Tennessee's Trip to Columbia Hinges on Slowing Down South Carolina's Quarterback

Tennessee's reward for the biggest win of its season is a road trip into one of the SEC's trickiest spots. The Vols (6-1, 3-1 SEC) travel to Columbia on Saturday for a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff against South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium, their first visit there since 2022, one week after beating Alabama 26-10 at Neyland Stadium.

In Volquest's weekly roundtable discussion, the staff kept circling back to one question: which version of South Carolina shows up? The Gamecocks (3-3, 1-3 SEC) come in off a bye week, and their season has swung between explosive offensive outbursts, like the one they produced against Florida, and leads they could not protect. Brent Hubbs framed the matchup as a mystery Tennessee has to solve in real time.

The defensive assignment starts with quarterback LaNorris Sellers. Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and his group have spent recent weeks facing quarterbacks who can hurt a defense with their legs, and Grant Ramey pointed to that repetition — the rush-lane discipline, the contain, the refusal to let a broken play turn into a scramble — as preparation that should carry over against Sellers.

Oddsmakers are not handing Tennessee anything: the roundtable's own game information lists the Vols as 2.5-point underdogs with a total of 50.5. With a bye week waiting afterward and November dates against Kentucky, LSU, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt still ahead, protecting the Alabama momentum in Columbia would send Tennessee into the stretch run in full control of its path.