Tennessee’s next stop comes with a fresh TV crew and a quick turn from celebration to business. After the upset of Alabama, the Vols head to Columbia to face South Carolina on Saturday, with kickoff set for 3:30 p.m.
ET at Williams-Brice Stadium. ESPN will carry the game, and the broadcast team will feature Wes Durham on play-by-play, Dusty Dvoracek on analysis and Taylor McGregor reporting from the sideline.
The matchup also lands at a tricky moment for both teams. South Carolina comes in at 3-3 overall and 1-3 in SEC play, though the Gamecocks are carrying momentum from a road win over Florida that may have bought Shane Beamer some breathing room. They also have the benefit of an extra week to get ready for Tennessee.
The Vols, meanwhile, are trying to move on fast. Tennessee is 6-1 overall and 3-1 in the SEC, with its lone loss coming at home against then-top-ranked Texas by three points. Josh Heupel made clear that the Alabama win was one to savor briefly, but not for long.
“This game, you better enjoy it on the back end, and they should tonight,” Heupel said. “I did for, I don’t know, however long I was in the locker room.
As coaches, when I get home here in about 45 minutes, I’ll be over it and onto the next one, and how do we get better? Our players, they get a little bit longer, and they come in and get treatment.
“But Monday morning, you deal with the reality of how do we get better? And we certainly understand, you guys are certainly tired of me saying it, every week in this league, new season.
And we understand where we’re going, who we’re playing. They’ve had a bye week, so they got a week of preparation on us.
We gotta make up ground and get ready to go play on the road.”
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Tennessees Alabama High Faces A Brutal Test At South Carolina
The bounce from Tennessees upset of then-No. 6 Alabama still matters, and it has pushed the Volunteers up to No. 11 in the latest AP Poll. But the reset comes quickly in Week 8, where a trip to South Carolina asks whether that statement win is the start of a surge or just one sharp night in a long SEC grind.
South Carolina has its own headliner waiting in quarterback LaNorris Sellers, a player already drawing attention as a potential 2027 NFL Draft pick and a central reason the Gamecocks are a dangerous matchup at home. The game figures to hinge on how Tennessee handles that challenge, and with the breakdown leaning toward South Carolina, the Vols are walking into one of those tests that can say a lot about how real their rise actually is. [Read more 🡒]
Tennessees Alabama Win Just Earned Even More SEC Respect
The win over Alabama did more than just energize Tennessees sideline and fan base. It also drew a fresh round of SEC recognition, with the league honoring a pair of Vols for the kind of performance that helped swing one of the conferences biggest games of the season.
Ty Weathersby and Cooper Ranvier were both singled out after the rivalry win, giving Tennessee a little more proof that its best players showed up when the stakes were highest. Weathersby was one of the tone-setters up front, while Ranvier kept the Vols on the board early and provided the kind of scoring cushion that can matter in a game like that. [Read more 🡒]
Tennessee Just Made Alabama's Misery Impossible To Ignore
Alabamas latest trip to Knoxville did more than add another loss to the ledger. It stirred up a familiar kind of frustration around the Crimson Tide, with callers on The Paul Finebaum Show sounding off in the aftermath and turning the spotlight squarely onto the state of the program.
The anger centered on the current coaching setup, with Kalen DeBoer, Ryan Grubb and Greg Byrne all drawing criticism from a fan base that is clearly running out of patience. With Tennessee now having won three straight over Alabama in Knoxville, the conversation around the rivalry has shifted from one bad night to a broader unease about where the Tide are headed. [Read more 🡒]