Jeremy Pruitt's Gameplan Is So Crazy For This Week It Might Work

You may have missed it, but Tennessee won this weekend. Not against an FCS team, but instead an SEC team. Crazy, I know.

However, Tennessee is going to come back down to reality realllllll quick with a tilt against Alabama this weekend.

At the time of this blog, Tennessee is a 34.5-point underdog at Tuscaloosa. During his weekly Monday press conference, Jeremy Pruitt was asked about his gameplan for the Crimson Tide:

A plan so crazy it might work? I mean, it definitely wouldn’t work, but it definitely maybe could potentially work, right?

I’m fascinated by football coaches who take approaches like the one that Pruitt mentioned. It gets my football nerd juices going. The onside kick thing doesn’t make much sense, but I’d love to see the numbers behind it. If you have a great defense and a kicker who is a pro at kicking onside, is it potentially worth it to onside kick every time?

I’m more fascinated by the idea of a team that always goes for 2 or never punts when they have the ball past their own, say, 20-yard-line. The numbers may say one thing, but numbers often lie in small samples. Sure, the numbers may say you get more expected points going for 2, but is that because you only go for 2 when needed and only use your best plays? Would you want to sacrifice your own best plays for a 2-point conversion? We could go on and on. It’s a very interesting debate. I don’t think it can be answered with just stats or just a football guy.

I’m also fascinated by how philosophical changes in football occur. It starts in high school. Then it makes it way to college. Before you know it, it’s in the NFL.

What a sport.

P.s. It’s about to be the third Saturday in October. You know what that means: