Assuming you’re a UT fan? If both teams were at full strength, I’d like Purdue but clearly UT has a better shot with who will suit up for both sides.
Let’s hear some early score predictions
- Thread starter RockyTopRowdy58
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Assuming you’re a UT fan? If both teams were at full strength, I’d like Purdue but clearly UT has a better shot with who will suit up for both sides.
I just checked on two weather forecast sites and both predict it to be dry and warm.
62-17. Some local kids are coming to watch the game on their own dime so I think Heupel leaves it all on the field.
Slurpin’ the orange kool-aid I see……Our defense is much better than Tennessee’s is. No way does this happen. No way.
What does that have to do with anything...
Purdue is going to be down 5 major players so it should be interesting... Defense has to hold up and offense has to move the ball. We are down 4 of our top 7 receivers....we may actually rely on the running backs and TEs more in this game
We’ve faced some really good defenses. Doubled up most of their average ppg allowed. Tripled up some.
I’m seeing 71 and Sunny. It won’t matter with as much WR talent that is not available. May as well rain.
Ok. But yet Tennessee is going to hold Purdue below average? Interesting. Lay off the Crack pipe.
With about 70% of your yards out of play, absolutely.
Our QB is still playing. Starting RB. And both back-ups. Top 3 TEs. 2 starting WRs and another who played a lot this year. Whole OL except 1 OT. I guess our other WRs don’t have hands? Dumb argument.
I think it's because of how strong UT finished the season.
Both teams have faced some really good defenses this season (and a handful of lousy ones). In looking at Total Defense rankings for opponents:
Purdue played:
#74 Oregon State
#115 UCONN
#28 Notre Dame
#48 Illinois
#4 Minnesota
#15 Iowa
#1 Wisconsin
#49 Nebraska
#117 Michigan St.
#47 Ohio St.
#101 Northwestern
#72 Indiana
Tennessee played:
#64 Bowling Green
#38 Pittsburgh
#51 Florida
#105 Missouri
#43 South Carolina
#100 Ole Miss
#8 Alabama
#24 Kentucky
#2 Georgia
#42 South Alabama
#118 Vanderbilt
So, for total defense opponents rankings:
Top 50 - Purdue played 7; Tennessee played 6
Top 25 - Purdue played 3; Tennessee played 3
Top 10 - Purdue played 2; Tennessee played 2
With regards to yardage...in those games against the top 10 ranked defenses:
Purdue had 34 total yards less than Wisconsin's average of 240 per game, and 87 total yards more than Minnesota's average of 284 per game.
Tennessee had 65 total yards more than Alabama's average of 306 per game, and 133 total yards more than Georgia's average of 254 per game.
I'll run similar numbers for scoring in another post.
Both teams have faced some really good defenses this season (and a handful of lousy ones). In looking at Scoring Defense rankings for opponents:
Purdue played:
#65 Oregon State
#123 UCONN
#9 Notre Dame (tied)
#30 Illinois
#9 Minnesota (tied)
#14 Iowa
#6 Wisconsin
#37 Nebraska
#61 Michigan St.
#23 Ohio St.
#89 Northwestern
#109 Indiana
Tennessee played:
#96 Bowling Green
#40 Pittsburgh
#68 Florida
#113 Missouri
#46 South Carolina
#55 Ole Miss
#18 Alabama
#31 Kentucky
#1 Georgia
#72 South Alabama
#119 Vanderbilt
So, for scoring defense opponents rankings:
Top 50 - Purdue played 7; Tennessee played 4
Top 25 - Purdue played 5; Tennessee played 2
Top 10 - Purdue played 3; Tennessee played 1
So, while their best defensive opponents were pretty similar in total defense...Purdue played a much more difficult schedule with regards to opponents scoring defense rankings.
Against the top 25 opponents - Purdue scored: 5 less than Notre Dame's average of 18 per game; 5 less than Minnesota's average of 18 per game; 5 more than Iowa's average of 19 per game; and 10 more than Ohio State's average of 21 per game.
Tennessee scored: 4 more than Alabama's average of 20 per game and 7 more than Georgia's average of 10 per game.
