Kennesaw State @ Tennessee
Saturday, Sept. 19 | 7:45 PM | SEC Network
Vegas: Vols -35.5
SP+: Tennessee 45, KSU 12
FEI: Tennessee 45.1, KSU 9.7
FPI: Vols by 31
Good morning and welcome back to Hoot State. Former Vols assistant Jerry Mack returns to Knoxville as a five-TD underdog tonight with . He’ll probably face a little different reception than the other homecoming happening in the league. Tennessee fans traded in the mustard bottles and golf balls for best wishes and a midweek media tour. We’re skipping the full deep-dive preview treatment this week but plan on being back later in the weekend with PFF grades, takeaways, and any storylines trends that emerge.
If we’d already done 25 paycheck games like this, I don’t think I’d be quite as excited hitting the road to Knoxville this morning. I can’t blame you for getting cynical on days when our team clears a million dollars to play against a team with a roster that costs as much as your entire athletic department’s budget, at least according to estimates from The Athletic. KSU stretched the budget to extend Mack with a raise in the winter, and Heupel still has four assistants making as much Kennesaw State would need to sell out Fifth Third Stadium 10 times to play in front of as many fans as Tennessee will pack in tonight. It’s like a Major League Soccer team crossing the pond to play a midseason game or two in the EPL. The imbalance is striking, but this game also gives Owls fans a chance to exist in the same universe as the college football iconography we all grew up watching.
That’s rarely been the case as a relative expansion team in the sport’s history. We’ve kinda been in a parallel timeline during our short existence - mostly playing against anonymous FCS jobbers or replacement level G6 teams. Our brief cameos in Power 4 stadiums have mostly been against new money programs like Indiana and Cincinnati, or Georgia Tech during the nadir of the Geoff Collins experience. Watching the Vols run through the T, seeing the checkerboard, and hearing Rocky Top with our team on the opposite sideline - that’s all worth the trip for me. Maybe I will change my tune after hearing it 34 times. Who knows.
Coming off the Georgia State debacle, the schedule actually sets up perfectly to bounce back - or at least do some self-scouting to figure out this version of KSU. A friendly staff is on the other sideline, without much of an appetite to run up the score. Install also looks a little easier during the week when the opponent runs the offense that inspires what you do. There’s no expectation to win, and it’s basically a supercharged spring game that just so happens to take place in one of the biggest stadiums on earth. As a recovery spot, I like this much more than getting a G6 roadtrip or hosting a game the Owls need to win. Can you think of a better way to look in the mirror than a low-stakes game against a program that in many ways is our role model?
That said…you never know what’s going to happen. There’s always the potential for a s’posed to be SEC moment to emerge. Just ask Owls WRs coach Dan Ellington, who called his shot to open the 2019 season. Fresh off a 2-10 season, his Georgia State team walked into Neyland as 26-point underdogs and left as outright winners.
Situations to monitor
Most interesting matchup: Mitch Militello vs. Tennessee’s Jim Knowles. Josh Heupel hired the Penn State DC largely on the strength of what he did to the Vols during the 2024 playoffs while in charge of the Ohio State defense: a 42-17 Buckeyes victory in which the explosive Vols were held to 3.4 yards/attempt passing and 3.9 yards per carry. An intriguing meta matchup here, where Knowles and Heupel - essentially Militello’s football sensei - know all his moves. But he knows that they know, and you can keep chasing your tail on that one for a while. It’s like Obi-wan vs. Anakin or Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair.
Key players: KSU’s Cam Miller and Perry Fisher. Both safeties were elevated to co-starters on this week’s depth chart. Take what you would like from that development, but it likely matters. Fisher is a smart call by the staff, with his P4 cornerback experience making him an intriguing candidate against the Veer and Shoot. Miller, a one-time Vol recruited to Knoxville by Mack, got 24 snaps off the bench against Georgia State and graded out at an 89.9 on PFF. Josh Anglin also got a co-starter nod, but he’s already been a mainstay in the lineup - particularly against 12 personnel looks that Tennessee has used more and more lately.
Another stress test for Marc Mattioli’s defense. Georgia State beat Kennesaw with a little bit of an anti-Veer and Shoot: Slow tempo, super condensed sets, and a lot of horizontal action. Time of possession is perhaps the most misused “stat” in college football, akin to measuring caloric intake by the amount of plates used. KSU couldn’t get off the field, though, and Hue Jackson’s real triumph was lining up in tight formations and sending Baron Hopson and the rest of the Owls running sideline to sideline after the snap to follow jet sweeps, bootlegs, etc. Heupel’s going to speed them up, at least from the start, to provide a different challenge with more pace and downhill run concepts against a team that already missed 15 tackles last week. The Vols also aren’t afraid to air it out against lower-level opposition: Five-star freshman Faizon Brandon threw on 8 of the first 12 plays against Furman earlier this season (via SECstatcat dot com).
Can the Owls clean up the passing operation? Rickie Collins got a little unwarranted heat, in my opinion, coming out of the GSU loss. He wasn’t perfect, but if you listed all the problems in the true dropback game, I’m not sure he’s anywhere near the top 5. He’s under pressure 42% of the time (worst in CUSA) and there are a few examples of multiple receivers on the wrong landmark and just lounging during the scramble drill. KSU doesn’t need to put 300 on the Vols to feel good about today, but there’s a lot of passing down reps available if this game goes as the oddsmakers expect. Bonus points if they can use today to hone in the WR rotation.
Elsewhere in CUSA
Coastal Carolina @ Delaware
11:30 AM | ESPN | Delaware -5.5
WKU @ Indiana
4:00 PM | Peacock | Indiana -44.5
Ball State @ Liberty
4:00 PM | ESPN+ | Liberty -14.5
FIU @ FAU
6:00 PM | ESPN+ | FAU -6.5
Marshall @ Missouri State
6:30 PM | CBS Sports | Marshall -4
Nevada @ MTSU
7:00 PM | ESPN+ | Nevada -3.5
Georgia Southern @ Jacksonville State
7:00 PM | ESPN+ | JSU -3
Nicholls @ Sam Houston
7:00 PM | ESPN+ | SHSU -17.5
