Tennessee (5-4, 3-3 SEC) returns home in Week 11.
The Vols will host No. 1 Georgia (9-0, 7-0 SEC) Saturday at Neyland Stadium. Kickoff is slated for 3:30 p.m. EST and CBS will televise the Southeastern Conference East division matchup.
Ahead of Saturday’s contest, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart discussed covering Tennessee’s wide receivers and the Vols’ offense under Josh Heupel and how he compliments a running game for passing success.
“They’ve got an extremely good group of wideouts,” Smart said of Tennessee. “They’re extremely physical, big, size, speed. They are really fast on tape. We know the players they are running past. They are good football players that they are running past, making explosive plays. They’ve made a lot of plays down the field. They would’ve had more of these earlier, but they overthrew some early in the season or they just missed them.
“They’ve been hitting on all cylinders, and they have been extremely explosive with what they have done, but to say that it will be all on the secondary, that’s not very wise. You’ve got to control the run game. Everybody thinks these guys are pass-first, but they run the ball really well. They’re stubborn about it. They wear you down, and they body-blow, after body-blow, after body-blow to the point where you can’t rush the passer, or you can’t stop the run, and it’s the big runs that lead to the explosive passes. We are going to have to play well on all parts of the defense. It’s a great challenge for this group because no matter how good you are up front, guys in the back end are going to have to make plays, and no matter how good you are on the back end, the front guys are going to have to control the quarterback and run game. They’ll test you, they’ll test you everywhere.”
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