The best offensive performances with regards to opponent's average would be:
Purdue scored 14 more than Michigan State's average of 26 per game.
Tennessee scored 23 more than Kentucky's average of 22 per game.
If we were at full strength....31-27. Boilers!!! Those are huge loses to over come now....Brohm will have to dig deep in his bag of tricks to make it close....hopefully the guys filling in will play with a chip on their shoulders!!!! Know they're going to hear that we don't stand a chance now... Just don't want to see a blowout! Be happy if we can keep it close to a 30- 24 type game...Defense will need to create 3-4 turnovers for us to win..ya never know!!
Tennessee hasn't been at full strength most of the year on the OL...and Cade Mays is a difference maker. He had 2 games where he played in only 1 series each, and 2 games he missed entirely. He didn't give up a single sack during the season, and the offense is very different with him in the lineup. His brother, Cooper Mays has missed several games at Center. So, hopefully we will get a glimpse of what UT's offense was the few times they were at full strength this season...and everyone will get through the game sans injury.
Just based on player ratings (since I haven't seen Purdue actually play this season) it looks like they have a lot of depth at WR. While Bell was by far the leader in receptions and yards...you have 3 other receivers with 40+ receptions this season...and Wright actually leads in TD receptions. With a 4-star Freshman, Yaseen, on the roster...it might actually give an opportunity for a previously underutilized player to step up. When we played Indiana 2 years ago, we had a Freshman who only had 2 receptions the whole season, have 60 yards in 2 catches in the game, and wound up breaking things open for UT.
I would have liked to see Karlaftis go up against a healthy Cade Mays all day. That would have been a heckuva matchup.
If there is one position that Purdue can go deep on, it's WR and pass catching TE. Probably DL after that, but the impact players are limited at DL.
I don't know about that. A lot of those guys haven't played very much.
Exactly. We are not that deep with proven receivers. Just some guys with good recruiting rankings but that as we know doesn’t always mean much. With Bell and Wright out we have Sheffield, Anthrop and Thompson. Those guys are alright but behind them there really isn’t anything certain. We have good TEs which will help.
Speaking of recruiting rankings...how could O'Connell go unrated and unrecruited with the numbers he put up in HS? Talk about a huge miss.
Purdue just seems like Mizzou or SC talent wise. Especially missing their 2 best players plus some others.
Some people just develop later. Just like some guys that are ranked high sophomore and junior years may level off and get passed up by guys that develop later. But I think what it really boils down to is his work ethic and attitude and we are lucky to have him
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Pretty one dimensional offense. Your defense is decent but crumbled against the only dynamic offense it saw all year.
And that offense is way better than anything Tennessee will put on the field. Purdue might pass a lot, but they run the ball with an extension of the pass. They have one of the top QB's in the big ten that can make every throw. If you are saying stop the pass and we win, there is more to it than that. You also can't stop the pass. So....
That reminds me of Chad Pennington...he went to HS about 10 miles from Neyland Stadium, but went to Marshall because he weighed 170 pounds when he graduated. If he hadn't gotten hurt when he was QB for the Jets, there's no telling how good his NFL career could have been. I love watching guys like that play...the ones who got there by out working everybody else.
They got to the QB and ate RBs up in the back field early in the season and the grind got to them. A month off gets the defense healthy. AOC isn’t Pickett or Bryce or Corrall. Hes not a run threat at all and teams with statue QBs got ate up by this DL.
Which QB's did they eat up? And the Tennessee Dline is better than every Dline Purdue played?
George Karlaftis was double and triple-teamed basically this whole season. Cade Mays must be one hell of an OL to play Karlaftis man-on-man for an entire game.
Not every DL. But missing your starting OT will hurt a lot. We’ve operated without Cade a lot this season. We know how to play and win without him.
We stumbled out of the gate at OSU and were playing from behind the entire game. We had some TOs and special teams gaffes early in that game. Our defense is much better than Tennessee’s. Also, Notre Dame and Michigan State both have very potent offenses. We held both below their averages for the year.
