The Tennessee Volunteers Changed Their Fourth Quarter Song From “Friends In Low Places” To Morgan Wallen’s “The Way I Talk”

Honoring the hometown kid, or trying to distance themselves from Garth? Of course everybody knows that Garth Brooks has a lot going on right now with the lawsuit that was filed by his former makeup artist and hairstylist accusing the country singer of sexual assault and rape. The "Friends In Low Places" singer has vehemently denied the allegations and claimed he's being extorted, but the legal fight is already getting nasty - and it's just beginning. And speaking of "Friends In Low Places," last week The Late, Late Show, Ireland’s longest running live talk show, cut a cover performance of the song from their “Country Music Special,” which is an annual event that features a number of country music performances from some of Ireland’s top singers. It's not surprising, because we often see people want to cut ties - even if it's just temporarily - with somebody who's facing such serious accusations. And now the University of Tennessee has decided to no longer use "Friends In Low Places" either. The song was traditionally played at Neyland Stadium ahead of the fourth quarter, but during yesterday's game between the Volunteers and the Florida Gators, the university decided to make a change and instead played Morgan Wallen 's "The Way I Talk." Now, this one might now (and probably doesn't) have anything to do with the allegations against Garth. The change comes during the Vols' first game in Knoxville since Morgan sold out two shows at his hometown stadium, drawing in 156,161 fans and setting a record for the biggest crowd over a weekend of concerts in the stadium. It makes sense that the Vols would want to use a song from one of their most famous fans, who also happens to be a Knoxville native. And the song even mentions "cheering on the Volunteers," so you can see why they would make the change regardless of what was going on with Garth. In fact, even before the lawsuit was filed against Garth, tons of Tennessee fans were calling for the university to replace "Friends In Low Places" with one of Morgan's songs. So chances are, the timing of this one is purely coincidental. Or maybe it wasn't a coincidence, and it just turned out to be good timing so that nobody would question it. Either way, I guess we'll have to wait and see whether "Friends In Low Places" is gone for good or whether the change was just a temporary one in honor of Morgan's recent visit to Neyland. https://twitter.com/DRVawl/status/1845278821521686812