KNOXVILLE – There were elements of the Tennessee football team’s approach to Saturday’s season opener at Neyland Stadium that resembled behavior associated with a scrimmage.
The Volunteers substituted pretty liberally. Outside of a few players, they showed little emotion.
Tennessee was facing Georgia State, which began playing in 2010 as a Football Championship Subdivision program, then moved up to the Football Bowl Subdivision and the Sun Belt Conference three years later. The Panthers, who never have won more than seven games in a season, went 2-10 last year – and entering this season they had never beaten an opponent from one of the Power Five conferences.
There are certainly more accomplished programs on the Vols’ 2019 schedule, including BYU, which visits this Saturday for a 7 p.m. kickoff. Two weeks from then, Tennessee opens its Southeastern Conference schedule at Florida.
Second-year Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt may have even hinted where the team’s priorities were in a recent interview, when he responded to a question about how the Vols have handled the heat during preseason practices by simply saying, “I’m sure it’s hot in Gainesville.”