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.
In Other News...
Texas Heads Into Tennessee With One Big Concern On Offense
Texas heads into its SEC opener at Tennessee as a 5.5-point favorite, but the bigger storyline is less about the number next to the game and more about how the Longhorns handle a trip to Neyland Stadium for the first time. Texas is 3-0, but its last outing was a 30-6 win over UTSA in which quarterback Quinn Ewers completed just half of his passes, leaving a familiar concern hanging over an offense that has otherwise done enough to stay unbeaten.
Tennessee brings its own momentum into next Saturdays matchup, also at 3-0 under Josh Heupel and averaging 47.7 points per game behind freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon. The Vols have been piling up offense at a pace that will test Texas from the opening series, and for the Longhorns the question is whether the passing game can find a steadier rhythm before the stage gets a lot bigger in Knoxville. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Leaves UTSA With An Offensive Concern Fans Can't Ignore
A 30-6 win usually leaves a team feeling pretty good about itself, and Texas had plenty to like on the defensive side after holding UTSA to field goals and keeping the Roadrunners out of the end zone. But the offense left a more uncomfortable conversation behind, because the Longhorns were not nearly as sharp finishing drives as they had been in their first two games.
Against UTSA, Texas managed to get moving enough to control the game, but the red zone was a different story, and that kind of drop-off is hard to ignore this early in the season. With Tennessee next on the schedule in the SEC opener, the margin for settling for three instead of seven figures to get a lot thinner, which is why the way Texas turns possession into points now feels like a real issue to watch. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Looked Like No. 1 Until One Ugly Warning Sign Emerged
Texas finished its non-conference slate with a 30-6 win over UTSA, and the result was enough to push the Longhorns to 3-0 and into the No. 1 spot in the Top 25. Steve Sarkisian had plenty to like on the defensive side, where Texas again looked like a team built to control games, but the night also served as another reminder that the margin for error gets much thinner once SEC play starts.
Arch Mannings box score was solid enough on paper with two touchdown passes and no interceptions, but the offense never looked especially sharp and the quarterback absorbed multiple hard hits while trying to extend plays. Texas also piled up eight penalties for 88 yards after being flagged only twice against Ohio State, and that kind of sloppiness is the sort of warning sign a No. 1 team cannot ignore for long. [Read more 🡒]