Tennessee Volunteers vs. Arkansas Razorbacks 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

• These pigs can't run, but they can fly. The Vols have had repeated reps attempting to stop teams that are either balanced or better at the run than the pass. Not so much a one-dimensional passing attack. Can the Vols have as much success against a team that can mostly only pass as it's had against teams that can mostly only run? Could it be enough?
• Tennessee sort of gave its game to South Carolina, and Carolina sort of gave its game to Arkansas. Stop being so nice, and this could actually be close.
• The Razorbacks defense isn't spectacular. Yet neither is UT's offense.
• To have a shot at this game, the Vols need to limit the Hogs' passing attack, minimize mistakes, and have some success on offense. That's right, to win, they need to play football well.

Predictions

• Arkansas 34, Tennessee 13. I really think it's going to be much closer than that, but the numbers are telling me that they're tired of being ignored and under-appreciated and if I don't start listening to them they're going to throw my stuff on the lawn and hurl insults out the second-story window.
  

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts

So the pigs eased into the season and then lost to Alabama. There's no shame in getting beat by the Tide, and Arkansas scored more points against them than anyone else this season, a whopping 14. They barely squeaked by an A&M team that is 5-4, but three of those four are to Arkansas and the Oklahomas. The most peculiar result is a fling with Ole Miss, who is Ole Miss.

Measuring sticks:

Okay, so Arkansas didn't fall apart in the second half like we did. They just distributed their bad on defense equally in both halves. As I said before, they did score more points against 'Bama than anyone else has this year, so that 14 is actually pretty impressive.

Carolina didn't kill us, we were just suffering from Worley Jitters. And Carolina didn't get killed by Arkansas, they imploded with four turnovers on their last five (or six) drives. Eliminate the mistakes in each game, and each game is at least much closer and the transitive starts to look particularly shiny and tempting. Right, Will? It's beautiful! THE must-have gift of the season!

National Unit Rankings

Offensive observations. Hahahahahahahahaha, 83rd rushing offense in the nation is horrible wait never mind. But seriously, their short little stumpy legs aren't very impressive, but these pigs can fly. With a nearly-bad-as-us running game, the passing offense is all the more impressive, both individually because of the single dimension challenge and overall because total offense and scoring offense are excellent despite those stumpy little legs.

Defensive observations. Average, mean, mean, average. With the exception of pass efficiency defense, Arkansas isn't particularly strong defensively. If only had a potent offense. Sigh.

Special teams and turnovers observations. Yeah, the hogs are good at returning kickoffs, but that may be because of the reps they get from SCORING ALL THE TIME and this week they're going up against KICKOFF RETURN YARDAGE DEFENSE U! They return punts pretty well, too, but we're also pretty good at that.

Players to Watch

Offensive Observations. Neither of their running backs are nationally-ranked, but it's important to note that there are two of them sharing the load 60/40. Does that bode well for a poor second-half team? Don't answer that.

Tyler Wilson is either excellent or merely a QB in Bobby Petrino's offense. Regardless, his numbers are very, very good. He spreads it around well, but his number one target appears to be Jarius Wright, who ranks high nationally in both receptions and receiving yards per game. Joe Adams, Cobi Hamilton, and Chris Gragg all get theirs, too, though, and whichever one has the fortune of being assigned to that vulnerability in our secondary figures to have a big game. Unless we plug it, which we're going to do because I wish it and my feelings have powers.

Defense. The danger in the defense appears to start five yards back at the linebacker position and get more dangerous in the secondary. Eric Bennett and Tramain Thomas rank well in interceptions as defensive backs, and linebacker Jerry Franklin ranks in tackles. Even the sack guys -- Alonzo Highsmith and Ross Rasner -- are LBs. The d-line doesn't appear to be much to be concerned about.

Special teams. I was going to devote an entire ESPN special to Joe Adams until I realized that he had 6 punt returns for 174 and two TDs against Missouri State in the opener and 16 total punt return yards since then. Marquel Wade may be someone to watch on kickoffs, though, because he's had two games over 80 yards, including a TD against, well, it was New Mexico, but you know.

Head to Head Comparisons

			Comps	Result Against Comps	Prediction
UT rush v. Arkansas rush defense	86.78 (#118)	176.00 (#79)	Buffalo (200.89) (#103)	199	120
UT pass v. Arkansas pass defense	252.11 (#42)	199.11 (#32)	Buffalo/MTSU (200.33/230.88) (#34#67)	342/291	200
Arkansas rush v. UT rush defense	156.22 (#62)	132.22 (#83)	Buffalo (136.22) (#80)	148	140
Arkansas pass v. UT pass defense	186.78 (#17)	318.67 (#8)	MTSU/GA (270/253.22) (#26/#39)	133/227	220
UT scoring offense v. Arkansas scoring defense	22.56 (#96)	23.11 (#40)	SC/GA/FL (20.11/19.89/19.67) (#24/#23/#20)	3/12/23	13
Arkansas scoring offense v. UT scoring defense	21.22 (#28)	37.67 (#15)	Cincinnati/LSU/AL (39.13/35.89/35.67) (#11/#20/#23)	23/38/37	34

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.

These comps are still all screwed up due to injuries and new players getting their feet wet at different times in key positions all season. That 200 yard rushing game we had against Buffalo? A long time ago, my friend. The 342-yard passing game against Buffalo? Similar, and a different QB. MTSU is probably the better comp there despite the fact that the Blue Raiders really aren't even close to Arkansas in pass defense. We have not seen a passing attack like we'll see Saturday, but neither have we really had much opportunity to focus on a one-dimensional passing attack. The other way around, yes, but not this. What might Wilcox have up his sleeve?

Regardless of all of that, the point projections are wildly variant from the yard projections. I can't bring myself to alter the guesses on points, but I just can't help thinking that yards, which I feel better about, have to have a stronger correllation to points than those figures indicate.

Sketchy Conclusions

• These pigs can't run, but they can fly. The Vols have had repeated reps attempting to stop teams that are either balanced or better at the run than the pass. Not so much a one-dimensional passing attack. Can the Vols have as much success against a team that can mostly only pass as it's had against teams that can mostly only run? Could it be enough?
• Tennessee sort of gave its game to South Carolina, and Carolina sort of gave its game to Arkansas. Stop being so nice, and this could actually be close.
• The Razorbacks defense isn't spectacular. Yet neither is UT's offense.
• To have a shot at this game, the Vols need to limit the Hogs' passing attack, minimize mistakes, and have some success on offense. That's right, to win, they need to play football well.

Predictions

Arkansas 34, Tennessee 13. I really think it's going to be much closer than that, but the numbers are telling me that they're tired of being ignored and under-appreciated and if I don't start listening to them they're going to throw my stuff on the lawn and hurl insults out the second-story window.