Vols Going Dark Mode For SEC Showdown With South Carolina
(utsports.com) KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – No. 21/19 Tennessee got things back on track with a 45-14 victory over UTSA last weekend and will look to carry that momentum into an important SEC east matchup against South Carolina on Saturday night at Neyland Stadium.Saturday’s showdown against the Gamecocks will be the first night game at home this season. During his Monday press conference, head coach Josh Heupel talked about the effect UT’s crowd can have in big games like this and what he expects to see from the Tennessee faithful this weekend.
“Home field advantage matters. We need energy and momentum. We need to make it extremely difficult for them to communicate. For us, our fans need to be a huge part of this football game,” Heupel said. “They have been every Saturday that I have been here. I can’t wait. I expect there to be a lot more boats tied up on the river this week, and I expect the Vol Walk to be electric. I cannot wait for the noise and the energy inside of the stadium.”
Tennessee announced this will be a ‘Dark Mode’ game with the Vols wearing their black uniforms.The Vols will also look to build off their best offensive performance of the year after totaling 512 yards, including 303 on the ground in the win over UTSA.No one had a bigger impact in last week’s offense outburst than sophomore running back Dylan Sampson, who rushed for a career-high 139 yards on just 11 carries (12.6 avg). The Louisiana native also had a pair of touchdowns and broke off three runs of 29 or more yards in the game, including a 41-yard scoring scamper in the fourth quarter.“Dylan is a great teammate in here,” Heupel said. “He wanted more touches for sure the previous week. For whatever reason we just didn’t get that done, but he is the same guy inside of the building. He is competitive and cares and embraces every role that we put him in. He competes for those roles too.“He is dynamic. The things that he does at the line of scrimmage that are real subtle: pressing the aiming points, delivering a center-guard, guard-tackle combination to the second level, being able to feel things that are happening on the backside of the run when it is fast flow over the top to be able to come out of the backside. Those are all really special. Everybody sees his gift when he gets to the third level and makes people miss with the ability and speed to take it the distance, but it is the things he does early in the run that give him the ability to get to that spot.” Kickoff for Saturday’s contest is slated for 7:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.
