The Southeastern Conference will have the Tennessee football Volunteers open up at the Gamecocks.
It looks like Tennessee football won’t open up the season against the Florida Gators after all. Instead, the Vols will begin 2020 with a game both teams will be desperate to win given how similar their goals are for the year.
Jeremy Pruitt’s third program will visit Will Muschamp’s South Carolina Gamecocks on Sept. 26. This is the first game in the 10-game all-SEC schedule for both teams that was revised due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of facing Tennessee football, the Florida Gators will open things up with a visit to the Ole Miss Rebels. Each SEC team’s opening game was revealed by SEC Network at 3 p.m. on the Paul Finebaum show Monday afternoon.
🚨 WEEK 1 IN THE SEC 🚨 pic.twitter.com/Fn85XUvsih
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) August 17, 2020
Although we still don’t know if the season will happen amidst COVID-19, this is another step to making sure it happens. The complete schedule will be revealed at 7 p.m. ET on an SEC Network special show.
Everybody’s schedule includes their original eight league opponents plus two more opponents from the opposite division. In the Vols’ case, they will face the Texas A&M Aggies and Auburn Tigers along with the Arkansas Razorbacks and Alabama Crimson Tide.
This is not the first time the Vols and Gamecocks have opened up the season against each other. Back in 1942, the two faced each other in the opener, again in Columbia, S.C., with the score ending in a 0-0 tie. Ironically, that game was also on Sept. 26.
UT was led by John Barnhill at the time, as Robert Neyland was in the midst of his second interruption due to his duties as a general. They finished the year 9-1-1 with a No. 7 ranking and Sugar Bowl victory. South Carolina, meanwhile, was in the Southern Conference and went 1-7-1.
Last year, Tennessee football ended a three-game losing streak to S.C. and an 0-7 record against Muschamp with a 41-21 win over the Gamecocks. That was the first of a six-game winning streak to close out the season for the Vols, who went 8-5. South Carolina, meanwhile, finished 4-8.
As a result, S.C. opens this year with redemption on its mind, and UT opens it looking to build on the end of the 2019 year. That the game involves two coaches who were defensive coordinators for Nick Saban only makes it more interesting.