By The Numbers: Tennessee

I have thrown a lot of numbers at you the past couple of days with my three features including what Ohio State needs to do to win on offense, what Ohio State needs to do to win on defense and of course the weekly feature of Tale of the Tape.

Why not throw some more numbers at you, I really dug deep for this game and had a few numbers that didn’t fit in any of my stories, and I didn’t want to waste them.

Let’s go “By the Numbers” and look at a few more items when it comes to the upcoming game with Ohio State in Tennessee in the first round of the College Football Playoffs.

.536: This is the Vols winning percentage of current members of the Big Ten. Many of these games took place prior to certain teams joining the league, but we really are not going to the level of breaking out the number to include current Big Ten years. UCLA leads the way with most games played, playing the Vols 15 times with Tennessee leading overall 7-6-2. Illinois, Michigan State and Washington are the only three teams in the conference with no record against the Vols. USC has had the most success against Tennessee through the years, owning a 4-0-0 series edge.

.700: The Vols have won seven of their last 10 bowl appearances, with one caveat. The 2020 Gator Bowl win over Indiana was vacated by the NCAA as part of disciplinary action, but those who read the site often know that I don’t vacate games, unless I am trying to prove a point. Of these 10 games, only one has been a “New Years Six” level game, a win in the Orange Bowl in December of 2022 against Clemson. Overall, the Vols hold a .554 record in bowl games, playing in 56 bowl games prior to whatever Saturday night’s game will be classified as for record keeping. Ohio State trails UT by one bowl appearance but is still underwater in its bowl winning percentage, just checking in at .473.

2: This is the margin between Ohio State (13) and Tennessee (15) in turnovers lost. The way that the teams lose the ball is very different however as Ohio State is more tilted towards throwing interceptions while there is more balance with the Vols, actually losing one more fumble than throwing an interception. With this being the No. 8 and No. 9 teams playing one another, there is not going to be a huge margin of difference between the two teams in many categories, and Ohio State fans know all too well what a couple of bad turnovers can do to the outcome of a game.

6: Out of the 12 bowls games over the past 10 seasons, Ohio State has scored first in six of the 12 games. That record breaks down to four touchdowns and two field goals. That doesn’t mean that Ohio State always wins the game when it scores first or loses the game when it doesn’t. Ohio State took an early lead on UGA in the 2022 Peach bowl. A year earlier, Ohio State fell into an early hole against Utah in the Rose Bowl. With what looks like a low scoring game coming up, it will be critical for the Buckeyes to get on the board first, and not to settle for a field goal, but every point will matter. Ohio State has not scored first in four of its last five bowl games (we are not factoring in Big Ten Championship Games in this math). With a game that could see both teams struggling to get into the teens (just like the weather) and early seven could be the difference.

7: The Buckeyes have appeared in six College Football Playoff tournaments and have a record of 3-4. The Buckeyes won the 2014 title with wins over Alabama and Oregon. Add to that the win a win over Clemson in 2020 in the Sugar Bowl. Not every game has been pretty, but the Buckeye got extremely unlucky in a couple of games, counting the 2022 Peach Bowl when Ohio State ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’ won the game, especially if the replay booth understood what obvious targeting is. Even with that, the Buckeyes had a field goal attempt at the stroke of midnight that wouldn’t ring true. Also go back to the 2019 Fiesta Bowl when the replay booth struck once again and nullified an obvious turnover that would have propelled the Buckeyes to a win. Even with that, Ohio State had a chance at the end before Chris Olave and Justin Fields were not on the same page on a final offensive play in the end zone.

8: The number of sacks Tennessee has in SEC road games. The math is easy with this one, four road games and eight sacks means two per game. The Buckeyes are No. 16 in the nation in sacks allowed but this offensive line has gone through wholesale changes over the course of the season, so to be fair, we are seeing a line that was not the starting line or even the line at the midway point of the season. But the teams that Tennessee faced on the road were not exactly stout when it came to allowing sacks on their own. Vanderbilt led the four teams with being No. 38 in the nation while UGA was a few spots lower at No. 51 overall. The other two teams were in the bottom 30 in the nation, Arkansas was 109^th in sacks allowed and Oklahoma was at the bottom, 131^st out of 133 teams.

14: Points scored by Ohio State in its only other meeting with Tennessee in the 1996 (1995 season) Citrus Bowl. Eddie George had a 2-yard touchdown run in the first quarter for the Buckeyes to take a 7-0 lead. Ohio State would fall behind 14-7 until Bobby Hoying would hit Rickey Dudley on a 32-yard touchdown pass to knot it up at 14-all. A pair of Jeff Hall field goals (29, 25) would give the Vols the eventual win. Dudley would be named Ohio State’s offensive MVP while Matt Finkes would win defensive MVP honors.

105: The Buckeyes have scored 105 points in the 2^nd quarters of games in Big Ten play. This removes the three non-conference games from the count. The Buckeyes have a 59-point edge in scoring in the 2^nd quarter of games, which seems like a lot, but it is not Ohio State’s best quarter for point differential. That would be the third quarter, where Ohio State holds an 80-point edge, outscoring foes 86-6 points.

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