Dylan Sampson called this in-state rivalry a “playoff game”
Knoxville, Tenn. – Following a shutout win over UTEP on Senior Day, Tennessee did its job to keep its name in the playoff conversation.
Then, came the upsets and Tennessee’s positioning in the College Football Playoffs became even sweeter.
Indiana, Ole Miss, and Alabama all suffered ugly losses on the road which should do wonders for the Big Orange.
So far the AP Top 25 Poll agrees. Tennessee rose from No. 10 to No. 7 in the latest AP Poll. Now, we wait and see if the committee agrees.
With so much in reach, what’s usually a boring watch is shaping up to be one of the more compelling match-ups in recent memory between Tennessee and Vanderbilt.
Cruise control will not be engaged this matchup, as running back Dylan Sampson highlights how much is on the line Saturday afternoon.
“Everybody in the building knows the reality of the game, how much it means, it’s basically a playoff game. Take care of business and handle what it is,” said Sampson.
Head coach Josh Heupel hasn’t explicitly shared the same sentiment as his running back, though understanding the circumstances you can’t ignore what’s at stake in Nashville.
“Unique thing here at Tennessee is you got a bunch of (rivalries), but this is a long-standing rivalry that we’ve had with them. And, you know, it’s Thanksgiving weekend, you’re playing in a big game against one of your rivals, this is the opportunity that you wanna have,” said Heupel.
This also isn’t the same old Commodores team, either. A team that was expected to win 2.5 games on the season now has 6 wins and even more impressively are who the victories are against; Alabama, Kentucky, and Auburn.
Not to mention it took Missouri to double overtime and kept up with Texas but lost to the Longhorns 27-25.
Vanderbilt head coach, Clark Lea has seemingly brought the program back from the dead in his fourth season at the helm. Acquiring Diego Pavia out of the transfer portal to quarterback his Dores has played a key role in this revival.
“They play complementary football. They’re smart. They’re tough. They’re physical. They’re disciplined. They make you earn it. Offensively, the quarterback (Diego Pavia) is a dynamic player. It’s quarterback run game. He has unique ability to extend and make plays outside of the scope of of the play call, too,” said Heupel.
The setting for this game is all too familiar to when the Vols took on Georgia and the playoff picture that’d form with a win.
A similar picture is forming ahead of the season finale.
How will Tennessee respond to another big-time game?
In Athens, the Vols struggled mightily. Afterwards, players like tight end Miles Kitselman described his lack of attention to detail as to why they didn’t execute against the Bulldogs.
So how do the Vols avoid that in Week 15?
Heupel said by doing the ordinary things at a high level and this time he and is running back are explicitly on the same page.
“It just needs to be even more locked in, nothing crazy, just at the level of attention to detail, attention of competitiveness that we need and are capable of having, that we’ve been striving for all season. Just have a great preparation, mindset, nothing crazy. Just go and play our ball and attacking this whole week and it’ll work out,” said Sampson.
