College GameDay is headed back to Knoxville, and it’s landing there for a matchup with real weight behind it: No. 1 Texas opening SEC play against Tennessee on Saturday at Neyland Stadium.
The Week 4 stop was reported Sunday, one day after both teams pushed to 3-0. Kickoff is set for noon ET on ABC, and it will be the first time Texas has ever played in Knoxville. It also marks the first meeting between the Longhorns and Volunteers since 1968.
Texas arrives with the top ranking, but the Longhorns didn’t exactly cruise through Saturday. They beat UTSA 30-6 in Austin, though the offense looked choppy for long stretches. Arch Manning threw two first-half touchdown passes to Cam Coleman, then had a tougher time after that, finishing 16 of 32 for 161 yards while taking several hard hits.
The defense did the heavy lifting. Texas held UTSA to 143 total yards and kept the Roadrunners out of the end zone. Even so, the Longhorns were penalized eight times for 88 yards after drawing six flags in each of their first two games.
Steve Sarkisian didn’t sound interested in nitpicking the final margin.
“I’m not gonna apologize for winning by 24 points,” Sarkisian said. “We beat a team 30-6 that was undefeated, that’s probably gonna go win, I don’t know, somewhere between eight, nine, 10, 11 games.”
Texas climbed to No. 1 after its 24-23 win over Ohio State in Week 2, when Manning sparked a 21-point fourth-quarter rally.
Tennessee, meanwhile, took care of business at home with a 42-9 win over Kennesaw State in front of 101,915 fans. It was the Vols’ 29th straight sellout at Neyland Stadium.
Faizon Brandon threw for 178 yards and a touchdown and added a rushing score, while sophomore back Daune Morris supplied 116 rushing yards and a 42-yard touchdown. Morris handled a bigger share after starter DeSean Bishop was slowed by an injury in the second quarter.
Josh Heupel said his team cleaned up some of the issues from the Georgia Tech game.
“Wanted to see us play smarter,” Heupel said. “Penalties last week were egregious. We did play smarter tonight.”
Heupel also pointed to one area Tennessee still needs to sharpen: finishing drives.
“Offensively, just have to be better in the red zone,” Heupel said.
The matchup also carries a family storyline for Peyton Manning. The Tennessee alum is Arch Manning’s uncle, and he said this summer at the Manning Passing Academy that his loyalty shifts when the two teams are on the same field.
“I love my university, my alma mater. Pull for them unconditionally. But nothing’s more important than my family, and when you have a nephew playing, I pull very hard for him every single Saturday,” the former Vols quarterback said.
This will be GameDay’s fourth trip to Knoxville since 2022. The show was there for Tennessee’s game against Georgia in Week 3 of 2025, and it also came to town twice in 2022 for the Vols’ wins over Florida and Alabama.
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