The Tennessee Vols have a classic college football trap game on their 2026 schedule.

And it should scare the hell out of every Tennessee fan.

SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic sends early warning to Vols fans

SEC Network analyst and McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning co-host Cole Cubelic said on Friday that he doesn’t love where Tennessee’s game against South Carolina falls on the schedule this year.

Tennessee plays South Carolina in Columbia the week after the Third Saturday in October. The Gamecocks, meanwhile, have a bye the week before playing the Vols.

“I don’t love the spot of this game,” said Cubelic. “Third Saturday in October, we all know what that means. And then you’ve got to go to Columbia the next week. I’m actually going to put this game at coin flip status.”

“South Carolina’s gonna get one big one at home every year,” added co-host Greg McElroy. “They always rise up and rip somebody at home.”

Columbia has been a house of horrors for the Volunteers. Every Tennessee fan remembers the blowout loss in 2022 that kept the Vols out of the four-team College Football Playoff.

Tennessee is just 2-6 in its last eight trips to Columbia, and one of those wins came during the 2020 COVID season (the other win came in 2014 when the Vols won in overtime after erasing a 14-point fourth quarter deficit).

South Carolina is coming off a down season, but they have some elite players on their r0ster — quarterback LaNorris Sellers and pass rusher Dylan Stewart, for example. And you know the Gamecocks will be juiced up for this game.

When a trap game is this obvious, it probably shouldn’t even be called a trap game — everyone will be talking about how tricky this game could be for the Vols when the season gets underway. Everyone knows Tennessee’s history at Williams-Brice Stadium…