There are times when football allows you to react viscerally and emotionally to something that hasn't actually happened yet. When Jerrell Young stripped Jonas Gray near the goal line in the opening drive of the Notre Dame-South Florida game, and Kayvon Webster recovered, we knew it was going to be a 96-yard fumble return before it actually was, and we reacted accordingly. Depending on your rooting interests, you instantaneous reaction may vary ... but when it came to the injury of standout Tennessee WR Justin Hunter on Saturday, virtually all reactions (aside from those of the colder-hearted Florida fans out there) were the same.
Morning Tailgate: Justin Hunter’s Injury, And Tennessee’s Tarnished Hopes
How damaging is Justin Hunter’s injury to the Tennessee offense, and how valuable is a strong No. 1 receiver in the SEC?
Hunter jumped to catch a Tyler Bray pass at the Tennessee 42 in the Vols' opening drive, and when he landed, he almost immediately crumpled to the ground and grabbed his leg. Technically, what ailed him could have been any numbers of things: a knee or ankle sprain, maybe? Slight hyperextension? No, we all saw into the future immediately: the MRI is going to reveal an ACL tear, and Hunter is out for the season. The reaction: one giant "Oh no, no, no," even among certain prominent Florida fans.
The sophomore from Virginia Beach was an incredibly intriguing talent last year, catching just 37 percent of the passes thrown his way as the Vols' No. 4 target, but averaging 25.9 yards per catch. That made for a cool per-target average of 9.7 yards; the national average for a No. 4: 7.4 yards. With the departures of Denarius Moore and Gerald Jones, Hunter and Da'Rick Rogers (11 catches for 167 yards, 9.3 yards per target in 2010) became the default go-to's in the new Tennessee receiving corps, and through two games, this duo was magnificent. Granted, their results came against a pair of hapless defenses -- Montana and Cincinnati -- but the early returns were outstanding:
| Player | Targets | Catches | Yards | Catch Rate | Yards Per Target | Target Rate |
| Da'Rick Rogers | 20 | 15 | 200 | 75.0% | 10.0 | 30.3% |
| Justin Hunter | 19 | 16 | 302 | 84.2% | 15.9 | 28.8% |
Were these numbers going to fall when Tennessee started playing actual, real defense? Of course. But they would have to fall a long way to reach anything approximating national averages.
| Player | Targets | Catches | Yards | Catch Rate | Yards Per Target | Target Rate |
| Average No. 1 Receiver (2010) | 10,768 | 6,724 | 92,510 | 62.4% | 8.6 | 24.4% |
| Average No. 2 Receiver (2010) | 8,102 | 5,144 | 66,323 | 63.5% | 8.2 | 18.2% |
Though Rogers had been targeted more, numbers strongly suggest that by season’s end Hunter was going to end up Tennessee’s No. 1 target, and a damn good one. Even if his per-target numbers had regressed all the way back to last year’s (9.7), he would have still ended up a full yard ahead of the nation’s average No. 1 receiver. And his absence, combined with the fact that Tennessee was actually taking on a good defense, doomed the Vols against Florida.
| Tennessee Receivers Versus Florida | Targets | Catches | Yards | Catch Rate | Yards Per Target | Target Rate |
| Da'Rick Rogers | 11 | 5 | 62 | 45.5% | 5.6 | 25.6% |
| Mychal Rivera | 10 | 5 | 71 | 50.0% | 7.1 | 23.3% |
| DeAnthony Arnett | 10 | 8 | 59 | 80.0% | 5.9 | 23.3% |
| Zach Rogers | 6 | 2 | 34 | 33.3% | 5.7 | 14.0% |
| Marlin Lane, Jr. | 2 | 2 | 26 | 100.0% | 13.0 | 4.7% |
| Justin Hunter | 1 | 1 | 12 | 100.0% | 12.0 | 2.3% |
| Matt Milton | 1 | 1 | 12 | 100.0% | 12.0 | 2.3% |
| Tauren Poole | 1 | 1 | 6 | 100.0% | 6.0 | 2.3% |
| Vincent Dallas | 1 | 1 | 6 | 100.0% | 6.0 | 2.3% |
| TOTAL* | 43 | 26 | 288 | 60.5% | 6.7 | 100.0% |
* Bray actually went 26-for-48 against Florida, but five passes did not have target data. This is normal; typically only 85-90 percent of passes in play-by-plays have target data, which represents a bit of a data limitation. Still, assuming the missing target data is evenly dispersed, then we still end up with an accurate representation of target rates as a whole.
