Spencer Rattler trying to keep the emotions out of the way against Tennessee

South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler will be leading the Gamecocks into a raucous environment this weekend versus Tennessee. The primetime kickoff will be a blackout game for the Volunteers, and Tennessee will have revenge on its mind after last year’s loss in Columbia, S.C.

But Rattler said Tuesday that there’s no extra emphasis placed on the game because of what happened last year and how amped they expected the Volunteers to be come kickoff.

“That’s a good question. I know you guys probably hate this answer, but you know what I’m gonna say: it’s the same thing every game,” Rattler said. “We know they’re gonna want to get obviously a win back on us so we got to be prepared. We got to go out there and keep our emotion out of the way of our execution. Just go out there and execute, have a good time out there and play hard.”

South Carolina defeated Tennessee in the second-to-last week of the of the regular season last year behind a monster game from Rattler and the offense. Rattler was 30 of 37 throwing the football for 438 yards and six touchdown passes as the Gamecocks won 63-38. The 63 points scored by South Carolina is the most the Volunteers ever allowed in an SEC game.

It was the best game of Rattler’s career, and after the game he said that it was “probably the best I’ve ever felt” while playing in a football game.

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel discussed Rattler during his Monday press conference. He noted, among other things, that Rattler made a lot of plays outside the pocket in last year’s matchup and the Volunteers defense has to do what it can to limit his ability to succeed when he scrambles.

“He’s a really good player,” Heupel said, via Volquest. He’s played at a high level. He’s played a lot of football. He’s playing extremely well right now. He was dynamic in that football game. But he has that in his arsenal and, for us, the line of scrimmage is important. We gotta do a really good job. We gotta give him third-and-long. Last year we didn’t get off the field in third-and-long. And some of that was coverage. Some of it was, some of that was him standing and make some really special plays. We gotta do a great job of ling up and applying pressure at the same time.”