Special teams. As we said before, the punter is pretty good, and his name is Tom Hornsey. The other foot is okay, too, as Paulo Henriques is tied for 61st in field goals.

Head to Head Comparisons

How'd we do with the head-to-head comparisons during South Carolina week? Not bad, actually.

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

			Best Comparable(s)	Result Against Best Comp	Prediction
UT rush v. Memphis rush defense	117.63 (#96)	195.13 (#100)	UAB (160.25) (#74)	42	160
UT pass v. Memphis pass defense	213.63 (#65)	277.75 (#115)	South Carolina (259.88) (#105)	312	260
Memphis rush v. UT rush defense	167.88 (#83)	106.50 (#103)	Georgia (150.67) (#63)	136	100
Memphis pass v. UT pass defense	239.25 (#90)	170.75 (#96)	Florida/LSU (190.88/138.75) (#81/#113)	167/215	200
UT scoring offense v. Memphis scoring defense	21.75 (#93)	41.50 (#118)	UAB (31.38) (#95)	23/32 (regulation/OT)	38
Memphis scoring offense v. UT scoring defense	30.50 (#93)	14.25 (#117)	UAB (25.38) (#74)	23/29 (regulation/OT)	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: UT's rushing for an average of about 118 yards per game. Memphis is giving up 195 on the ground each game to its opponents. The previous UT opponent that most closely resembles Memphis in rush defense is UAB, although they're quite a bit better, allowing opponents only 160 yards. Against UAB, Tennessee rushed for only 42 yards. Yeah, I'm calling that a fluke -- Tauren Poole had only six carries that game, due to injury if I remember correctly, and anyway, UAB's still quite a bit better than Memphis, so I'm mostly tossing out the comp. Looking just at the Vols' average rushing and the Memphis average rushing defense, I'm guessing we'll get somewhere between the two, so 160, which seems a bit high considering we've been held under 50 yards three times and under 100 four times this year, but it's roughly what we got against Alabama. So yeah, 160.

Overall, I'm guessing UT will have 420 yards to the Tigers' 300 and will win roughly 38-17.

Sketchy Conclusions

• In its only win of the season, 21 of Memphis's 24 points came on drives that started on the opponent's side of the field. Their loss to UTEP was by three points. Every other game has been a blowout.
• The Tigers rank in the bottom fourth in every offensive category, in the bottom ten in two, and in the bottom 20 in four.
• With the exception of tackles for loss, in which they're just barely above average, Memphis is in the bottom 20 in every defensive category and in the bottom six in four of them. They're dead last in pass efficiency defense. They're no better in special teams, although they do have a good punter.
• The diamond in the rough is senior linebacker Jamon Hughes, who appears to be a very good player, as he ranks 2nd nationally in tackles per game.
• Although Memphis is a bad team and Tennessee ranks better in almost every category, the Vols don't outrank them by much in any category with the possible exception of pass efficiency defense.

Predictions

• Tennessee 38, Memphis 17.