Gamecocks to face Tennessee in season opener

The South Carolina Gamecocks learned they’ll open their season against the Tennessee Volunteers on Sept. 26 in Columbia, following the SEC’s announcement on Monday afternoon.

The SEC, which is taking an extremely slow and tentative approach to football, announced its Week 1 schedule, though kickoff times are still unknown. The league, while still set on playing, is also clearly employing a cautious approach and trying not to get too far ahead of itself.

The 2019 Volunteers posted an 8-5 (5-3 SEC) mark in Jeremy Pruitt’s second year and handled the Gamecocks 41-21 in Knoxville on their way to a third-place finish in the SEC East. (Perhaps somewhat encouragingly, though, Shi Smith had a whale of a game, racking up 156 yards on 11 catches with a score.) Capping its season off with a Gator Bowl victory over Indiana, Tennessee currently boasts a top-10 recruiting class and is viewed by some pundits to finally be on its way back after a decade of wandering the wilderness. While it won’t be on Halloween weekend this year, USC-UT games typically get pretty wild, so this is a very intriguing matchup to kick off South Carolina’s 2020.