All the goodwill Tennessee and coach Jeremy Pruitt accumulated from their upset win at Auburn on Oct. 13 seemed to vanish in an instant.
That’s what playing No. 1 Alabama can do to a team, and the Volunteers experienced it firsthand in their crushing 58-21 loss to the Crimson Tide last Saturday. But Tennessee can still reach a bowl game with wins in three of its final five games, though this weekend’s contest at South Carolina may be one of the hardest victories to come by over that stretch.
The key to putting together a bowl-clinching run is to prove that the win at Auburn was a true representative of the team and not a fluke, junior offensive tackle Drew Richmond told 247Sports.com’s Tennessee website.
“Pruitt said it: People forgot we beat Auburn (because) we didn’t play well against Alabama and that’s all people remember. I just want to be able to go down to South Carolina and finish these last five games with ultimate confidence that we’re a good team. I don’t want people to feel like Auburn was just a fluke win. I don’t want people to feel like, ‘Y’all fought hard against Alabama.’ No, we’re a good team and we’re going to keep working and we’re going to keep pushing and we’re going to working and we’re going to keep pushing until we get everything right. I’m happy to be on this team to go through adversity with some of these guys. I’m happy, and playing with Coach Pruitt, he’s tough, he’s hard, he’s really hard. But Coach Pruitt’s got passion and Coach Pruitt wants to win just as bad as anybody, and I just feel like that’s going to help us and that’s going to sustain us throughout these five weeks to be a really good team.”
The first step to proving that comes when the Volunteers (3-4, 1-3 SEC) take on South Carolina (3-3, 2-3) at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.
Marcus covers SEC football for Saturday Down South.
