All Sooners

SEC Announces Oklahoma's Kickoff Time at Tennessee

Tennessee won last year's SEC debut in Norman, and now the Vols have an even more distinctive tinge of crimson on this year's coaching staff.
John Hoover|
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel (left) shakes hands with Oklahoma's Brent Venables.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel (left) shakes hands with Oklahoma's Brent Venables. | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

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Oklahoma Sooners

Get ready for Rocky Top After Dark.

The Southeastern Conference announced next week’s kickoff times on Saturday night, and Oklahoma gets to try to bounce back from a tough home loss to Ole Miss by playing at Tennessee — with a 6:30 p.m. at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.

The league set all of next week’s start times following the conclusion of Saturday’s action.

Tennessee visited Kentucky in a night game and crushed the Wildcats 56-34.

OU suffered its second conference defeat at the hands of Lane Kiffin’s Rebels in a game that started Saturday morning, a 34-26 loss in which the Sooners compounded one costly mistake after another.

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Oklahoma (6-2 overall, 2-2 SEC) was ranked No. 14 last week and will surely drop after the loss to No. 8 Ole Miss.

Tennessee (6-2, 3-2) came into the weekend ranked No. 17 with losses to current No. 5 Georgia (44-41) and No. 4 Alabama (37-20).

Coached by former Sooners quarterback Josh Heupel, the Vols have a distinctive crimson and cream feel to their coaching staff. Former OU QB Joey Halzle is Tennessee’s offensive coordinator, and all-time passing leader Landry Jones is their assistant QB coach. 

This past offseason, Heupel hired one of his best friends, former OU fullback and captain on the national championship team of 2000 — and Brent Venables’ offensive coordinator last year before he was fired at midseason — Seth Littrell.

The Vols beat Littrell and Oklahoma 25-15 last year in Norman in the Sooners’ very first game as a member of the SEC. Starting quarterback Jackson Arnold was benched in that game for true freshman Michael Hawkins.

OU won the previous two non-conference meetings in Norman in 2014 (34-10) and Knoxville in 2015 (31-24 in overtime). The latter, a furious fourth-quarter rally that fans called Sooner Magic, has always been viewed as the coming out party for Baker Mayfield.

Oklahoma leads the all-time series with the Vols, including a 17-0 loss in the 1938 Orange Bowl — OU's very first bowl game — and a 26-24 win in the 1967 Orange Bowl.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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