College game days are busy to say the least, and even small towns turn into busy cities when the fans start to roll in. This is especially true for Knoxville, Tennessee, when it's time for game day on Saturday -- not to mention a matchup featuring two, top 10-ranked teams!

The day before kickoff, the spirit squads are busy around campus and town making appearances, hosting pep rallies, attending special events, practicing their field work, and even cheering a volleyball game later in the evening. There's not much downtime for these enthusiastic Volunteers, but they wouldn't have it any other way.



Joy Postell-Gee leads the spirit coordination at Tennessee, and she does so with a passion and grace that's unsurpassed. The mascots, Smokey X (real barking dog), cheer team, and dance team are provided an impressively orchestrated agenda on Friday and game day. The crew can be seen at multiple events across campus raising spirit and interacting with fans to pump up that big orange spirit.

We met up with Postell-Gee and her team for a special stadium tour, mascot huddle, game day practice, SportsCenter appearance, and volleyball game. Yes, you heard right -- the teams tackled all of these tasks and more the day before the big game -- all in the honor of game day spirit.

We hopped on the little orange and white golf cart and arrived at the stadium ready to experience everything big orange!

We walked through Neyland Stadium and soaked in the calm before the storm.

Smokey X, "the real barking dog" and one of Tennessee's most famous game day traditions, met us at the stadium to check things out.

We toured the Tennessee spirit locker room!

We met up with the cheer teams to warm up game day skills in the practice facility.

After the finishing touches at practice, the team headed off to a SportsCenter appearance, featuring Tim Tebow at the Vol Navy get-together on the water!

And finally, some of the team wrapped up the night at the Tennessee "Pink Out" volleyball game.

Coming Soon, Friday Nov. 18th:

Watch the Vols Spirit Squads rally their fans on game day in the new film, It's Game Day: Tennessee!