United Bank Playbook - Tennessee Preview
August 29, 2018 12:00 PM | Football
| 2017 Tale of the Tape |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Points Per Game | 19.8 | 34.5 |
| Points Against | 29.1 | 31.5 |
| Rushing Yards Per Game | 117.4 | 150.3 |
| Rushing Yards Allowed Per Game | 251.2 | 204.2 |
| Passing Yards Per Game | 173.7 | 309.3 |
| Passing Yards Allowed Per Game | 161.7 | 241.4 |
| Total Yards Per Game | 291.1 | 459.6 |
| Total Yards Allowed Per Game | 412.9 | 445.5 |
| First Downs For | 197 | 301 |
| First Downs Against | 262 | 279 |
| Fumbles/Lost | 16/8 | 22/12 |
| Interceptions/Return Ave. | 5/37.5 | 11/23.5 |
| Net Punting | 42.3 | 36.3 |
| Field Goal/Attempts | 14/21 | 11/15 |
| Time of Possession | 28:14 | 27:15 |
| 3rd Down Conversions | 50-163 | 62-185 |
| 3rd Down Conversion Defense | 75-166 | 65-195 |
| Sacks By/Yards Lost | 22/125 | 25/185 |
| Red Zone Scoring | 28-35 | 51-60 |
The reason West Virginia is proceeding cautiously is because Tennessee has an entirely new coaching staff and everything the Volunteers put on tape last year is irrelevant.
As a result, that means West Virginia has to study everything new coach Jeremy Pruitt has done from his time coordinating Nick Saban's Alabama defenses in 2016 and 2017, to what he did at Georgia in 2014 and 2015, to even what he did running Jimbo Fisher's Florida State defense five years ago.
They've also got to study some of what Georgia did last year when Volunteer defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer was coaching the Bulldog outside linebackers.
Then, they've got to look at USC tape to get an idea of how offensive coordinator Tyson Helton is going to go about things. Last year, Helton coached the Trojan quarterbacks.
On top of that, West Virginia has to figure out which Volunteer players can run, who can catch, who can block and who are their most physical players.
To make matters even more confounding, Tennessee this week listed 59 players on its two-deep roster heading into Saturday's game with 10 different "ors" put down as starters – including three starters each at running back, tight end and right tackle.
There are two different starters listed at quarterback, wide receiver, left guard, right guard, weakside linebacker and corner.
There are even two starting punters displayed.
The possibility also exists that some of the Tennessee players might wear different uniform numbers to try and further confuse West Virginia on Saturday.
Therefore, anything and everything must be taken under consideration.
"There are a lot of unknowns," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen admitted Tuesday afternoon. "We're expecting them to be very multiple on offense, but we don't know which quarterback they are going to go with."
As a matter of record, Pruitt indicated Sunday during a television interview that he was considering playing returner quarterback Jarrett Guarantano and Stanford graduate transfer Keller Chryst on Saturday the way Don Nehlen once did with Notre Dame transfer Jake Kelchner and returning starter Darren Studstill back in 1992.
"What they ask them to do, I would imagine, is going to be pretty similar whether it's No. 2, the guy they had last year, or the transfer from Stanford," Holgorsen said. "We'll look at that and figure it out."
The man responsible for figuring it out, fifth-year defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, is perusing just about anything and everything he can get his hands on right now.
Gibson said last year's Tennessee tape is practically useless for schemes because of the new coaching staff Pruitt has assembled in Knoxville, and the tape from the spring game also holds little value because of the vanilla nature of the contest.
So, he's had to dig a little deeper and study USC tape to get an idea what the Trojans did offensively when Helton was coaching their quarterbacks. Specifically, Gibson wanted to see how USC attacked odd-front defenses.
"Right now, we've really focused on Colorado State and USC, and we've watched some Tennessee tape just for personnel reasons," Gibson admitted. "The last two weeks have been nothing but USC-Colorado State.
"The hardest part is finding a team that plays like us defensively, so Nevada-USC and Colorado State and Air Force were good games to watch," Gibson continued. "USC really didn't play anybody like us (in the Pac 12) and the closest was maybe Washington State, so we watched some of that."
Now five years into things at West Virginia, Gibson said he's become very accustomed to operating on limited information in season openers.
"Hell, we're used to it now," he chuckled. "It seems like it happens every year to us, whether it's a new coordinator or a whole new coaching staff. The No. 1 thing I told our kids on Sunday night, when we all got together, is we are going to have to play our base stuff early just to see how they are going to challenge us and how they are going to scheme us up, and then we are going to have to adjust on the sidelines."
That message has already sunk in with his players.
"I think we might go out there and keep it pretty simple until we get a feel for what they're doing, just because there are so many different things that they could do," junior linebacker David Long Jr. noted. "Then I think we will take it from there."
