Tennessee’s Playoff Hopes Dashed in Blowout Road Loss to South Carolina

Any hope the Volunteers had of sneaking into the College Football Playoff went out the window Saturday night.

Any hope that Tennessee had of making the College Football Playoff as a one-loss, non-conference champion came to a screeching halt in Saturday night’s 63–38 loss to unranked South Carolina.

The 63 points for South Carolina against Tennessee are the most the Gamecocks have scored against an SEC team since 1995, according to ESPN’s Tom VanHaaren. 

The Williams-Brice faithful were partying from the jump as the Gamecocks offense started fast and never looked back.

South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler had his best night as a collegiate quarterback, finishing 30-of-37 for 438 yards and six touchdowns.

As for Tennessee, the story of the night was a historically poor performance defensively in which the Volunteers allowed South Carolina to score touchdowns on all eight trips to the red zone. The Volunteers defense has been mediocre for most of the season, but had previously been masked by their high-powered offense. 

Prior to Saturday night, Tennessee had simply been able to outscore their opponents no matter how the defense played, with the exception being Georgia, who rolled over the Vols earlier this month. 

While most were willing to give Tennessee a pass for their loss to the defending national champions, Saturday’s embarrassment in Columbia will not receive the same treatment. The Volunteers were repeatedly beaten at the point of attack, and had no answer for a South Carolina offense that had its best game of the season.

To add insult to injury, Tennessee’s Heisman contending quarterback Hendon Hooker was injured in the fourth quarter as he was bent awkwardly on a play that resulted in a fumble that was recovered by South Carolina. He did not return to the game and was seen favoring his leg heavily as he walked with trainers to the locker room.