Pixie dust, Hail Marys, team of destiny, endless amounts of horseshoes and four-leaf clovers. Butch Jones must've sold his soul. If you've been keeping up with the narrative surrounding team 120, you've probably heard all that and more.
I've grown tired of hearing it personally, so I wanted to crunch the numbers and see just how lucky we really are. Let's break it down one accusation at a time.
No. 1 lucky moment: Escaping Applachin State
Some want to point out that we were fortunate to beat the Mountaineers. That their missed kicks and our fumble recovery in the endzone were lucky. Let's tackle both issues.
Michael Rubino is the freshman kicker who
missed a potential game-winning field goal and an extra point on Sept. 1. The missed field goal was 42 yards. For the season, Rubino is 4/8 overall with a long of 42 yards. He made the 42 yarder in their last game Oct. 1 after missing his previous four attempts this season from 40+ yards. So as of now, the kicker who missed the field goal and made us "lucky" to beat App State is 20% on that type of kick - before accounting for the fact it was his first collegiate kick and it came in the final two minutes on the road in front of 102,455 people.
The fumble recovery: we've now fumbled 21 times and lost eight (38% lost) after yesterday's six fumble, five lost performance. So before then, it was 15 fumbles, 3 lost (20% lost). Even skewing the numbers to 50/50, we had a 50% shot of getting that ball - though this year's team has been considerably above 50/50 getting the ball when it's on the ground.
***Additional point: even if we didn't recover the fumble, App State had went seven straight possessions without scoring on our defense before OT. Even only needing three (already addressed above), that game had a good shot of going to a 2nd OT. ESPN had our win probability over 60% once the game went into OT.
No. 2 lucky moment: Virginia Tech fumbled away a win in Bristol.
The Hokies outgained the Vols 400-330 that game, had they not fumbled five times, it wouldn't have been close! Sound familiar?
Did you know ESPN's win probability tracker gave UT a 50.5% chance of winning AFTER Virginia Tech took a 14-0 lead on a 69-yard TD run. I didn't either until I looked it up. The Hokies hit a high of 54.8% win probability when they got possession up 14-0, but it actually swung back in favor of the Vols (50.4%) BEFORE the first fumble that kickstarted 45-3 run we went on against the nation's No. 3 ranked D (total defense).
***Additional comment: Lots has been made that Va Tech looked better because "they outgained the Vols." Well when UT took a 45-17 lead, the Vols were being outgained 321-314. The Hokies pushed that minimal seven-yard difference to 70 on a meaningless 79-yard TD drive when UT had built a 28-point lead and was taking a victory lap in Bristol.
Lucky moment No. 3: coming back from down 21-0 to beat the Gators.
While the Gators were building a 21-0 lead, Tennessee was busy turning the ball over three times in its first seven possessions, with all three turnovers coming in Florida territory (turnover on downs at the FLA 2, Dobbs interception in the endzone and Dobbs picked off inside the 20). I'd argue when Tennessee stopped shooting itself in the foot, the Vols took control of the game. The Vols rolled off 38 straight points and piled up 498 yards on the nation's current
No. 2 rated defense (total defense).
Lucky moment No. 4: The Hail Mary
Okay, Tennessee completed a pass and made a comeback that ESPN Stats and Info I believed deemed had a .23% chance of happening. That's definitely lucky.
BUT... the Vols had a 98.6% win probability before Eason's heave, so had Georgia won, they would've won when they had a 1.4% chance of pulling out a victory. I'd argue we just countered a Hail Mary with a game-winning Hail Mary.
Lucky moment No. 5: Tennessee's luck ran out against the Aggies.
Wait, wait... weren't the Vols lucky that the Hokies fumbled five times. I mean they outgained the Vols and were actually better, right?
It can't be both ways because Tennessee piled up a school-record (of defensive futility in Aggieland) 684 yards on Texas A&M en route to winning the yardage battle by 92 yards (it was 675-558, +117 yards, in regulation). The Vols were -4 turnover differential, same as VT faced in the BoB, and forced a second OT on the road (as opposed to a neutral site) when "unlucky teams who win the yardage battle" actually are supposed to lose by 21 in regulation.
If you read my post earlier about the injury analysis (UT's two deep on D has missed a combined 15 games thus far and the projected starters have played four total quarters together), then I think you could easily argue that we've been completely unlucky on the injury front.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just tired of hearing how lucky the Vols are. I think we are what most hoped we would be in the preseason - a playoff contender if we have good health. We haven't had good health and we're still a playoff contender. Hopefully some guys can make it back this week and we swing the Third Saturday in October series back in our favor.
