Saturday, Sept. 26; Williams-Brice Stadium; Columbia, S.C.
On paper, this should be a defensive struggle. Tennessee football and the South Carolina Gamecocks are both led by former Nick Saban defensive coordinators. However, last year’s score was 41-21 in favor of UT. Both teams’ offenses should be better this year, and the Vols are likely to take a dip defensively because of the losses of Daniel Bituli, Darrell Taylor and Nigel Warrior.
That dip in production makes Will Muschamp’s team closer to Jeremy Pruitt than it was last year, and playing the game in South Carolina should give USC another advantage. However, the state of the season, with stadiums at limited capacity due to the pandemic, makes road and home games somewhat irrelevant. What would be a three-point swing should maybe be a one-point swing.
Either way, the Vols and Gamecocks will once again shockingly play to somewhat of a shootout in the first half. Things will calm down in the second half, and UT will have a late game-winning touchdown drive with Jarrett Guarantano dumping passes off to Ty Chandler and Eric Gray to take the 30-23 lead we mentioned.
After that, South Carolina will try to respond, but there won’t be enough time left on the clock. As a result, the Vols escape with a huge win in one of their two toss-up games of the year, while South Carolina suffers a devastating loss, as this is a season-defining game for both teams.