Staff Photo by Angela Lewis UT's Rico McCoy, (5) and Marsalous Johnson, (31) take down Wyoming's Greg Bolling in the first quarter of the game at Neyland Stadium. Wyoming upset the Vols 13-7.

KNOXVILLE — Will the University of Tennessee football program sink any lower this season?

Or was Saturday’s 13-7 homecoming loss to Wyoming rock bottom?

“That’s a decision that every player in the program has to make individually,” first-year offensive coordinator Dave Clawson said moments after the embarrassing setback.

But they don’t have to make it yet.

The Volunteers (3-7, 1-5 Southeastern Conference) don’t play this weekend, using their open date before finishing the season against rivals Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

Unlike most years, though, those two games will end their season. For just the second time since 1988, the Vols will not reach the six victories needed for a bowl game.

A week that started Monday with Coach Phillip Fulmer’s forced resignation press conference ended with arguably the program’s worst loss in decades.

“The open date probably comes at a good time from that standpoint — to let them get over the hurt feelings as best they can,” Fulmer said. “We’ve got two common opponents that we play every year in Vanderbilt and Kentucky. I think we’ll be up for them.

“We’ll play hard. We’ve just got to play better than we’ve played, and I think we can.”

Junior roommates Jonathan Crompton and Wes Brown, the only two Vols to address reporters following Saturday’s game, had trouble answering questions they never expected to hear during their college careers: How did this happen to UT football? And where will they go from here?

“We go to work the next day,” Crompton said. “What else do you want us to say?

“That’s part of it. You win some, you lose some. You go back to work. We’re going to do the very best we can to send Coach Fulmer out in the best way possible with these last two wins against Vandy and Kentucky.”

Coaches and players said last week’s emotions didn’t help game preparations, and Fulmer said the players probably pressed too much after two early interceptions put them in a 13-7 hole.

“They’re 18 to 22 years old,” Fulmer said. “There were a lot of emotions through the week, but also, youth is very resilient.

“It’s been a tough week, but that shouldn’t cause a ball to be intercepted.”

Crompton — who relieved Nick Stephens, the sophomore who threw both interceptions — delivered a preemptive strike to any questions about the Vols’ desire Saturday, this week or the rest of the season.

“You’ve got to give credit to Wyoming. They played their game, apparently,” Crompton said. “I really don’t know what to say. We’re out there busting our (tails). We’re playing with six, seven, eight receivers that can’t walk after the game, can’t raise their arms. They’re going (all out). For anybody to say they dropped a pass here, they dropped a pass there, I don’t think that’s fair at all. I don’t want to hear that at all.

“I don’t want to hear anything about O-line this, O-line that, the running backs, the defense. I especially don’t want to hear anything about the coaches. We came out trying to win the game, and we wound up on the short end.”

Those are fighting words.

But similar comments were said last week, when players dedicated the rest of the season to Fulmer and vowed to finish the season with momentum,

“You’re always disappointed when you lose a football game, and you’re particularly disappointed when you lose one that you should have won, or could have won, certainly,” Fulmer said. “You’re particularly disappointed when you gave the other team ... points.

“It’s magnified and complicated by this chain of events of this week. You just don’t want to finish up that way.”

UT defensive coordinator John Chavis said this season won’t be salvaged solely by challenging the players’ natural competitiveness.

“I don’t think it’s that simple — I think if it was, everybody would do it,” Chavis said. “But I think if you’re an athlete, and you condition — and part of your conditioning is the mental part of it — then you have to do that.

Chavis said much of his competitive drive stemmed from a love of boxing, particularly the 1971 “Fight of the Century” between and Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

“At the end of the 14th round, (Ali) and Frazier had both been beaten up pretty bad,” Chavis said. “It took a lot of courage for both of those guys to come back out and fight that 15th round. But that’s why he was a champion. I’m going to fight every round I’ve got, and I think our kids will fight every round they’ve got. And someday, they will be a champion.

“I’m not a guy that’s going to look out there and think that we’ve got a cloud over our heads. Somewhere, there’s a silver lining. Things happen for a reason.”