KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Volunteers were all-but vanquished from this season’s Southeastern Conference championship race Saturday afternoon in Sanford Stadium.

But there are bigger questions and more pressing problems than that.

UT is a program with deep pride and deeper pocketbooks, and this might be the deepest hole it’s had under 17-year head coach Phillip Fulmer.

How far and how fast will the Vols keep falling?

Or is this the bottom?

What is Fulmer going to do now? If he’s willing and able to dig in for the long haul, what’s his next move?

“If you stay in this business long enough, you have ups and downs,” Fulmer said after Saturday’s 26-14 loss at tenth-ranked Georgia.

Fulmer thought Saturday was his 200th game as UT’s head coach, but it was his 198th. At any rate, he can correctly boast that he’s not short on experience. Whether that experience will turn this season around is another matter.

“Look at history,” Fulmer said. “We’ve won a lot more than we’ve lost, and we’ve been disappointed in every dang one of them we lost. They all felt like this.

“I’m not going to do anything but keep fighting.”

All that’s certain is UT (2-4, 0-3 SEC) hosts Mississippi State (2-4, 1-2) on Saturday night. No SEC Eastern Division team has ever played in the conference championship game with three league losses — the Vols’ best-case scenario, at this point.

UT hasn’t been 0-3 in the SEC since 2000. Those Vols went undefeated from that point, winning 12 of their next 13 league games until an upset loss to LSU in the 2001 conference championship game.

Fulmer was an assistant coach for the 1988 Vols — the last UT team to start 0-4 in the SEC — and that team finished the season with five consecutive victories and a 3-4 conference mark.

Of course, a perfect run from this point wouldn’t change the fact that two UT teams in the past four seasons have entered August in the top 25 poll and plummeted.

“It’s not just us (on offense),” said sophomore Nick Stephens, whose promotion to starting quarterback two weeks ago has been a rare bright spot. “It’s not just the defense. It’s everything.

“We could have done a lot of things better.”

UT is struggling in several areas, but perhaps none more obvious than third down.

The Vols’ offense is 97th out of 119 major NCAA Division I teams with a 32.9 percent, third-down conversion rate. Their defense is 89th nationally, allowing conversions on 42.1 percent of third downs.

Georgia exploited those problems and took advantage of 97 UT penalty yards to control the ball more than two-thirds of the game — a staggering 42 minutes, 4 seconds, to be exact.

“We’re not getting ourselves off the field on defense, and our offense isn’t staying on the field,” Vols middle linebacker Ellix Wilson. “That makes it hard to win football games.”

Large strings of losses make for tough times at a traditional football power. Pressure from every angle is unavoidable inside the Neyland Thompson Sports Center.

Even Fulmer’s weekly Sunday night media teleconference malfunctioned. A technical difficulty prevented reporters from answering questions after Fulmer’s opening statement.

“We’ve been doing this for years, and this is the first time that’s ever happened,” a school official said.

Fulmer, unsolicited, quickly offered his private office number to everyone on the call — and, as always, he took questions from local media following Sunday’s late-night practice.

“Obviously, we’re very frustrated by the results of the start of our season,” Fulmer said. “I know the players feel the same way, as does everybody who cares about Tennessee football.

“It’s my job, and the other coaches’ jobs, to find that consistency. I’m not looking for any excuse-makers from anybody on the staff or team.”

He is looking for answers, though, and he said “there is nothing off the table” to find them. Not personnel. Not schemes. Not practice routines. Not “anything else,” he said.

Fulmer relayed this account of his message to the team:

“Everybody in the world is going to talk about you. They’re going to talk about me. They’re going to talk about our staff, about what kind of backbone we’ve got. And look them in the eye and say, ‘I’m not quitting.’ Who’s going to stand up?

“They’ve got to go around campus, go out and about. They better be able to look people in the eye and say, ‘Hey, I did my best.’ That’s the staff, and that’s me, and that’s everybody else.”