Skip to main content
Join
Team Avatar
Tennessee

Tennessee releases hype video ahead of Week 3 matchup vs. Florida

Grant Grubbs Profile Pictureby:Grant Grubbs•09/15/23•

grant_grubbs_

tennessee-releases-hype-video-ahead-of-week-3-matchup-vs-florida
Randy Sartin | USA TODAY Sports

Tennessee fans, your weekly dose of hype has arrived. On Friday, UT released a pregame trailer ahead of its matchup with Florida on Saturday.

Tennessee enters Saturday’s contest undefeated, most recently defeating Austin Peay 30-13. On the flip side, Florida will play with a chip on its shoulder. After losing to No. 14 Utah in Week 1, Florida bounced back with a 49-7 win over McNeese on Saturday. Now, the Gators will look to find their first win over a ranked opponent this season.

Nonetheless, Florida won’t be the only team with a little extra motivation. The Vols haven’t won at Florida since 2003. Now in the Josh Heupel era, Tennessee will look to end this ugly streak. The two teams will face off at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.

Josh Heupel previews the matchup

Tennessee is the favorite in the contest, but Florida won’t be a pushover, especially at home. This will be Tennessee’s first road game this season. On Thursday, Heupel discussed how he is preparing his team for the foreign environment.

“The communication in particular on offense is a huge deal. Defensively, actually, you end up dealing with it while you’re at home,” Heupel told the press. “There’s things that we do during training camp. We actually have portions of our training camp where we work on the mechanics of playing in this type of environment.

“Guys have been good this week. You try to create crowd noise and simulate those things. Obviously the environment is tough to completely simulate here in practice, but we work through all those things. We’ve got to handle it in a really positive way here on Saturday night.”

Many Tennessee fans weren’t positive last Saturday despite walking away with a win. UT was sloppy at times, committing a fumble and a turnover. Additionally, the Vols allowed Austin Peay to explode for 260 passing yards compared to Tennessee’s 228.

Several Tennessee players claimed they would turn up the intensity to fix the issue. While Heupel doesn’t believe the team lacked motivation before, he claims the Florida matchup has united the team under one goal.

“I didn’t feel like our preparation was off last week either. There some things situationally that we gotta be better in, in particular offensively, but some things defensively too,” Heupel said. “Continue to compete in your preparation up until kickoff.

“This week has been really good. Obviously, you’re starting league play. You understand that the type of opponent, the type of environment you’re going into. It’s got everybody’s complete attention.”