LSU running back Derrius Guice (5) scores a touchdown against Tennessee during an NCAA football game at Neyland Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017 in Knoxville, Tenn.KNOXVILLE - If Mother Nature was happy with the University of Tennessee parting company with fifth-year football coach Butch Jones last weekend, she hid that joy quite well Saturday night.
Hurling as much wind and rain as she could at Neyland Stadium during the Volunteers' 30-10 loss to LSU, she acted as if she wished Jones had at least finished out the season rather than being replaced by interim coach Brady Hoke with two games to go.
But nature's wrath aside, most others in attendance - despite the wretched weather and no dramatic jump in good play under Hoke - seemed to believe that UT athletic director John Currie's decision to fire Jones was a move that had to be made.
Or as Tennessee fan and Shorter University employee Levi Moffett noted prior to kickoff, "I'm not sure if it was the right move, but it had to be done."
The Vols had their moments against the Bayou Bengals. Quarterback Jarrett Guarantano and wideout Marquez Callaway hooked up on a beautiful 46-yard touchdown pass with 1:23 left in the first half to complete a four-play, 75-yard scoring drive after LSU had grabbed a 17-3 lead. Down 30-10, Guarantano found Jeff George for a 60-yard completion on the final snap of the third quarter.
Alas, that reception to the LSU 14 was followed by a fumbled snap that backed the Vols up 6 yards. Even an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty against the Tigers later in that possession - a penalty to bring an automatic first down at the LSU 12 - couldn't deliver a second Big Orange score.
Perhaps that's why, when Moffett was asked whom he'd choose to follow Jones into the UT coaching seat, replied, "Washington State's Mike Leach. He'd bring an interesting offense into the SEC."
Added game-day buddy and Ooltewah assistant baseball coach Tyson Latham, "Whomever they pick, it has to be a home-run hire."
The Vols clearly need offense. Of course, surrendering 30 or more points in four of their seven SEC losses (and 29 in a fifth) strongly indicates the defense could use an overhaul, too.
Nor is the rational notion that Jon Gruden remains a long shot discouraging the Big Orange Nation from keeping that dream alive.
Merely consider this series of events that briefly lit up the social media universe Saturday evening. A report that Gruden and Peyton Manning were seen lunching at Calhoun's restaurant on Saturday afternoon in Knoxville seemed to kidnap Neyland prior to kickoff.
Of course, that was followed by a second treat from Calhoun's apologizing for the first tweet, since the Calhoun employee who'd first leaked this news was now backtracking, saying he wasn't sure, that the person he'd seen at Peyton's table might well have been someone else.
Soon enough, there was a third tweet noting that while that person wasn't sure it was Gruden, there also was no certainty that it wasn't.
By then someone who'd become sleepless in Seattle by worrying about all this tweeted out that he'd seen Gruden in Seattle at the Seahawks' training facility Saturday as he prepared for the Seattle-Atlanta Monday Night Football Game.
So there's also that to consider.
The more mystical among us might also consider that wild wind and rain that hit its zenith at the start of the third quarter, right as UT was about to receive the second-half kick.
The rain coming down so hard and at such angles due to wind gusts that it knocked out power to more than 17,000 customers in the Knoxville area, the Vols appeared to lose sight of the kickoff, which they finally downed at their own 4. That eventually led to a punt from the shadow of their own goal line, which produced an LSU touchdown that moved the deficit from 17-10 to 23-10 midway through the third period.
"It was coming down so hard I couldn't see the guys on the field," Hoke noted afterward. "(The impact of the rain) was huge."
Again, if it was huge, that rain and wind was at its absolute worst on that kickoff to begin the third quarter. The Vols never recovered from that and now, despite having no bowl game to play for, they must recover their competitive juices well enough to avoid suffering an eighth loss in a single season for the first time in school history when Vanderbilt visits Neyland two days after Thanksgiving.
"Life's a competition," said Hoke, possibly pulling that inspiration from a Jones book of quotes. "Got to compete when we play next Saturday."
Added linebacker Colton Jumper: "We all wanted to get that bowl game. But that's life. Head forward."
That's all true. But these words from Latham are also true, never more so than after seven Southeastern Conference losses in seven games thus far this autumn.
Said the Big Orange fan of a Big Aren't season: "I just want Tennessee to win again."
At least for one watery night, Mother Nature apparently wasn't so sure.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com