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KNOXVILLE — Suddenly the kitchen got hot for Phillip Fulmer…

Gamecock was on the menu but things got fowled up along the way.

“A classic dish, chicken fricassee sometimes refers to the way the chicken is cut. A whole chicken is cut into eight pieces and served with a mushroom cream sauce,” according to the online source eHow.

In the final analysis, this chicken was dismembered by consecutive losses to teams from the state of Tennessee and served without sauce or even a top 20 garnish.

The pretense was exposed, and the once proud Gamecocks will have little to crow about when the sun rises on SEC standings and national college football rankings this week. They aren’t alone.

Riding high in the polls and playing over its head for half the season, South Carolina couldn’t win a very winnable game on Saturday night at Neyland Stadium and as a result suffered a calamitous fall from the heights of ranked teams into the familiar territory of the lower half of the SEC East.

As everyone knows — including the Volunteers — it’s a lot harder to rise than to fall. Thanks to play more uneven their own, the Vols have yet another shot at the Eastern Division title, but the recipe is still not what it should be on either side of the ball for a successful championship run.

South Carolina entered Neyland Stadium with a timidity unbefitting the No. 17-ranked team in the nation. That’s understandable when you are 6-1 overall, at the top of the SEC East and can score only six points against Vanderbilt.

By the time the Gamecocks reached Knoxville sporting black and gold bruises, there were not only feathers missing but also some body parts detached — the brain for one. Head coach Steve Spurrier’s decision to swap starting quarterbacks proved so costly that Tennessee’s own erratic play early in the contest was compensated for by South Carolina’s dropped passes, penalties and turnovers.

By the time the Vols scored their third touchdown of the half, the wave of momentum seem to have cured most of the problems caused by a shaky start from quarterback Erik Ainge and the offensive line.

Despite Spurrier’s presence on the sideline, South Carolina arrived at this weekend only sixth in the SEC in passing offense and 11th in rushing offense. That made the Gamecocks the ninth best scoring team in the league, trailing all three of the teams they needed to defeat to win the division – Tennessee, Arkansas and Florida.

The return of Blake Mitchell (the guy who led the Gamecocks to an upset of UT in 2005) to his place under center in the second half revived the stagnant offense. That’s when the chicken got tough. That’s when South Carolina’s chef turned up the heat on his counterpart across the field.

But by night’s end, Tennessee had risen again to the top of the SEC East, and the Gamecocks had been cooled and put away.

That doesn’t mean the kitchen is empty just yet, however. There’s still plenty more cookin’ to do in this wacky football season.

As the ad for Coach’s Low Country Boil Seasoning displayed on the Neyland Stadium wrap around said, “Its only limitation is your imagination.”

Leonard Butts is assistant sports editor. Write to him at: The Daily Times, P.O. Box 9740, Maryville, TN 37802-9740, or e-mail to: leonard.butts@thedailytimes.com