Tennessee had to work a bit harder than expected late last week, but managed to hold off a South Carolina rally for a 27-24 win.

The win evened the Volunteers’ record at 3-3 in SEC play and moved them to 5-4 overall.

This week, the road to win No. 6 — and bowl eligibility — should be pretty straight forward.

North Texas pays a visit to Neyland Stadium on Saturday (noon ET, SECN) for a non-conference clash between teams seemingly headed in opposite directions.

The Mean Green are 1-8 and are being outscored by an average of 28 points per game while struggling on both sides of the football.

The bookmakers aren’t even that optimistic, installing the Volunteers as a 41-point favorite.

Mike Canales is the interim coach after Dan McCarney was dismissed on Oct. 10 after a 66-7 Homecoming loss to FCS Portland State.

The lone bright spot for the Mean Green this week is that Neyland Stadium was the site of arguably the biggest win in program history, a 21-14 win over Tennessee in 1975.

Canales, on the other hand, is more interested in looking forward.

“We need to step back and look at ourselves and ask, ‘How do we fix this?’” Canales said. “I have a plan to fix this … It’s all about the Jimmys and Joes. Let’s be honest. We are an average football team. We have to find some players and continue to develop the players we have so that they can get bigger and stronger. And then we bring in new players with transfers or JC guys who have the size you need to compete at this level.”

Sounds like a fine plan, but not one that’s likely to help his team much this weekend.

For Tennessee, this game is a good time to work on what coach Butch Jones referred to as “Neyland Focus” on a Homecoming weekend. It also figures to be a light day of work for the first-team units and a chance to build a bit of momentum for the final two league games.

NORTH TEXAS MEAN GREEN CLOSER LOOK

Top player, offense: Jeffrey Wilson, So., RB — The Elkhart, Texas, native wrestled the starting running back job away from Antoinne Jimmerson early in the season and has responded with 683 yards on almost six yards per carry. Not bad for a guy on a one-win team that didn’t play at all in the season’s first two games.

Top player, defense: Kishawn McClain, So., FS — Bad defenses almost always have a safety as the leading tackler. A really bad defense, like North Texas, have safeties as the top two tacklers. McClain leads with 83 tackles despite missing the first half of last week’s 56-13 loss to Louisiana Tech because of a targeting suspension. Strong safety James Gray is close behind with 80 stops on the season for a unit that ranks 124th nationally (out of 128) in total defense.

Top player, special teams: Tre Johnson, Jr., RB — Johnson took over the punt return duties three weeks ago and, on those rare occasions that the Mean Green have forced punts, he’s done a nice job on returns. He’s averaging 16.6 yards per return and has a kickoff return average of 32.8 yards. I’ll wager that he’ll get more chances to do the latter on Saturday.