There’s no mistaken where Tennessee State’s collective mind is at as it arrives in Athens for the 3 p.m. Saturday game against Georgia.

“FOCUS” was written on Coach Reggie Barlow’s shirt as he previewed what’s in store for his Tigers at Sanford Stadium against the No. 3-ranked Bulldogs.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to show our style and our brand of football in that type of environment,” said Barlow, whose team is a 46.5-point underdog. “I’m tickled to death our team gets to go there.”

Barlow knows something about the importance of taking on a fearless approach: He’s a former eight-year NFL receiver ran his share of routes over the middle in addition to leading the league in punt returns in 1997-98.

And Barlow, a former Super Bowl champion with the Tampa Bay Bucs and a former Tennessee State player himself, knows what it’s like to take the field as a favorite and an underdog.

“We won’t shy away from being honest and letting our guys know that this is a team that’s ranked No. 3 in the country for a reason,” Barlow said in his pregame interview on the school’s website.

“But we get a chance to go up and compete against them, and not try to think about the end score, but think about the one play — four to six seconds — one snap and clear, try to win that one play between four seconds and six seconds, and whatever happens, go on to the next play and have the same type of mindset. At the end of that, we’ll tally up how many wins we had on those plays and that will dictate the scoreboard.”

It’s the same approach Georgia coach Kirby Smart takes, and, like the Tigers, the Bulldogs try to approach every opponent the same.

Barlow said it’s important his Tennessee State players don’t get themselves psyched out before the game.

“You respect all teams, you respect all programs, but you fear none,” Barlow said. “It’s still blocking and tackling, the technique doesn’t change because you’re playing a different team or a bigger team.

“Obviously they are going to be bigger; they have guys that are big and strong, they have 5-star guys, just a really physical well-coached team,” he said. “We cannot let the magnitude of the game overwhelm us; think about it as an ordinary football game and go out there and compete and we’ll see how we measure up.”

Tennessee State lost a 26-24 game to fellow FCS school Jackson State last Saturday, but incoming transfer quarterback Daylin Lee showed great promise, drawing compliments from Smart earlier this week after a 23-of-41 passing performance that netted 265 yards and a touchdown while also carrying the ball 13 times for 40 yards and another touchdown.

“Daylin has been good for us, he’s exactly what we were hoping to see when we got him,” Barlow said of the 6-foot-2, 225-pound transfer from Winston-Salem. “Daylin went out and had a solid game for us, took care of the ball like we asked him to.”

Georgia has the same sort of quarterback in Gunner Stockton, who is asked to do the same sort of things.

Defensively, Barlow has a similar mindset to Smart, too.

“Going up against a team like Georgia, a team that prides itself on running the ball, we gotta be able to stop the run this weekend,” Barlow said, “and not let those really good running backs have those big long runs.”

Both teams figure to utilize their depth, as the heat index is expect to be around 100 degrees at kickoff.

Barlow’s message for his team to maintain “focus” amid the heat against a talented opponent does indeed seem on point.