ESPN details Tennessee's path to a national title in College Football Playoff
If Tennessee is going to make noise in the College Football Playoff, the Vols have to both create havoc and stop havoc. That’s what ESPN’s Bill Connelly believes is the only way Tennessee can win a national championship.
“My havoc rate measure — tackles for loss (including sacks), passes defended (interceptions and breakups) and forced fumbles divided by total plays — is about how much disruption a defense creates,” Connelly wrote this week. “And simply put, Tennessee has reached the CFP by creating and preventing havoc.”
Conelly’s SP+ metric for ESPN gives the Vols a 5.1% chance to win the College Football Playoff national title.
No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State, Saturday, December 21
Tennessee (10-2) is the No. 9 seed in the 12-team bracket and will go to No. 8 Ohio State (10-2) on Saturday, December 21 in an 8 p.m. Eastern Time kickoff (TV: ESPN/ABC) at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.
To survive and advance, the Vols will have to create explosive plays on offense and contain explosive plays on defense.
“The Volunteers’ offense has struggled at times in the explosiveness department,” Connelly wrote. “They average just 11.7 yards per successful play (115th), in part because of a lack of go-to weaponry on the outside. (Only 28.4% of receptions have come from receivers lined up on the outside instead of the slot, well below the national average of 36.5%.) This means that they have to execute a lot of plays without a mistake to score points, and that can backfire.”
Dylan Sampson and his 1,485 rushing yards and 22 rushing touchdowns, both single-season program records, help make up for that lack of explosiveness in the pass game.
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“Only 11.9% of their non-sack rushes have gained zero or fewer yards,” Connelly wrote, “and they’ve allowed a havoc rate of just 11.9% in 2024, 11th nationally.”
‘At some point (Tennessee is) a likely to push you backward or get a hand on the football’
Tennessee’s defense, as Connelly put it, “rains down havoc.”
“(Tennessee’s) 21.1% havoc rate ranks fourth nationally,” Conelly wrote of the defense. “It gets a particular amount of it from both the front and back of the defense. Edge rusher James Pearce Jr. has produced 7.5 sacks from 44 pressures. Defensive tackles Bryson Eason and Omari Thomas have 13 TFLs and have taken part in 21 run stops. And in the secondary, corner Jermod McCoy has four interceptions and eight breakups, having allowed a paltry 13.2 QBR (fourth in the SEC).”
The Vols are second in the SEC this season in scoring defense, giving up just 13.9 points per game. They’re No. 2 in the SEC in run defense (99.6 yards allowed per game), No. 2 in pass defense (178.7) and No. 2 in total defense (278.3).
Tennessee, which had 93.0 tackles for loss and 29.0 sacks during the regular season, is ranked No. 4 in ESPN’s SP+ metric.
“You can hit the Vols for a big play here and there,” Connelly wrote, “but at some point they’re likely to push you backward or get a hand on the football. They’re also going to make sure you rarely do the same.”
