Tennessee vs. LSU Game Preview

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

Sketchy Conclusions

• Looking at the two teams' only common opponent to date, LSU dominated the Florida team that beat Tennessee. Florida was at an offensive disadvantage against LSU, yes, but Tennessee was at an offensive disadvantage against Florida as well. LSU's full-powered offense didn't do a great deal better against the Gator defense than did Tennessee, despite the Vols re-jiggering their offense on the fly. Of course, Tennessee is now also operating without Tyler Bray, so take all of that for what it's worth.
• LSU's offense is balanced and efficient, but it's the Tiger defense that is elite. And they're not elite because of any one particular player -- although Tyrann Mathieu is absolutely fantastic -- they're elite because they're all scary good and dangerous together.
• To date, Tennessee has been pretty good at kickoff return coverage, but that's going to be tested this week.
• Based on the numbers so far this season, I'm sorry to say that my prediction of zero rushing yards may be overly optimistic. Without Bray and Hunter, Tennessee's offense may be none-dimensional, which is not good news against an elite defense. John Stockdale stoicly acknowledges this fact with only a degree of grim in his determination and refers you to an unspecified date on his non-existent calendar when all of this bamboo-watering will pay off.

Predictions

• LSU 20, Tennessee 6.

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts

That's a stellar resume for the Tigers. Double digit wins over the Ducks, who are generally doubling up their other opponents, and solid wins over the Mountaineers and the Gators. The Stockdale Optimist Without a Calendar in me notes, though, that Oregon hasn't played another ranked team and that that Florida team wasn't the same about halfway through the Alabama game the week before. And West Virginia? Overrated at #16 when they played the Tigers. The rest of their slate reads Marshall, Norfolk State, Maryland, Bowling Green, and Connecticut. So chin up.

Florida is the two teams' only common opponent, so the requisite drive charts go here:

Man, look at that early field position for LSU. One could discount all of those blue segmented lines on the theory that the Gators were operating without a quarterback, but it's the solid purple lines and the solid orange lines in which I'm most interested. I expected there to be a dramatic contrast between the Tigers' offensive output against Florida and that of the Vols' adjusting on the fly to the absence of Justin Hunter. But the drive charts don't make it look all that bad. Sure, Tennessee got only 279 against the Gators to LSU's 453, but apart from the post-Hunter mini meltdown, Tennessee moved the ball against Florida fairly well.

It probably all comes down to whether Tennessee's better off against that scary good D with Matt Simms than Florida was with the 15 guys they tried as backups to Brantley.

National Unit Rankings

Offensive observations. Stockdale likes the look of that passing offense and wonders why the rushing offense isn't ranked better than 38th in the nation and 6th in the SEC. They are efficient, though, and curiously, they rank pretty significantly better in scoring than they do gaining yards. Huh.

Defensive observations. Um, John Chavis' defense is elite, elite, elite. Top ten in the nation and top three in the SEC in every category except pass defense and sacks, in which they're still quite and pretty good, respectively. It's a very good thing that Stockdale doesn't have a pocket schedule and therefore doesn't know that it only gets worse next week.

Special teams and turnovers observations. Eh, not sure what to make of this. At some point turnover margin is a function of solid fundamentals, effort, and intentionality, but it's also quite volatile, so perhaps they're just due for some gift-giving.

Players to Watch

Offensive Observations. Surprisingly, there's really not much to see here. Sophomore running back Spencer Ware, who I'm sure I will call Spencer Tillman at some point this week, is a solid back, but he ranks only 74th in the nation with 72 yards per game. Put him together with fellow sophomore Michael Ford, though, and you suddenly have 126 YPG. Oh, and then add Alfred Blue, yet another sophomore RB, for another 36. Maybe it's all about the offensive line for these guys.

QB Jarrett Lee is efficient, and his favorite targets appear to be junior WR Rueben Randle and freshman WR Odell Beckham, Jr. Yet their field goal kicker gets 2.5 points per game more than the next leading player. So they're solid and efficient and balanced, but presumably carried by their defense. Cover the kids' eyes, because that's next.

Defense. Well this is interesting. Tyrann Mathieu, who has not one but two names for Verne Lundquist to mispronounce, is getting Heisman attention, and rightfully so if you've seen him play, but he ranks no better than tied for 72nd in any particular defensive category. It's likely because he's more of a turnover manufacturing plant and king of all trades than a defensive specialist. But again, it's looking more and more like LSU is just a fantastic team that is not dependent on any one or any handful of players. They're all good. It's not a giant harpoon we need to avoid this week, it's a swarm of venomous bees. Mathieu's name is on that list up there four times, but there are seven other guys getting into the action as well. Bees, I tell you.

Special teams. It looks like our kickoff return yardage defense is also in for a test this week due to Morris Claiborne, who's done the following through five of six games this season: 4 for 83, 2 for 55, 3 for 154 and a TD, 1 for 24, and 2 for 33. Everything else is manageable.

Head to Head Comparisons

			Comps	Result Against Comps	Prediction
UT rush v. LSU rush defense	84.80 (#114)	69.17 (#4)	Georgia (85.83) (#12)	-21 (Fulmerized)	0
UT pass v. LSU pass defense	327.20 (#11)	184.83 (#17)	Florida (176) (#12)	213	160
LSU rush v. UT rush defense	139.60 (#55)	183.50 (#38)	Florida (194) (#31)	134	140
LSU pass v. UT pass defense	204.20 (#33)	183.33 (#100)	Florida (186.33) (#98)	213	200
UT scoring offense v. LSU scoring defense	32.60 (#42)	12.50 (#8)	Florida/Georgia (T-19.17) (T-#20)	23/12	6
LSU scoring offense v. UT scoring defense	20.40 (#29)	38.50 (#21)	Cincinnati (45) (#T-9)	23	20

As always, these are informed guesses rather than mathematical calculations, and 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: On average, we're passing for 327.20 yards per game. LSU is holding opponents to 184.83. The closest comp is Florida, which is holding opponents to 176. Against the Gators, Tennessee got 213, but that was with Tyler Bray rather than Matt Simms, so our informed guess is 160 passing yards for the Vols.

Yeah, all of those comps need to have asterisks by them now that Bray is out. And yes, I'm predicting zero yards rushing. The worst part about that prediction is that it's an optimistic adjustment upward. On the score for Tennessee, I'm banking on some bending by Chavis's D, but I'm also counting on Simms not being sacked before he catches the snap.

Sketchy Conclusions

• Looking at the two teams' only common opponent to date, LSU dominated the Florida team that beat Tennessee. Florida was at an offensive disadvantage against LSU, yes, but Tennessee was at an offensive disadvantage against Florida as well. LSU's full-powered offense didn't do a great deal better against the Gator defense than did Tennessee, despite the Vols re-jiggering their offense on the fly. Of course, Tennessee is now also operating without Tyler Bray, so take all of that for what it's worth.
• LSU's offense is balanced and efficient, but it's the Tiger defense that is elite. And they're not elite because of any one particular player -- although Tyrann Mathieu is absolutely fantastic -- they're elite because they're all scary good and dangerous together.
• To date, Tennessee has been pretty good at kickoff return coverage, but that's going to be tested this week.
• Based on the numbers so far this season, I'm sorry to say that my prediction of zero rushing yards may be overly optimistic. Without Bray and Hunter, Tennessee's offense may be none-dimensional, which is not good news against an elite defense. John Stockdale stoicly acknowledges this fact with only a degree of grim in his determination and refers you to an unspecified date on his non-existent calendar when all of this bamboo-watering will pay off.

Predictions

• LSU 20, Tennessee 6.