I've grown tired of hearing it personally, so I wanted to crunch the numbers and see just how lucky we really are. Let's break it down one accusation at a time.
No. 1 lucky moment: Escaping Applachin State
Some want to point out that we were fortunate to beat the Mountaineers. That their missed kicks and our fumble recovery in the endzone were lucky. Let's tackle both issues.
Michael Rubino is the freshman kicker who
missed a potential game-winning field goal and an extra point on Sept. 1. The missed field goal was 42 yards. For the season, Rubino is 4/8 overall with a long of 42 yards. He made the 42 yarder in their last game Oct. 1 after missing his previous four attempts this season from 40+ yards. So as of now, the kicker who missed the field goal and made us "lucky" to beat App State is 20% on that type of kick - before accounting for the fact it was his first collegiate kick and it came in the final two minutes on the road in front of 102,455 people.
The fumble recovery: we've now fumbled 21 times and lost eight (38% lost) after yesterday's six fumble, five lost performance. So before then, it was 15 fumbles, 3 lost (20% lost). Even skewing the numbers to 50/50, we had a 50% shot of getting that ball - though this year's team has been considerably above 50/50 getting the ball when it's on the ground.
***Additional point: even if we didn't recover the fumble, App State had went seven straight possessions without scoring on our defense before OT. Even only needing three (already addressed above), that game had a good shot of going to a 2nd OT. ESPN had our win probability over 60% once the game went into OT.
No. 2 lucky moment: Virginia Tech fumbled away a win in Bristol.
The Hokies outgained the Vols 400-330 that game, had they not fumbled five times, it wouldn't have been close! Sound familiar?
Did you know ESPN's win probability tracker gave UT a 50.5% chance of winning AFTER Virginia Tech took a 14-0 lead on a 69-yard TD run. I didn't either until I looked it up. The Hokies hit a high of 54.8% win probability when they got possession up 14-0, but it actually swung back in favor of the Vols (50.4%) BEFORE the first fumble that kickstarted 45-3 run we went on against the nation's No. 3 ranked D (total defense).
***Additional comment: Lots has been made that Va Tech looked better because "they outgained the Vols." Well when UT took a 45-17 lead, the Vols were being outgained 321-314. The Hokies pushed that minimal seven-yard difference to 70 on a meaningless 79-yard TD drive when UT had built a 28-point lead and was taking a victory lap in Bristol.
Lucky moment No. 3: coming back from down 21-0 to beat the Gators.
While the Gators were building a 21-0 lead, Tennessee was busy turning the ball over three times in its first seven possessions, with all three turnovers coming in Florida territory (turnover on downs at the FLA 2, Dobbs interception in the endzone and Dobbs picked off inside the 20). I'd argue when Tennessee stopped shooting itself in the foot, the Vols took control of the game. The Vols rolled off 38 straight points and piled up 498 yards on the nation's current
No. 2 rated defense (total defense).
Lucky moment No. 4: The Hail Mary
Okay, Tennessee completed a pass and made a comeback that ESPN Stats and Info I believed deemed had a .23% chance of happening. That's definitely lucky.
BUT... the Vols had a 98.6% win probability before Eason's heave, so had Georgia won, they would've won when they had a 1.4% chance of pulling out a victory. I'd argue we just countered a Hail Mary with a game-winning Hail Mary.
Lucky moment No. 5: Tennessee's luck ran out against the Aggies.
Wait, wait... weren't the Vols lucky that the Hokies fumbled five times. I mean they outgained the Vols and were actually better, right?
It can't be both ways because Tennessee piled up a school-record (of defensive futility in Aggieland) 684 yards on Texas A&M en route to winning the yardage battle by 92 yards (it was 675-558, +117 yards, in regulation). The Vols were -4 turnover differential, same as VT faced in the BoB, and forced a second OT on the road (as opposed to a neutral site) when "unlucky teams who win the yardage battle" actually are supposed to lose by 21 in regulation.
If you read my post earlier about the injury analysis (UT's two deep on D has missed a combined 15 games thus far and the projected starters have played four total quarters together), then I think you could easily argue that we've been completely unlucky on the injury front.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just tired of hearing how lucky the Vols are. I think we are what most hoped we would be in the preseason - a playoff contender if we have good health. We haven't had good health and we're still a playoff contender. Hopefully some guys can make it back this week and we swing the Third Saturday in October series back in our favor.
