South Carolina not focused on last year, added pressure before Tennessee game

When Trey Knox is playing, his attention is usually isn’t on the outside noise. But he couldn’t help but notice something odd during one game in particular.

With Knox’s old team, Arkansas, facing Ole Miss last year, he looked up at the scoreboard and saw South Carolina was beating No. 5 Tennessee.

“I was like, ‘Yo, what’s going on in South Carolina?'” Knox said, smiling.

And it wasn’t just the Gamecocks winning by a slim margin. It was a blowout. South Carolina won 63-38 over the Volunteers in one of the biggest upsets in program history. The fans stormed the field and all hell broke loose on that night.

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Ten months removed from that game, the Gamecocks will head to Knoxville to take on those same Volunteers once again. It shapes up to be an even bigger challenge than last year as Tennessee hasn’t lost at home since 2021.

But more so than that, the Volunteers aren’t happy about what happened last year. After that loss, their playoff hopes were all but gone with two losses. So they will be looking to avenge the loss in a big way this year.

For the Gamecocks, it’s just another game. What happened a year ago means nothing now. But they feel the pressure isn’t on them to repeat that type of performance.

“We were successful last year against Tennessee because of the way that we practiced and prepared during the week,” Shane Beamer said. “No pressure at all from our standpoint. All we’re worried about is having a great week of practice and preparing the right way.”

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While the Volunteers have lost a lot of talent from last year’s team, one area that has remained consistent is their running game. It’s arguably one of the best in the country. They have averaged 229.5 yards per game with 6.24 yards per carry.

A lot of what they can do in the run starts under center with quarterback Joe Milton. Whenever a play breaks down in the pocket, he’s been more than capable of running for big yards. So far this year, he’s averaged 6.1 yards per carry with four touchdowns, one of which was an 81-yard score on a quarterback keeper last weekend.

“I’ve been around a lot of quarterbacks as far as arm strength, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody who can throw the ball on tape farther than him,” Clayton White said. “So that’s a challenge and then he’s big, he can run. Obviously, he had that 81-yard run last week against UTSA…So that combination right there is lethal.”

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But White knows it would go a long way for his defense to be able to slow down the run and force Tennessee to throw the ball more. It seemingly worked last Saturday against the Gamecocks when they held Mississippi State to just 32 rushing yards.

“That helped us win the game…Unfortunately, the yards got out of control with it. But we knew once we stopped the run they had to open it up a little bit,” White said.

Another big factor will be the environment. Neyland Stadium is considered to be one of the loudest with the ability to hold over 100,000 visitors. It’s also Tennessee’s first blackout game of the year, adding more fuel to the fire. But South Carolina isn’t intimidated coming in as the road underdog.

“We’re battle-tested in a lot of ways with the environments we’ve been in. Charlotte was electric, Athens was rocking like you would expect,” Beamer said. ‘Then the teams we’ve played have three losses between them, and South Carolina gave those teams two of those losses.”

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Ultimately though, to beat Tennessee again, it’s going to come down to preparation. And the Gamecocks know this.

“Beamer hit it spot on in our team meeting today, we’ve got to have another elite week of practice. We’ve been practicing well this whole season,” Spencer Rattler said.

South Carolina will face Tennessee under the lights at 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network.

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