Tennessee football heads west on Interstate-40 to face instate rival Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon. The stakes are extremely high for the Vols as they look to clinch a birth in the College Football Playoff as well as securing their second 10-win regular season in the last three years.
The Vols are decent sized favorites but Vanderbilt has been fantastic as underdogs this season and are looking to cap off a strong regular season with one more upset victory.
Here’s three keys for Tennessee to avoid the upset and to punch its ticket to the College Football Playoffs.
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Get Off The Field
Vanderbilt’s offense doesn’t do anything to overwhelm opponents but they do a great job of extending drives and not turning the ball over. The Commodores have been strong on third and fourth down this season and do a good job of playing ball control and keeping their opponents off the field.
That makes Tennessee’s ability to get off the field on third and fourth down incredibly important in this game. The Vols have been stout there this season, ranking fourth nationally in both third down and fourth down defense. The only true exception is the Georgia game when the Bulldogs converted eight of their final 11 third down attempts.
That’s also largely why Vanderbilt defeated Alabama, converting xx-of-xx third down attempts. Tennessee has to be good on third and fourth down defensively in this game.
The key is to get quarterback Diego Pavia to the ground in the backfield. He’s been so good at escaping rushers and making plays off script. Tennessee needs to buck that trend.
Win The Red Zone Battle
The other thing Vanderbilt’s offense is really good at is scoring, particularly touchdowns, in the red zone. Essentially, Vanderbilt is fantastic at maximizing on its scoring chances which is important because they don’t total a ton of yards most games.
Tennessee is largely the opposite. Most games, Tennessee moves the ball well until it gets to scoring range where its drives often stall and they either turn the ball over or have to settle for field goals. That was particularly an issue in the middle of the season when they didn’t score in the first half against Arkansas, Florida or Alabama.
The best way for Vanderbilt to pull the upset in this game is to be really efficient in the red zone while Tennessee keeps having issues scoring in the red zone.
I’m most intrigued by how Vanderbilt’s offense does in scoring range because Tennessee’s defense has been stout there. If the Vols can force Vanderbilt to settle for field goals when the field shrinks, I think they’ll take care of business.
Lean On Dylan Sampson
There’s a number of keys I could talk about for Tennessee’s offense in this game. There should be plays there to make in the passing game and that is undoubtedly important. But I’m going to keep it simple.
Lean on Dylan Sampson. Sampson is Tennessee’s top offensive player. On an offense that’s been inconsistent all season, Sampson is the lone constant.
The junior running back has rushed for 100 yards in all but one game this season. Tennessee should lean on him in this game, especially after he ran the ball just 11 times last week and received a lighter work load. With its season on the line, I’m predicting Tennessee gives Sampson 30 carries in hopes that he can carry its offense to the National Championship.
