KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee trailed 14-0 with 14 seconds left in the first quarter after Joshua Dobbs threw a pick six to Alabama’s Ronnie Harrison, but Butch Jones still tried to rally his players.
“It’s OK!,” he screamed at his players while clapping through it. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
By then you knew where this game was headed. All the clapping in the world wouldn’t have helped against No. 1 Alabama at Neyland Stadium on Saturday. Tennessee lost 49-10, fell to 5-2 and No. 18 in the AP Poll and faces the same old questions after being the “it" team of the offseason: What happened to those SEC championship dreams? What role will Tennessee play for the rest of the season?
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“We're not really focused on getting to Atlanta right now,” safety Todd Kelly Jr. said. “We're focused on the next opponent. I feel like this bye week will allow us to get our bodies healthy. We've played in seven games in a row, playing in the SEC that's no joke.”
Here’s something else that isn’t a joke. Tennessee’s College Football Playoff hopes — while very, very slim — aren’t dead yet. Think of it this way. The Volunteers might trail Florida by half a game in the SEC East, but Tennessee has the head-to-head tiebreaker and will be favored in the rest of its regular-season games against South Carolina, Tennessee Tech, Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt. That’s a 10-2 season.
Getting to Atlanta is still within reach, but that bye week comes first. That will help heal an injury-riddled team that didn’t have Jalen-Reeves Maybin, Cam Sutton and center Dylan Wiseman against Alabama.
"I think the bye week is coming at the appropriate time,” Tennessee coach Butch Jones. “We have a lot of goals to get better as a football team. Everyone has to be responsible for their own self-determination and accountability to get better during this bye week. A lot of this (week) will be spent in the training room and getting healthy.”
Jones can use that one-game-at-a-time focus for the rest of the season now. Tennessee, which without a doubt was the most-entertaining team of the first half of the season after all those second-half comebacks, ran out of steam against Alabama.
They played seven games against opponents with a combined record of 34-11, a winning percentage of .756, and that included four straight ranked opponents.
"We've played the third-toughest schedule in America,” Jones said. “They've been hard-fought, physical football games.”
Now, Tennessee is down to its last shot, a longshot that has a straight-forward path. They can win those five games in relative anonymity and hope Florida loses another conference game along the way. That’s why rescheduling the LSU game was so important, at least in Knoxville. From there, Tennessee could get another shot in the spotlight, likely against Alabama again.
It’s an impossible dream, but why not? Which scenario is more plausible? A two-loss Tennessee team that beats Alabama for the SEC championship makes the College Football Playoff, or the SEC is shut out of the College Football Playoff?
Debate what the committee would do with Alabama in that event all you want, but Tennessee’s season isn’t over yet. The most talked about team from the offseason simply received another lesson from a team that’s been there, done that and just did it again.
It’s a lesson Jones can use down the line.
“The top teams in this conference that win consistently are the ones who have great role players who embrace their role,” Jones said. “We have some individuals who have been able to do that for us. The bye week is coming at the appropriate time."
