Volunteers Not That Young, After All
Is Tennesse still going to be a "young" team in 2015? According to Coach Butch Jones, yes. But if you look under the hood, particularly at the athletes who should actually see significant playing time--the team's two-deep roster ... not so much.
Over the past two years, Coach Jones and his assistants have been forced into some tough player personnel decisions. Each seemed to come down to talent versus experience. Worley versus Dobbs, if you will (though I personally thought Justin was coming along very nicely toward the end, when a sieve-like OLine did him in). Tennessee did not recruit at "championship levels" in the 2011, 2012, or 2013 signing classes. Not to overstate it: those classes each had some real gems, and none of the classes were truly horrible (#13, #21, and #29 in national ranking, according to ESPN)...but they weren't steeped in the breadth of speed and talent that wins SEC championships. By comparison, the 2014 and 2015 national signing days have seen Tennessee rapidly refilling the gas tank, as both were rated top-5 draws.
This is significant because the 100 or so players who will don orange this fall will come from those five classes, from the seniors who redshirted a year (2011 signees) to true freshmen (2015).
To be clear: there was all-SEC caliber talent in each of those five signing classes, just a lot more of it in the last two. So it is not about us lacking talent any more; those top-5 infusions have enriched Tennessee magnificently. And it is not really a question of having enough depth: at 110 players on the current roster (not counting graduating seniors), the Vols have plenty of players at each position. And it's not even about experience, as the Vols have 19 seniors and 23 juniors--42 upperclassmen--on the squad...some of them very good players indeed.
No, what this is about is combining all those criteria: having enough
depth of
experienced talent across the field. And that's where we are still a young-ish team.
How young? Not nearly as young as last year. In 2014, the Vols had somewhere between 23 and 25 freshmen take the field (depending on who's counting). Coach Jones says just as many will see playing time in 2015. And since he's the head coach, I certainly believe he can make this happen. But if he does, it will only be because he
wants it to happen, to improve his sales pitch to next year's signing class. He certainly won't
need to play anywhere near that many freshmen, barring catastrophic levels of injury.
How much better will it be? By one count on a recent VolNation thread, as many as 15 freshmen could see significant playing time next fall. But the consensus seems to be more in the direction of five to eight true freshmen making the two-deep early on, with more to fill in as injuries occur and they gain experience. That is a far cry from the 2014 season.
So how does our talent/experience combination stand up to other teams? That brings us to two-deep rosters. Time to compare.
I found a reasonable source for way-too-early two-deep rosters for the Vols (right here on VN forums) and Georgia, our most talented SEC-E opponent. I 'scored' the teams' rosters using the following simple formula to count up 'years of experience': senior = 3 points, junior = 2, redshirt sophomore = 1.5, true sophomore = 1, redshirt or early entry freshman = 0.5, and true freshman = 0. I didn't give any 'extra credit' for redshirt juniors and seniors, because after you've had a couple of years on the field, the year you spent on the sidelines becomes much less valuable as exp. And here's how the Vols and Dawgs scored out:
Tennessee two-deep*:
- Off: 6 seniors, 6 juniors, 6 sophomores, 4 freshmen -- 39 pts (avg 1.8 yrs exp/player)
- Def: 5 seniors, 6 juniors, 9 sophomores, 2 freshmen -- 37 pts (avg 1.7 yrs exp/player)
Georgia two-deep**:
- Off: 7 seniors, 4 juniors, 9 sophomores, 2 freshmen -- 40 pts (avg 1.8 yrs exp/player)
- Def: 5 seniors, 5 juniors, 7 sophomores, 5 freshmen -- 34 pts (avg 1.5 yrs exp/player)
The two squads seem much closer than Coach Jones' statements might have you believe. Georgia is the quintessential "steady state" team in the SEC -- longest serving head coach, frequent favorites to win the SEC-East over the past decade, on-and-off Top-25 finisher, with bursts into the Top 10. Steady as a rock.
And there Tennessee is with very comparable talent among its likely players. The Georgia offense has
one player-year more experience; across 22 players, that's about
one-twentieth of a season...or about half a game's difference, on average. Meanwhile, the Bulldog defense's two-deep is actually a bit
less experienced than the Vols. One can only conclude that, as far as the first two lineups for each team go, Tennessee's days of waiting for the tank to be refilled are over.
One final note about what's
behind the two-deep roster. Early in the season, the vast majority of playing time across the team will be given to starters and backups. But as the year goes on, injuries tend to accumulate, and new faces begin to fill the backup positions. This is, perhaps, Tennessee's greatest weakness in 2015. Plenty of depth, that's not it. And plenty of talent. But when you go looking for third-string depth that combines talent
and experience, the cupboard can begin to look rather bare, particularly in some of the skill positions. Quarterback is perhaps the most striking: you don't even need to go two deep to find true freshmen filling the gap. Running back has a good two-deep of sophomores, but a talented and experienced third is missing. Same at cornerback, arguably.
So there is justification for saying that another robust recruiting class is needed before the Vols consider their tank full again. But that shouldn't stop them from putting the pedal to the metal in 2015, looking for the checkered flag. Your Volunteers are back.
Go Vols!
* Tennessee two deep roster used for this study was drawn from almagamation of posts in the VolNation thread, http://www.volnation.com/forum/tennessee-vols-football/235395-way-too-early-2-deep-post.html, and the roster used was Official Football Roster - UTSPORTS.COM - University of Tennessee Athletics.
** Ga two-deep from Georgia Football: Early Look at Bulldogs 2015 Roster | Bleacher Report, and roster at Official Football Roster - Georgia Official Athletic Site.
EDIT: 'Martin' Error corrected, see below. Thanks for correction, VN.