Tyler Bray completed 78 percent of his passes against Montana and Cincinnati; that completion rate fell to 54 percent versus the Gators, and while some of that should absolutely be attributed to playing against a strong defense, it is difficult to ignore that Rogers’ catch rate fell from 75% to 46% when he became the de facto No. 1 receiver, and Hunter’s two primary replacements, Mychal Rivera and freshman DeAnthony Arnett, combined to average just 6.5 yards per target. There was a distinct drop-off here.
Tennessee has a bye this weekend, then gets a tuneup against Buffalo next Saturday; as far as terribly damaging injuries go, the timing of this one could be worse. Derek Dooley and offensive coordinator Jim Chaney have a couple of weeks to figure out how to restructure their passing attack around a possession receiver (D. Rogers) and some unknowns. Rivera (10 catches in 12 targets last year), Zach Rogers (14 in 26) and Tauren Poole (22 in 28) have track records, but they had clearly been overtaken by Hunter and D. Rogers on the totem pole and displayed nothing close to Hunter’s level of explosiveness. Now they must win the confidence of their coaches.
| Targets And Catches For The SEC's No. 1 Receivers in 2010 | ||||||||
| Name | Team | Targets | Catches | Yards | Catch Rate | Yards Per Target | Target Rate | Conf. Record |
| Alshon Jeffery | S. Carolina | 132 | 88 | 1,517 | 66.7% | 11.5 | 36.1% | 5-3 |
| Darvin Adams | Auburn | 84 | 52 | 963 | 61.9% | 11.5 | 29.8% | 8-0 |
| Julio Jones | Alabama | 109 | 78 | 1,146 | 71.6% | 10.5 | 30.8% | 5-3 |
| Jarius Wright | Arkansas | 76 | 42 | 788 | 55.3% | 10.4 | 17.2% | 6-2 |
| A.J. Green | Georgia | 84 | 57 | 848 | 67.9% | 10.1 | 24.5% | 3-2* |
| Chad Bumphis | Miss. State | 73 | 44 | 634 | 60.3% | 8.7 | 26.8% | 4-4 |
| Markeith Summers | Ole Miss | 64 | 26 | 543 | 40.6% | 8.5 | 21.7% | 1-7 |
| Deonte Thompson | Florida | 67 | 38 | 570 | 56.7% | 8.5 | 18.8% | 4-4 |
| Randall Cobb | Kentucky | 122 | 84 | 1,023 | 68.9% | 8.4 | 28.0% | 2-6 |
| Terrance Toliver | LSU | 74 | 41 | 579 | 55.4% | 7.8 | 26.0% | 6-2 |
| Gerald Jones | Tennessee | 91 | 55 | 596 | 60.4% | 6.5 | 23.5% | 3-5 |
| John Cole | Vanderbilt | 56 | 25 | 317 | 44.6% | 5.7 | 16.8% | 1-7 |
| * Green missed Georgia's first three conference games, and the Bulldogs went 0-3 in those games. | ||||||||
Last year in the SEC, teams with big-time No. 1 targets (defined here as receivers averaging at least 10.0 yards per target) went a combined 27-10 in conference; teams with No. 1’s averaging fewer than 10 yards per target went just 21-35 (15-33 if you remove LSU’s trend-bucking Tigers).
Obviously it isn’t so simple as saying “Great receiver = win lots of games!”. You need a good quarterback to get your stud the ball (sorry, Randall Cobb); plus, if you are pulling in big-time receivers, odds are good that you’re pulling in big-time talent in general as well. (Auburn, Alabama and Georgia grade out very well in terms of recruiting rankings, and South Carolina isn’t that far behind.) Still, there is a strong correlation between having a strong go-to guy and performing well in conference. Through 16 career games, Hunter has shown extreme potential. There aren’t many receivers capable of averaging the 15.9 yards per target he had managed in 2011, even against terrible defenses. Da’Rick Rogers’ performance against Florida bumped his 2011 per-target average to 8.5, a number that isn’t necessarily likely to rise with seven more SEC defenses on the schedule. I try to refrain from extremely negative words like “devastating” or “crippling,” but let’s just say that Hunter’s injury significantly lowers Tennessee’s ceiling for 2011.
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