[2023] Tennessee Season Preview

[tsweezy]

Last post we shared our 2022 year in review, but today it's time to preview 2023! Goodbye Aldrick and Alex. Hello Hardy and Hayes!

 

Schedule

Week	Opponent	2022 Record	2023 Talent rank	Notes
1	Maryland	5-7	119	Beat us in 2021 in College Park
2	at Florida State	6-6	1	2021 National runner-up
3	Southern Miss	5-7	104	I forget why I scheduled them
4	at Florida	4-8	108	They have a cool coach
5	South Carolina	5-7	72	last game before first bye
6	BYE	-
7	Texas A&M	3-9	46	Bad year in 2022 but much more promising this year
8	BYE	-
9	at Kentucky	5-7	3	Going to be a top-5 talent / preseason team
10	at Chattanooga	N/A	-	FCS in-state as mandated by the governor
11	at Missouri	8-4	36	Consistently a good team, very scary
12	at Alabama	14-3	10	Defending National Champions
13	Georgia	7-5	30	Reigning COTY, beat us in Athens in 22, look for us to spoil their cinderella season
14	Vanderbilt	3-9	84	Vanderbilt delenda est

 

 

Total opponent performance last year: 65-72 (with average team talent rank of 49),  average 2023 team talent ranking of 55.7

This actually looks slightly less daunting of a schedule than last year, although I think it will overperform it's rating. We scheduled our OOC to include our mandated FCS in-state team, a revenge game against UMD for 2021, take our shot at preseason #1 Florida State, and then filled in with Southern Miss because idk. Overall there's 1% chance we actually win all those, but 2-3 wins is expected.

Within the SEC, the East had a down year last season, but Kentucky is roaring back as the #3 team, Georgia went on a tear and should be another ranked rival, and the other teams are difficult outs too. Our crossovers are Alabama (defending national champs), and TAMU (I do actually expect > 7 wins from them). Overall, I'd say it's one of the harder schedules in conference. We have some good chances at wins, but having a 5 week stretch of: at Kentucky, at Missouri, at Alabama, Georgia is a murderous stretch to get through. Winning 2 of those games would be fine by me. Overall I'd expect us to go 5-3 in conference this year (Ws: Vanderbilt, Florida, South Carolina, TAMU, Missouri. Ls: Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama), a slight step down from last year, and finish 2/3rd in the East behind Kentucky/Georgia. 8-4 seems like the most likely overall record this year based on schedule

Projected Roster

Offense:

It's the Brandon Savage show, shocking. After a year of being a dual-headed threat with Aldrick in the backfield, Savage takes over top billing as Tennessee switches to an air raid offense showcasing his arm. I cannot gush about this kid enough. He was a top-10 QB in the nation last year as a true freshman and he leveled up over the offseason to an A overall player. He has a phenomenal arm capable of making any throw. He does though sometimes misfires and needs to improve his ability to avoid the pass rush (a small propensity to take sacks). Luckily he has another all-star cast at WR. Headlined by Hayes Edwards and Matt Siri (both A overalls), it's going to be insanely tough for defenses to cover both of them and not let Jackson or one of the RS FR get open. 

On the ground front, Ynoa will be sorely missed. True freshman Joe Williams got a few hundred yards in spot duty last year, but the new #1 emerging after spring ball is senior J.C. Hardy. A B+ player, his calling card is speed, as he is a threat to hit a homerun every time he touches the ball. His other attributes are relatively average, and he certainly won't be a Heisman candidate, but he has a very different role in this offense. To prevent teams from loading up against the pass and running only nickel and dime, he's going to be the unexpected lightning who hits you for a 50 yard carry when you've seen  a string of passes. I think his stats (YPC especially) will look quite good as teams overcompensate against Savage.

The line is the real weakpoint for the offense though. There are tons of recruiting stars, but the cabinet is basically empty for upperclassmen and the RS FR just don't have enough seasoning to be all-SEC caliber. Joey Carson is an A overall run blocker, and Emmanuel Matthews is a good line captain center who saw some playing time last year, but the other 3 positions are going to be taken by some combination of 2nd year players who just need to survive long enough for Savage and J.C. to work their magic. 

 

Defense:

Defensive Tackle is probably the only good position on this defense. We have 2 A overall players here and may rotate Marte and Markkanen to DE to get better pass rushers around the edge when needed. I'm 100% confident in their abilities and this is the gold standard. DE is a little weaker. Anderson and Cano are RS JRs who have the nominal starting jobs, but are being heavily pushed for playing time by 2nd year Dimmadome Jr. and true freshman phenom Roger London. London in particular was the biggest signing of 2022 as the 5 star B potential landed with the Volunteers shocking the crystal ball community. He's looked fantastic in fall practice and nearly landed a starting spot. The next few years should see DE blossom into a team strength, it's just not quite there yet. 

Linebacker is.. whew. Worst unit of the entire team. JT Adams is actually a quite good run stopper up the middle, but that's almost extraneous given how good the DTs are. The OLBs are trouble spots. Montrezl Link actually showed some good stuff last season and the pass rusher has one spot locked down. The other side is... Albert Falu I guess? A speed OLB who is mediocre at coverage, can't rush the passer, and makes too many slow business decisions against the run. I wish we had signed a good OLB to place here.

Secondary is fine. Cabinda and Harlow are the last man corners on the roster and we pull in David Johnson from FS to keep the top-3 all on the same scheme. They aren't lockdown corners, but they aren't going to be toasted by anyone not named Paul Canha. Burfict and Richardson are also above-average talents at safety. We'll miss Zac Hill's leadership and big play prevention, but this squad should be ok against most teams. 

 

Special Teams:
Punter is nominally going to be coffin corner specialist sophomore Marcus Jackson, although we may redshirt him if we can't find another punter early on in the recruiting cycle. He's fine I guess. 

Trinnaman barely lost the starting K spot last year, and the power kicker has sole possession now. Booting a 52 yarder in our spring games, he's actually looked quite good from range and I think he'll do plenty fine.

 

Potential Position Battles

TE: Kendrick Mateo vs. Patty Murray

Both have about the same skills, but Kendrick is younger and a blocking type while Patty is a senior receiving talent. Given we won't run with TEs that frequently, and almost certainly won't want to target them more than the WRs, you'd think Kendrick has the edge, but Murray has shown a TON of competitive fire in practices that is hard to ignore

DE 2/3/4: Mike Anderson vs. Doug Dimmadome Jr. vs. Roger London

It's an insanely tight battle between these 3, and the ideal situation is just to rotate and keep them all fresh. Any of them could see success, but none are definitive leaders at the moment. 

 

Preseason Talent Rankings

Blue chip prospects: 39 (1st, although almost all are underclassmen)

A overalls: 7 (5-way tie for 5th)

Combined A and B overalls: 41 (3rd)

Starting team talent overall: 13th

 

TL;DR Names to Know

QB Brandon Savage - who doesn't know about him by now

WR Hayes Edwards / Matt Siri - At least one of these guys is going over 2k yards this season (hell, maybe even both)

DT Jason Marte - best overall player on the team, an Aaron Donald-esque pass rusher up the middle.

FS Matt Richardson - Best player in the back-7, he's going to need to come up with some timely turnovers this season

 

2023 Spring Game Results

Houston - WIN 37-7. Great game here, very well-rounded and efficient. Defense played extremely well holding Houston to just a single garbage time score.

UNLV - WIN 24-13. Much tighter game here. Still pleased with the defense, but offense sputtered a bit in the heavy rain / windy conditions. Lost WR Hayes Edwards to injury during the game which didn't help. 

BGSU - LOSS 57-63. LOL. I don't know what to take from this but it was one of my favorite games ever. Savage threw for > 800 yards against a playoff opponent and came back from a 21 point 4th quarter hole with a trio of clutch 4th down conversions before the defense blew it giving up a 70 yard TD run with 30 seconds left. We were totally impotent against the run and this is seriously concerning as we look ahead to Florida State. 

 

Season Predictions / Expectations

I expect us to win at least 8 games. Not much excuse not to considering the talent advantages we'll have in most of them. Our top-end scenario is hampered by playing likely 3 top-5 teams (Kentucky, Alabama, Florida State), so even a top-10 team could still end up at 9-3. I'm fine with somewhere in that 8-9 win range. Secondary goals include getting Savage to be a top-5 QB and all-american, and seeing progress from our underclassmen.

 

The Future - 2024 and beyond

This is the first year I had us circled as SEC favorites. Alabama graduates a lot of their top talent. Kentucky will still be a menace, but 3rd year Savage, plus another progression cycle for our 2021 class should launch us near the top-5 talent rankings. We're playing a lot of young guys on both lines and at depth in WR / CB, so we should see higher than average progression and a lot of new starters emerge, although I suppose you never know for sure. 

Our projected starting-22 this year includes 11 graduating seniors, 3 juniors, and 8 underclassmen. That's about the same number of starting seniors we've had depart the last 2 seasons, although this year we are heavy on underclassmen instead of juniors. 2024 will be loaded with junior starters and 2025 will be an absolute monster if all goes well.