All four Tennessee running backs who could see action on Saturday, including Michigan State transfer Madre London, weigh more than 200 pounds and the Volunteers also possess impressive size at the two wide receiver positions with three of their four "ors" standing 6-feet-2 inches or taller.
"They're long," Gibson commented. "They remind me a lot of Iowa State. I don't know if they are quite that big, but they've got some size."
On the other side of the ball, offensive coordinator Jake Spavital said he is dealing with many of the same unknowns as well.
Will Tennessee use an odd or even front - or both, which Pruitt did frequently when he was at Alabama?
Will Tennessee try to pressure WVU quarterback Will Grier and use its two safeties over the top to help its young corners, or, will the Volunteers walk their corners back a little bit and try and make West Virginia earn its way down the field and seize on mistakes when they happen?
Or, will they do some combination of both?
"We've got a plan where we're ready for all of it," Spavital mentioned. "We've got a blitz plan, a man plan, a zone plan and all sorts of plans. We have that and we just have to identify it on the run. We think they are going to play us a certain way, and that's how we're going to start off and then we've got the ability to adjust pretty quickly if we need do."
There are fewer "ors" and unknowns on the Tennessee defense, specifically up front where the entire defensive line and three of the four linebackers are well established.
Both interior guys, seniors Shy Tuttle and Alexis Johnson Jr., weigh more than 300 pounds; senior defensive end Kyle Phillips has nice size at 6-feet-4 inches and 273 pounds, as do the middle, sam and jack linebackers each weighing more than 240 pounds.
Tennessee's jack linebacker, senior Jonathan Kongbo, is a versatile player who can come up on the edge to give the Volunteers a four-man front, or he can play off the line of scrimmage which can give Tennessee an odd look. He is also probably Tennessee's best edge pass rusher. Sam linebackers Darrell Taylor and Austin Smith have demonstrated an ability to get to the passer as well.
It will be important for Grier to know where Kongbo is before each snap to correctly identify Tennessee's front.
"He's more of a hybrid guy who can set the edge but is also athletic enough to guard the flats and get out there a little bit and be disruptive," Spavital said. "He's going to be that C-gap run fit and they can also play games with other things as well. He makes them a little bit more versatile in the pass game."
"I'm going to have to identify the front on every play because they are going to move in and out, I think," Grier noted. "There is so much unknowns and I'm going to have to do my best to get us in the best play I can and that's going to be a challenge. Then once we do that we've got to execute. We've got to block and break tackles better than they tackle – that's how you win."
No matter what fronts the defense uses, or what formations and plays Tennessee come up with on offense, West Virginia knows it is facing a roster full of heavily recruited football players.
Earlier this week, one website listed the total number of recruiting stars of the two projected lineups for both teams and there was a wide disparity in Tennessee's favor, particularly four- and five-star players.
The vast majority of West Virginia's starters on both sides of the ball began their college careers as two- and three-star players, so naturally the people who rely on these rankings see a clear talent disparity in Tennessee's favor.
"They've got dudes," Holgorsen admitted. "It's going to be a challenge."
But those same four- and five-star Tennessee dudes won just four games last year, allowed Missouri and Vanderbilt to score a combined 92 points, didn't score more than 26 points in an SEC game themselves and had the table run on them in conference play.
That's why there is an entirely new coaching staff in Knoxville right now, and that's why West Virginia is going to have to figure things out on the fly Saturday afternoon in Charlotte.
"It's always that way game one, this more than others in recent games as far as how quick can we make adjustments with what they do," Holgorsen said. "But they're probably going to have to make a few adjustments with what we do as well.
"That's just what game ones are all about," he concluded.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on CBS (Brad Nessler, Gary Danielson and Jamie Erdahl). There are tickets still remaining, but Charlotte Sports Foundation officials believe nearly all of the 74,000 seats at Bank of America Stadium will be occupied by game time.
West Virginia sold out its ticket allotment for the game a couple of months ago.
It will be the first-ever meeting between Tennessee and West Virginia, which will be removing the Volunteers from its list of Power 5 football opponents it has yet to play. The others are Iowa, Minnesota and Northwestern in the Big Ten, Washington, Washington State, Arizona and UCLA in the Pac-12, and Arkansas in the SEC.
After Saturday's game, Tennessee will be down to six Power 5 opponents it has never faced on the gridiron: Arizona, Arizona State, Illinois, Michigan State, Stanford and Washington.
It will also be Tennessee's first appearance in Charlotte, and its first in the state of North Carolina since 1961.
West Virginia last played in Queen City in the 2008 Meineke Car Care Bowl, defeating North Carolina, 31-30.
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