COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Tennessee Defense Shuts Down Taneyhill and South Carolina

The expected shootout between Tennessee’s Peyton Manning and South Carolina’s Steve Taneyhill never developed. Tennessee’s defense wouldn’t allow it.

The fifth-ranked Volunteers intercepted three of Taneyhill’s passes to set up scores and held the Gamecocks ace to only 125 yards in a 56-21 Southeastern Conference victory Saturday.

“This is hard to say when you score 56 points, but offensively we were out of sync at times,” Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer said. “The defense stepped up and played really well.”

Taneyhill completed his first seven passes, but then the day began turning sour for the Gamecocks, 4-4-1 overall and 2-4-1 in the SEC. After reaching 163 passes without an interception--the second-longest streak in SEC history--Taneyhill had three of his next 11 picked off.

The strangeness began early. South Carolina drove from its 24 to the Tennessee one with the opening kickoff, got a motion penalty and eventually had to settle for a field-goal try. But Leonard Little blocked it, and linebacker Tyrone Hines caught it in the air and raced 90 yards to give Tennessee a 7-0 lead.

Manning, who completed 16 of 20 passes for 215 yards, threw for four scores to pace Tennessee (7-1, 5-1) and the Volunteers got a second special-teams touchdown on a fake field goal on the last play of the first half.