Tennessee football: Five encouraging signs for Vols bowl game quest

5. Place-kicking remains a huge advantage.

We said it at the beginning of the year, and at some point, it’s still bound to come true. Tennessee football has the best field goal kicking in the SEC this year behind the powerful leg of Brent Cimaglia, who has taken a bigger leap than anybody despite already being solid for the Vols the last couple of years.

Cimaglia hasn’t missed an extra point and leads all SEC players in field goal kicking efficiency at 92.9 percent. And it’s not a fluke with a small sample size, as he also leads everybody in field goals made with 13, having only missed one. Meanwhile, he is tied for second in the league in field goals made beyond 40 yards with four, and he is one of five kickers to make a field goal beyond 50.

You could say that Georgia Bulldogs’ kicker Rodrigo Blankenship, with three field goals beyond 50 yards and going 12 of 14 overall, has been more effective. Both have a miss in the 40s, and Blankenship has one in the 50s. But Cimaglia’s miss is from 47 yards, while Blankenship’s non-50 yard miss is dead center from 42 yards in overtime. And Cimaglia has a 40-yard OT field goal.

So taking all of that into account, Cimaglia is pretty much right on Blankenship’s level. And the Vols already played the Bulldogs. That means that the rest of the way, place-kicking works to their advantage in close games.

Three of their final five games are against teams in the bottom half of the SEC in terms of place-kicking efficiency, and their non-conference game is against a team that converts on only 63 percent of field goals.