http://www.knoxnews.com/story/sports/columnists/university-of-tennessee/john-adams/2017/11/06/tennessee-football-defense-improved-enough-slow-down-missouri-tigers-vols-bob-shoop-butch-jones/827314001/He makes several points. The main one of interest to me today is that our run D is terrible (but that Mizzou doesn't run well). He does point out how bad Shoops D has been but...and this is where I quibble with him a bit....he insists on including every game Shoop has coached against P5 schools, which is a total of 16 games. One can debate how valid that is with all the injuries last year, but my issue is that I am more interested in this season.
He claims that P5 teams have had success running the ball this year, and they have. Ga Tech was embarrassing for sure. But I think a more telling stat is, have we held anyone under their season average, or has every team exceeded that? Here are the stats for this season alone (P5 teams only):
Team Average/Rank Our Gamega tech 311/4 535
florida 188/39 168
uga 183/41 294
usc junior 138/89 194
bammer 228/16 272
kentucky 138/87 289
Yeah...that's pretty bad. Other than Florida, we haven't held P5 team under their season average yet.
Missouri's run game is pretty weak, but I don't know if that's going to help us or not.
