Two Roads Diverged in an Orange Wood…

Ohio University visits Knoxville this Saturday. They are in the MAC, we are in the SEC. Peden Stadium holds 24,000, Neyland holds 100,011. The Bobcats have played in three bowl games, ever. The Volunteers are 4th in all-time bowl visits, with forty eight. However, coming into Saturday, Ohio has something over Tennessee, a winning record. Ohio comes to Neyland with a 2-1 record, UT with a 1-2 record. Delving deeper into the situation however, you see that Ohio’s victories are over North Texas, and Cal-Poly, teams that aren’t much to write home about. Notably they did play Uconn very close, which of note, almost beat ranked North Carolina. Our losses are to UCLA, and the unanimous #1 ranked Florida Gators. Differences in the two, can obviously be seen.

Analyzing our opponents this weekend, is a give and take. Who shows up? A team that can hang with the big boys, or a team that gets steam rolled? Keeping up with the big boys for Ohio, is no strange feat. Of recent times under head coach Frank Solich, the Bobcats have beaten Pitt, and played within just points of Ohio State, and Virginia Tech. They come to Neyland with a decent pass defense, but a dismal rush defense. Of which, favor the Vols to win, if Kiffin plays a hard-nosed, run it down their throat style of football. Which I must add, would give us an easy win, but not show us a benchmark of where we are at as a team, passing the football.

This is where the fork hits the road for me. Anyone with half a brain, that has seen Tennessee play this year, can tell you our weak link is at Quarterback. So here we sit at the Ohio game, a very make or break game in my eyes. This is where our season is made, not the Florida game, nor Alabama, nor Ole Miss. Measley old Ohio University out of the MAC. I say this because we metaphorically approach two roads, diverged in an… Orange wood, you could say. Do we place the rest of our season in the hands of Jonathan Crompton, or do we hand the reigns over to Nick Stephens? The answer is obvious to me, but Coach Kiffin has stated that our starter for Ohio is Crompton.

I think that by the end of the game, Stephens will have led us to our 2nd victory of the year, and Jonathan Crompton will have thrown his 9th interception of the season (yes I think he throws two picks), and his last of his career. The secondary of Ohio is not a bad one, and has already intercepted 6 passes this year. I think the equation is perfect. This is a no-brainer for Kiffin, bench Crompton for the rest of the season, after his poor first half performance. This however, all swings in the balance of just one decision. It goes back to the whole “two roads diverged” metaphor. The 1st road, is one where we just run the ball down the throat of Ohio, and run the score up. If this happens, and Crompton gets utilized much like he was in the Florida game, as someone who gets the snap, to hand off to our stable of running backs. Then he will have a nice cushion of a game to fall back on. The 2nd road, is one where we actually use a quarterback, in the way one was meant to be used, as a passing player who operates the offense like a machine. This is the option where Crompton fails to meet the expectations of the Vols faithful, and the coaching staff. This is the option that allows us to finally see Stephens in a command role, rather than of cleanup duty in a route similar to Western Kentucky.

Only Saturday holds the answers to our questions about Tennessee football. Luckily for us, I think it is not a question of “Will we win?” but “Is there a bright future for the rest of our season?”