Lee Corso, College GameDay had Tennessee mascot Smokey scared half to death

Tennessee hosted College GameDay and Lee Corso picked the Vols to beat Florida with his headgear pick but UT mascot Smokey was not a fan of the commotion.

Particularly when College GameDay heads to the site of a rivalry game, the fans are always rocking. And that was undoubtedly the case in Knoxville ahead of the huge SEC East matchup between rivals Tennessee and Florida.

The Vols faithful in attendance were raucous throughout the morning but it was in the picks to end the show when they really started going berserk. And that was even more so the case when the Tennessee mascot, Smokey, joined Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and the gang on stage for the picks as Corso put on the Smokey headgear to signify that he was picking the Volunteers to win.

Everyone in the crowd was pleased, but the live mascot dog was not thrilled with all of the noise as he got a bit spooked and jumped off of the GameDay set to get away from the scariness.

Tennessee mascot Smokey gets spooked by Lee Corso, College GameDay

Whenever you put a dog on a stage in front of hundreds/thousands of screaming SEC football fans, this is always going to be a possibility. We’re just thankful that Smokey was safe and not hurt after the ordeal.

As for the pick, there’s a reason that the Vols fans were so amped up to see Corso backing Tennessee is simple: that’s not something UT has been able to do against Florida all too often in recent years — or really for nearly two decades.

Over the past 17 meetings, Tennessee has won exactly one of them against Florida, the lone victory coming in 2016. That’s a lot of history and a King Kong-sized monkey to get off of their back. But as they come into this game as the favorites, this feels like as good of a time as ever for them to overcome that recent history.

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