South Carolina (2-2, 1-1 SEC) enters its Week 5 contest at No. 19 Tennessee (3-1, 0-1 SEC) with the No. 121 overall defense in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
The Gamecocks are No. 126 in passing defense and No. 48 in rushing defense through four games.
Third-year Tennessee running backs coach Jerry Mack met with media on Tuesday and discussed South Carolina’s defense.
“The front seven is really good,” Mack said. “Really impressed with the linebacker position. Those guys fly around, they are really aggressive, physical, you can see the improvement that they had in their group from year-to-year over the last few years that we have been playing.
“I think at my position, specifically, we just have to do a really good job and continue to run with physicality in between the tackles. There’s going to be tough, tight runs in those windows and those lanes are going to be smaller as we get into more SEC play. You know some of those other games, sometimes that grass that the offensive line is creating is extremely big because of the competition that you are playing. Man, in the SEC, it is not like that. Those seams become smaller and smaller, and when they do open up, they close a lot faster just because of the people that we are playing with. We have to do a great job of seeing those, making decisive decisions and accelerating when we get that opportunity.”
