Tennessee football at Georgia: 10 keys to the game

3. Who gets off to the fastest start?

Part of handling the composure that we talked about on the previous slide will be about which team starts the fastest. As we mentioned, both have dealt with adversity. They also dealt with slow starts.

Tennessee football allowed the South Carolina Gamecocks to jump to a 7-0 lead and then had a muffed punt on its first offensive drive before reeling off 21 unanswered. However, they allowed USC to get red-hot again and score two touchdowns to tie it up at 21.

Meanwhile, as we said, the Georgia Bulldogs reeled off 32 unanswered points once they were trailing 10-5 to the Arkansas Razorbacks. It can’t be denied, however, that they allowed Arkansas to get a lead early.

This would suggest that both teams can get red-hot really fast and that neither needs a great start. However, that’s not true. Arkansas and South Carolina don’t have the personnel that each of these teams do.

Neither the Vols or the Bulldogs is built to come back or blow a lead against good teams. Assuming they’re healthy, both have great secondaries, they have questions about their passing attack, and they want to be able to run the ball.

As a result, the team that starts fastest could win. Even if both teams do have composure when struggling, it’s hard to see either team get going against the other’s defense if obvious passing situations arise. The winner of the coin toss may want to receive just to make that statement.