There are suddenly multiple concerns for the Tennessee Volunteers following their defensive ineptitude in last weekend’s 63-38 loss at South Carolina and with the season-ending knee injury to star quarterback and team leader Hendon Hooker.
There is also this thing called the opponent itself.
Standing in the way of a 10-2 season and a desired New Year’s Six bowl destination for the Vols this Saturday night are the Vanderbilt Commodores, who began this month with a 38-27 home loss to South Carolina that resulted in a 26th consecutive Southeastern Conference setback. Since then, however, Vanderbilt has knocked off Kentucky and Florida as a double-digit underdog and could attain bowl eligibility at 6-6 with a triumph over Tennessee.
“It’s obviously a big week for us and an exciting week to have something at stake here late in the year to be playing for,” Vandy second-year coach Clark Lea said this week during a news conference. “We’re enjoying the back-to-back wins in our conference and seeing the fruits of the labor. I’m so happy for our players to be enjoying that success, and we’re still in the early stages of this, but seeing them stay faithful to the process and how it is paying off and stepping into that fight each week has been exciting.
“Obviously we’ve got a tough task this weekend with a really good team coming in, but we’re going to be excited for that task.”