South Carolina at Tennessee Preview

The No. 14 South Carolina Gamecocks (6-1, 4-1) will travel to Knoxville, Tenn. this Saturday night to play the Tennessee Volunteers (3-4, 0-4) in a SEC Eastern Division battle.

The Gamecocks are coming off of their lone bye week of the 2011 season and will be looking to build on a 14-12 win over Mississippi State two weeks ago.  This will be South Carolina's first game without their star running back Marcus Lattimore in the backfield.  He'll instead be cheering the team on from the sidelines.

"Getting ready to play Tennessee again," said Steve Spurrier, Tuesday afternoon. "It's always a big game for the University of South Carolina. I don't know how big a game we are to them. They still lead the overall series pretty big; 22 wins and five losses."

South Carolina has only beaten Tennessee once in Knoxville in 15 chances.

Filling in at running back for the Gamecocks will be true freshman Brandon Wilds, who has carried the ball 13 times this year for 75 yards.

"Brandon (Wilds) again is our starter," Spurrier said. "He's been healthy all season and has been practicing more. We think he's better prepared to play than Kenny (Miles) now because of Kenny's wrist, but he was out there last night and Kenny should get some playing time."

The Gamecocks are sitting at 6-1 and are tied at 4-1 with the Georgia Bulldogs for first in the SEC Eastern Division standings. This game starts the most difficult part of their schedule and South Carolina will need to play some of their best football in the final five games of the season to get back to Atlanta.

After this weekend at Tennessee, the Gamecocks travel to No. 10 Arkansas to take on the Razorbacks in a 7:15 p.m. ET game on ESPN, and then come back home to take on Florida.  The next few weeks should tell you just how good these Gamecocks are.

Tennessee is coming in off of a pair of big losses from two of the best teams in college football.

They lost 38-7 to No. 1 LSU two weeks ago and are now coming off of a 37-6 loss at No. 2 Alabama.  These two types of losses can really have an effect on a team's psyche.

The Vols have lost more than just these games however.  QB Tyler Bray, who was the SEC's leading passer has gone down with an injury and Matt Simms, his backup, was replaced last week with redshirt freshman and Rock Hill, SC native Justin Worley, who will be making his first career start at the collegiate level Saturday night.

With the Vols coming off of two embarrassing losses and a freshman making his debut under center, Tennessee will need a strong gameplan to win this Saturday.

I expect to see a lot of running back Tauren Poole for Tennessee.  He has carried the ball for 462 yards on 113 carries this season and two touchdowns.  The Vols may  be relying on him to balance the attack and try to take some of the pressure off of Worley in his first career start.  Look for a lot of Poole in this one.

If the Gamecocks are able to run the ball effectively without Lattimore in the game, stop Tauren Poole and make the Tennessee offense one dimensional, and improve on third down defense to stop some of Tennessee's offensive rhythm, South Carolina should be able to win this game in Rocky Top.

Prediction:
#14 South Carolina 28  Tennessee 21