KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — No. 11 Tennessee football is focused on Saturday’s Southeastern Conference tussle on the road in Columbia, South Carolina. Coming off a huge 26-10 win over Alabama on the Third Saturday in October, the Vols turned a season that many still had questions about into one with a much more optimistic view.
It also put a bigger target on their backs, and the Gamecocks would love to defend their home turf. South Carolina (3-3, 1-3 SEC) is coming off a bye week after upsetting Florida, which was ranked No. 16 at the time, 38-19 in Gainesville. This team is hungry, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a guy who voices that better than defensive back Dejuan Lane.
“There’s a big difference between being happy and satisfied,” Lane said Tuesday. “It was a big upset win. We’re happy. We’re not satisfied. We still have a lot more to prove. And like I said before, we’re hungry, we’re starving, and we’re going to continue to show y’all that every single week.”
The Vols have carried their identity of smashmouth football well. They want to wear the opponent down the later the game gets. That shows in how running back DeSean Bishop is able to put on more steam in the second half of games. Bishop is coming off 32-plus carries in two of the last three games. With his physical nature and ability to run behind his pads at an elite level, teams may think twice in the fourth quarter.
“He’s a guy that’s been built this way his whole entire career, starting back in high school,” Tennessee running backs coach De’Rail Sims said Tuesday. “So you can just tell the more and more that he gets, the stronger he gets as the game goes along. Not intentional to load him up that way. It just gets to the point he gets hot, and you just got to let him go.”
Tuesday morning, we heard from Lane, Sims, cornerbacks coach Derek Jones and offensive linemen Jesse Perry and Donovan Haslam. As they prepare to take on South Carolina, you can watch and listen to everything they said at the embedded YouTube links below.
