University of Tennessee Athletics
Matchup Of Strengths Awaits Vols, Tigers
November 16, 2015 | Football
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- What happens when one of the Southeastern Conference’s best offenses meets one of its best defenses? Tennessee and Missouri answer that question on Saturday night.
The Volunteers rank third in the SEC in scoring offense, while the Tigers are second in scoring defense. Tennessee has the second-ranked rushing offense in the conference, Mizzou is third-best against the run.
"We have a great challenge before us, going on the road and playing a very good football team,” head coach Butch Jones said. “[Missouri] is one of the best football teams we have faced to date. I think the statistics back it up, but the video evidence backs it up even further.”
Beyond the statistics, it will be an emotional game for the home team, playing on Senior Day while also bidding farewell to its head coach.
Gary Pinkel announced on Friday that he will step down at the end of the season, meaning Saturday’s game in Columbia will be the final time he leads his team on Faurot Field. It will not be the first time Missouri will take the field since the news came down, the Tigers defeated BYU, 20-16, in Kansas City a day after the announcement, but it will be first time on home turf.
Emotion, hype, hostile crowd, quarterback Joshua Dobbs sees all of that as just another week in the SEC.
“They are going to play motivated and they’re going to come out and give us their best shot,” Dobbs said. “We have to come ready to play. Anytime you go on the road in the SEC, it’s going to be like that.”
The amount of attention the coaching change and other external factors has gained has the Volunteers focused inward as they head to Missouri on Saturday.
“They’ll be excited to play for him, but at the end of the day it’s football, you have to play the game,” defensive back Cameron Sutton said. “You can’t control how they’re going to react, so in that situation we have to control what we can control and come out with a victory.”
One thing the Vols have fully under control is their bowl eligibility. Unlike last season, when it came down to the season’s final week, Tennessee has clinched the position of not “if,” but “where?”
The Tigers come into the game at 5-5, needing a win over Tennessee or Arkansas in the final two weeks of the year to extend the careers of their seniors and their head coach. Tennessee’s players are familiar with the position their Missouri counterparts find themselves in. Linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin prefers the view his team carries to its last two games.
“Last year, we had so much pressure going into that final game,” Reeves-Maybin said. “Now we have big expectations to try and get to the best bowl game possible and finish these last two games strong.”
The stakes and the emotions will be high, but just like his quarterback said, Jones sees that as just another example of life in the nation’s toughest conference.
“We expect that every time we go on the road in the SEC,” Jones said. “It’s no different than any of the other venues that we’ve gone into. There is a lot on the line for both teams, we’re playing for a lot and that comes with the maturity of a football team.”
