Tennessee won a little bit of a ho-hum game against Kennesaw State. Interestingly, this week’s opponent, Texas, played a similar game against UTSA. It could’ve been a classic trap game scenario for both teams if the competition had been a little stiffer. Did both squads go vanilla, saving their best for this week’s marquee showdown?
Five Factor Box Score
A few things stand out. First, UT is still averaging closer to a TD than a field goal per scoring opportunity. That has been a key to Josh Heupel’s best offenses in Knoxville. The 55% success rate is very good, and the havoc rate remains high for a third week in a row. Explosiveness (measured here by PPA added on successful plays) is a number that is typically lower for Heupel offenses, especially in those blowouts that end up feeling kind of grindy (like Saturday).
It should be mentioned that UTSA is a better team than Kennesaw. And that the Texas defense certainly did their job Saturday night. And I’ll give the Longhorns a pass on explosiveness since I gave Tennessee the same pass. But that 3.75 PPO is shockingly low. The Longhorns started the game going TD-FG-TD on their first three drives, but then punted or turned the ball over on downs in five of their next seven drives.
Also surprising is the 78% postgame win expectancy for Texas. That number means that if two teams played ten times and had these same stats, the team with UTSA’s stats would actually win two of those games. Tennessee had a 99% postgame win expectancy. It wasn’t always pretty, but the game was never really in question.
Rushing Report
Tennessee had another nice night running the ball, this time led by Duane Morris’ 116 rushing yards. Morris also peeled off a 42-yard run, and Hunter Barnes added a 38-yard run as well.
Texas needed their run game against the Roadrunners as Arch Manning completed just 17 of 33 passes. It was rush by committee for the Longhorns, as two players (including Manning) ran for 50+ yards and another two gained 40+. Five Texas ball carriers averaged 5+ yards as well.
Player Usage & PPA
A week ago I pointed out Daune Morris’ production and hoped he would get a higher usage percentage. He did, and it paid off. I worry that it came because DeSean Bishop was a little banged up, but hopefully he was held out as a precaution. Bishop still had the third highest usage anyway.
I was wrong in the preview post last week when I said that Rickie Collins started for Syracuse against UT last year. It was actually Steve Angeli, who Syracuse brought in from the portal after spring practice because they didn’t like Collins or the other QBs on the roster. Collins did end up starting some games for the Orange before transferring to KSU for this season. Regardless, Collins was the rare bright spot for Kennesaw on Saturday night, especially in the first quarter when the Owls really hung around tough.
Going back to the 78% win expectancy for Texas against UTSA, I believe a huge part of that comes down to Arch Manning’s -5.8 PPA:
If Tennessee can somehow keep Manning in the negative PPA, and if they can keep Texas averaging closer to a field goal than a touchdown on scoring opportunities, it will be a happy Saturday on Rocky Top.