Tennessee Offensive Review: Vols vs. Iowa (1/1/24)
You can't spell "decent into madness" without UT. You can? Whatever.
One last look back at 2023 as we open up the 2024 season. There’s a Michigan blog called MGoBlog that I highly respect and straight up steal ideas from take a lot of inspiration from. One of the regular features on that blog is what they call “UFR” or Upon Further Review, in which every play of a game is broken down, analyzed, and player performances graded. Here’s an example from Michigan’s game against Alabama, which is fun because it’s Alabama losing. You can see quickly how in-depth this exercise is, and how mental one would need to be to take it on.
One of my offseason goals this year was to attempt a MGoBlog-style review of a Tennessee game, both to see how much work it actually takes (turns out, a lot) and to see if it’s something I want to do throughout the season (maybe—I’ll get to that). Let’s jump into it and I’ll explain more about what you’re seeing as we go along.
Drive #1
Down & distance should be obvious, as should what yard line the ball is on. For offensive formation, Tennessee generally lines up with 2 WR to each side (2x2) or trips to one side, either the wide side (so 3x1 Field) or short side (3x1 Boundary). Personnel numbers refer to the number of RBs and number of TEs, so 10 personnel is 1 RB 0 TE, 11 is one of each, etc. This is where charting plays gets tricky, because if there’s a TE in the game but he’s lined up out wide, is he really a TE? I’m charting according to formation, not roster listing. If he’s attached to the line he’s a TE.
Drive #2
For defensive formations, I’m starting with the idea that most teams run a 4-2-5 these days. Even if some of those teams want to call it something else, if you’ve got four guys up front, and the ends play at least a good chunk of the time with their hand in the dirt, and you use 2 LBs and 5 DBs; brother, you’re in a 4-2-5.
Drive #3
Let’s talk about the +/- system for a bit. The MGoBlog guys attempt to grade each player o each play. Pro Football Focus claims to do this too. If I had the all-22 film, I could attempt to do that, but college A22 is notoriously hard to get ahold of. I’m grading from the TV broadcast, which makes it very easy to grade the OL, QB, and RBs, but very hard to grade the WRs (because you often can’t see the whole route run) and likewise hard to grade the secondary on defense. That means two things: I’m not going to try to grade every player every play, and the grades are going to be skewed around the line and QB.
I basically settled on the following format: I only give a + or - if I notice your impact on a play, good or bad. Because the TV angle focuses on in-the-box play, the line, QB, and RBs (and DL/LBS if I’m grading defense) will have more chances for +/-. I also decided that a successful play automatically gets at least a + for somebody, it’s on me to figure out who made the play a successful one. Players can also earn a +2/-2 if their contribution to a play is particularly incredible (or egregious).
Drive #4
From here I’m just posting the drive charts, but down below is the total grade for each player, so check that out.
Drive #5
Drive #6
Second Half—Drive #7
I figured out a way to import the play-by-play into Excel and make the process a little easier, so the visuals look a little different from here on.
Drive #8
Drive #9
Drive #10
Drive #11
There was one more drive with reserves in, uncharted.
Totals
Reflection
Do I think the grades are accurate? Um… yes? At least sort of? I don’t think they necessarily equal letter grades. Nico was better than a C player in the game. But I have no problem believing he had five noticeably bad plays against 16 noticeably good ones. There is certainly room for improvement in the methodology, and you can make yourself insane trying to decide on a single play’s grade, but I’ll figure that out the more I do of these.
So am I really going to do more of these? Probably not every drive every game. But the process was actually a lot of fun, and it’s the kind of analysis I’m interesting in creating so to some extent I’ll be doing more of this, and hopefully adding a little more analysis as well.