KNOXVILLE -- Tennessee has spent many ill-fated Saturday afternoons or nights at Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
The Volunteers haven't left the venue better known as The Swamp with a win since 2003, the year before they last vanquished the Gators.
Vols' opponent scouting report: Florida
* Season rewind: The Jim McElwain Era at Florida is 3-0 so far. The Gators waxed New Mexico State 61-13 in their opener and came up with defensive stops on the final drive in a 31-24 win against East Carolina and the 14-9 win last Saturday night at Kentucky - Florida's 29th straight defeat of the Wildcats. It is Florida's first 3-0 start since 2012. * Coaching capsule: Florida tabbed McElwain, a former offensive coordinator at Alabama and Fresno State, after he directed Colorado State to a 10-2 record last season, and he has big shoes to fill as the Gators look to get back to the winning ways established by Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, who both won nine games in their first seasons. * One to watch: How big a difference does cornerback Vernon Hargreaves make? East Carolina threw for 333 yards against Florida with him out of the lineup due to an injury. With the future NFL first-round pick back, Kentucky's Patrick Towles completed just eight passes for 126 yards, and Hargreaves set up a Florida touchdown with an early interception. By the numbers * 258: Yards per game being allowed by Florida, the second-fewest in the SEC at this early stage of the season. * 50.2: Tennessee's average rushing yards in its 10-game losing streak to the Gators. The Vols currently are third in the SEC (246 ypg) in rushing. * 10: Combined career starts for Florida's offensive linemen entering the season, the third-fewest in the country. Quotable "They're obviously strong up front. And in the back end, they have really good DBs that are able to play a lot of man (coverage) well. Historically they've had a good defense. They've been very productive on the defensive end. Obviously we'll have our game plan, and we'll have to come out, win our one-on-one matchups and execute to play well." - Tennessee QB Josh Dobbs on Florida's defense
UT's Todd Kelly Jr. (6) approaches as Oklahoma's Sterling Shepard (3) is tackled by UT's Colton Jumper (53) during the first half of play Saturday. The Volunteers played the Sooner's at home on September 12, 2015 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee. None of its recent history in the series, as unkind as it is, should make a difference when Tennessee goes to Florida looking to end a 10-year losing streak against the Gators on Saturday.
"There's no mental edge to it," linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said Monday. "Every season is a new season. Every week is a new week. We've just got to work through our preparation in practice. The team that has the best week of practice and shows up the best on Saturday, that's who's going to win the game.
"We're just trying to prepare every day to come out and play our best game."
It's been a while since Tennessee could say it was able to do that against Florida.
A bevy of mistakes plagued the Vols last season when they coughed up a 9-0 second-half lead in a 10-9 home loss. Tennessee was too eager to match every Florida mistake with a more catastrophic one of its own in a road loss in 2013. The Vols fell apart in the second half of the 2012 loss.
The list goes on and on, a decade of futility against the Vols' SEC East rivals.
"I've lived in Knoxville all my life, so it's something I kind of hear just about every day," said safety Todd Kelly Jr., who was at Tennessee's last win against Florida in 2004 as a 9-year-old.
"We're just going with the mindset that it's the next game coming up. The past and the future doesn't really matter. It's all about the now. Each practice we're going in with the mindset that we're going to win the ballgame."
That belief hasn't always been there in this matchup for the Vols.
It wasn't in 2013, when Butch Jones took his first Tennessee team to Gainesville to face the then-No. 19 Gators.
Jones's decision to hand Nathan Peterman his first start at quarterback backfired, and Tennessee committed four of its six turnovers in the first half as backup Tyler Murphy led the Gators to a 10-point win.
"We had numerous opportunities, and we didn't cash in," Jones recalled. "I believe we took a team in there that really, I don't know if they truly believed they could win. Then after the game we sat in the locker room and said, 'You know what, we had every opportunity to win the football game.'"
Though Tennessee quarterback Josh Dobbs would be thrust into the starting role later that season, he wasn't on the travel roster for that game as the Vols chose to take fellow freshman Riley Ferguson as their third quarterback.
"Obviously it was upsetting, and obviously it motivated me," Dobbs said. "Given the circumstances, when I talked with the coaches and everything, I knew that obviously when you travel in the SEC there's only a certain amount of spots you can take. They had to fill other positions. It was another learning experience for me."
Even after coughing up a 17-point lead in the loss to Oklahoma nine days ago, the Vols are confident they can win a big game on the road. The win appears to be there for Tennessee's taking. That's rarely been the case against Florida.
Tennessee takes a 5-12 all-time record into The Swamp, though, so nothing about this trip is ever easy.
"Being on the road in a great environment like that and the great environment that they have down there," cornerback Cameron Sutton said, "it really tests the mentality of your team, the focus of your team."
As expected, Jones downplayed the importance of this game, but he acknowledged its significance to "a lot of individuals."
Winless in his first two seasons against Tennessee's three primary rivals (Alabama, Georgia and Florida), Jones needs a win Saturday, particularly after the blown lead against Oklahoma put an early dent of disappointment in a season of elevated expectations for a program looking to prove it's ready to be relevant again.
Jones's players have a different mindset heading into his second trip to Florida.
"I think our team has a lot more confidence now," Reeves-Maybin said. "Everyone knows we've been in big-time games, and we know what we're capable of. At that point in time, we were kind of just new to it and new to the system and everything. Now that added comfort gives our team the mindset that we're going to win every game we play in."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.