Tennessee fans — at least many of the fans I’ve interacted with — are still in shock at what happened on Saturday in Columbia.

The Vols should’ve left Williams-Brice Stadium with a win over South Carolina, but a couple of ill-timed mistakes gave the Gamecocks an opportunity to win the game.

And South Carolina, which is a better team than their record indicates, took advantage and squeaked out a 27-24 win over the Vols.

Tennessee is now 2-7 in its last nine trips to Columbia.

As if the loss to South Carolina wasn’t bad enough, former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy rubbed salt in the wound for Vols fans without really even trying to.

The ESPN analyst pointed out on Sunday while reviewing the action from Week 8 that he told fans this was going to happen to Tennessee.

“We told you this was going to happen,” said McElroy. “And you almost never see a game like this. If you look at Tennessee, they crossed the goal line six times, and they got credit for three. … They had 21 points that were basically taken off the board.

“Last week on the show, we said that Tennessee is a playoff team. And the reason why is because of their defense — their defense is legit. And the defense did most of it (against South Carolina). They did a pretty good job, but the offense made too many mistakes in this game. You go on the road in the SEC and those mistakes count. They’re now 6-2. Kentucky comes to Knoxville on November 7.”

Some fans may be asking what McElroy meant when he said, “We told you this was going to happen.”

Well, McElroy actually nailed his final score prediction for this game. He predicted last week that South Carolina would win the game 27-24, which is obviously what happened.

I know a lot of Vols fans aren’t big on McElroy because he’s a former Alabama quarterback, but if you can remove that from the equation, he’s probably one of the best out there at breaking down what’s actually happening on the field. He doesn’t get too caught up in the narratives surrounding the sport.

And he’s been remarkably accurate with his predictions for Tennessee this season.

McElroy hasn’t predicted every game (he called the Tennessee vs Alabama game and didn’t make a prediction, for example), but he’s been close on the ones he has predicted.

He had Texas beating Tennessee 24-20 (Texas won 20-17) and he had Tennessee beating Auburn 27-17 (Tennessee won 24-20).

McElroy also had Tennessee beating Georgia Tech 31-20 (the Vols won 45-24…he would’ve been closer on that one if not for the late Daune Morris rushing touchdown).

It might be worth paying attention to what McElroy has to say in two weeks when Tennessee returns from the bye week for an important matchup against Kentucky.