/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46744880/usa-today-8505206.0.jpg)
They call it "talking season". I wonder why?
Here's a quote from Steve Spurrier earlier about the Tennessee Volunteers.
We were 7-6 -- same as Tennessee and the same as Arkansas -- and I think they're sort of celebrating big seasons last year. So we were celebrating also. We were doing some cartwheels and high-fiving after that Independence Bowl game because it was a year that could have gone real south, and guys hung in there and somehow or another found a way to win the game.
So there was HBC's jab at the gang up at Rocky Top. Butch Jones was up later, and he had a response.
"Contrary to reports, there were no backflips, there were no somersaults." Butch Jones in response to Spurrier comments earlier #Vols
— Nick Carboni (@NickCarboniWBIR) July 14, 2015
Ah, OK. That's why it's called talking season.
To Jones' credit, he is 2-0 against Spurrier. Last year at Williams-Brice Stadium, the Vols came out with a stunning 45-42 victory after the Gamecocks coughed up a fourteen point lead with less than five minutes remaining. We all remember Spurrier's non-presser after that. That was a season after a gut-punch of a 23-21 loss in Knoxville, a game that USC entered as the 10th-ranked team in the country and during which Connor Shaw was hurt.
Get your markers or pens out and circle the calendar: Round 3 of Spurrier vs. Jones is November 7 at Neyland Stadium. There's a lot of buzz surrounding the Vols in 2015, but you know that HBC and Co. would love nothing more to hang a loss on Tennessee in their own house.