In a story entitled “Preview 2008 – The Fun Stats,” the staff of Collegefootballnews.com ranks the Vols' air-tight pass protection No. 4 on its list of the 30 most intriguing statistics of the 2007 season. For the sake of comparison, the CFN.com staff notes that Tennessee recorded 34 sacks (actually, the total was 24) for 144 yards.
Tennessee wasn't the only Southeastern Conference school to show up on the Fun Stats list, of course.
- Alabama checks in at No. 29 after being penalized just 59 times for 453 yards, whereas its 2007 opponents were flagged a whopping 99 times for 863 yards.
- LSU ranks No. 25 after incurring 117 penalties for 880 yards last fall, compared to its opponents' totals of 67 penalties and 566 yards.
- Bama checks in again at No. 22 for putting 92,138 fans in the seats for its home game with Louisiana-Monroe ... a team whose five home games attracted a combined total of just 83,255.
- Florida shows up at No. 16 after incurring 223 penalties for 1,693 yards over the past two years, compared to just 164 penalties for 1,195 yards by its opponents during the same time frame.
- Georgia checks in at No. 6 after recording 42 sacks for 294 yards last fall, compared to just 15 sacks for 132 yards by its 2007 opponents.
- Finally, LSU - No. 1 in the final BCS rankings – also finished No. 1 in the Fun Stats category. The 2007 Tigers converted on 13 of 16 fourth-down tries (81 percent) while holding opponents to just 6 of 21 (29 percent).
These were just the items involving SEC teams. For all 30 of the intriguing numbers on the list, go to collegefootballnews.com and click on “Preview 2008 – The Fun Stats.”