KNOXVILLE – Throughout the college football offseason, multiple Florida players lobbed verbal grenades in Tennessee’s direction, taunting the Volunteers and championing the Gators’ decade-long dominance in their series.
Once the week of the annual SEC East rivalry arrived, it wasn’t going to stop.
The latest public jab at Tennessee came Tuesday evening from cornerback Quincy Wilson, who used a peculiar metaphor before guaranteeing Florida would win Saturday afternoon at Neyland Stadium.
“We have a message from DBU to Tennessee,” Wilson told reporters as he and his teammates exited practice. “Have you ever seen a duck pull a truck? Ducks don’t pull trucks. Nobody has ever seen a duck pull a truck.
“Florida Gators are going to win, simple as that.”
Jim McElwain, Florida’s second-year coach, got a kick out of the comment.
“Somebody told me about that. That’s a classic right there,” he said with a laugh when asked about Wilson’s comment on Wednesday’s Southeastern Conference teleconference. “I’ve got to find out what the heck that means. I guess I have watched an AFLAC commercial, but I’ve never seen that duck do it.”
Tennessee, meanwhile, continues to take the quiet approach.
Aside from Jalen Hurd and Jalen Reeves-Maybin responding on Twitter to some social-media trash talk by Florida corner Jalen Tabor back in the spring, the Vols have avoided taking the bait, despite reporters presenting them the opportunity both this week and at July’s SEC media days in Hoover, Ala.
The only way for Tennessee to possibly silence the chirping from Gainesville is to end its long losing streak.
“Of course, it’s 11 games,” defensive tackle Kendal Vickers said Tuesday. “It’d be possible and I’d be lying to you if I said you didn’t think about it. Every day we’re just trying to be a better team. When we come into this week, we know it’s Florida.
“We know we’re rivals and we pretty much don’t like each other. It makes it fun when you get on the field. We can compete and try to end that streak.”
McElwain has had no problem with the bravado of his players.
“These guys are who they are,” he said. “I’m not into censorship. You better go back it up, whatever he said.”
Tennessee coach Butch Jones said Wednesday he doesn’t believe in censorship and part of his program includes educating players on the importance of their “personal brand” and how to manage it.
“What you put out there is your personal brand, but it also represents your institution and your football program,” he said. “We more educate them on the do’s and the don’t’s, and we spend a lot of time with that. I don’t go in there and say, ‘Don’t comment,’ or anything like that.
“Again, it’s a great rivalry. Everyone’s excited to play, so I don’t really put too much stock (in it). That doesn’t bother me, the things they’re saying. That’s all part of it. That’s the world we live in. That’s social media. That doesn’t help us prepare to play winning football come Saturday.”
The Vols may be shrugging off the trash talk from the Gators, but Jones said not to take them bridling their tongues as a sign his team is lacking confidence. While Florida may own the series, it’s the Vols who have a string of overall victories dating back to last season.
“Our team is very confident,” Jones said. “You don’t win nine games in a row by not having confidence, and we’ve suffered some adversity. Some of it we created it for ourselves, but I think that’s healthy. Our football team could have quit in some adverse situations, and they’ve never blinked. They’ve kept playing. I’ve been really, really encouraged by that.
“Our team has a tremendous amount of confidence, and they expect to win. They expect to win every time they go out on the football field. That’s why you compete. I think the way you work in practice and the way you prepare gives you confidence going into game day. Now you have to be able to take the practice field to the game field. You don’t win nine straight by not having confidence.”
The past two seasons of misery against the Gators – the Vols blew fourth-quarter leads and lost by one point both times – may not have shaken Tennessee’s confidence, but it’s fueled Florida’s trash talk, a staple of any rivalry.
After a few stale years this one is heating up again, but Tennessee hasn’t been able to do any talking.
“We have some older guys now that have played in this rivalry, and they understand the intensity,” Jones said. “They understand the physicality of the rivalry. They understand the preparation of the rivalry, and that helps. A few short years ago we were having to educate them on the rivalry.
“Now they understand it because they’ve lived it and they’ve been a part of it.”
All that’s left now is to win it – and then talk about winning it.
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.