Wiedmer: Vols fall just short of win their coach needed

Tennessee coach Butch Jones makes his way off the field after the Volunteers' 15-9 loss to South Carolina at Neyland Stadium on Saturday.
Tennessee coach Butch Jones makes his way off the field after the Volunteers' 15-9 loss to South Carolina at Neyland Stadium on Saturday.

KNOXVILLE - It was the kind of football game any coach with a crewcut would love. Rock-ribbed defense. Field goals instead of touchdowns. A warm, sunny and sweetly breezy autumn Saturday afternoon. A nearly full Neyland Stadium.

This was why Butch Jones always has said he coveted the University of Tennessee head football coaching job he accepted on Pearl Harbor Day in 2012. This was a final-destination gig, not a steppingstone to bigger and better things.

And Jones was so close to the possibility of a bigger, better finish this postcard day against South Carolina. His Volunteers were within six feet of victory, within 2 yards of possibly delivering him at least a temporary stay of execution from a job he's so strongly rumored to be losing any day now, if not any minute.

Through luck and pluck the Vols stood on this South Carolina 2-yard line with one second somehow left to play in a game they trailed 15-9. UT hadn't scored a touchdown since the first half of the Massachusettes game on Sept. 23, a span of two seconds shy of 10 full quarters, but it hadn't abandoned hope or effort, either.

So Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp - hoping to add to his 5-0 record against the Vols as a head coach at Florida and South Carolina - called his final timeout to set up his defense in a way that would prevent UT from traveling more than 1.99 yards in this final second.

Nevertheless, with the Vols riding the suddenly hot hand of redshirt freshman quarterback Jarrett Guarantano in his first collegiate start, with the Big Orange having moved the ball 73 yards in 72 seconds, all seemed possible at that moment. Even Jones surviving until next year.

Still, the boys of Butch weren't yet in the end zone. Oh, what to do? Have Guarantano throw it? Have the pinball wizard of a running back John Kelly attempt to spin his way into the end zone with all matters of stops and starts, equal parts raging bull and ballet dancer? Or might they have Guarantano roll right with an option to run or throw, depending on what the defense gave him?

Ah, that would be the victory formation. That would at least momentarily give the Jones Haters a reason to pause and reflect. Win here, then win the rest except for next week's required beatdown at Tuscaloosa against No. 1 Alabama and UT could still finish 9-3. And could new UT athletic director John Currie possibly fire Jones for going one win better in this regular season than last as he rebuilds a roster seemingly far less talented than last year's model?

Could he?

Would he have a reason to have UT start over in football for the fourth time since the end of the 2008 season?

Unfortunately, that victory formation failed to deliver. Though Guarantano rolled right, his pass to Brandon Johnson along the goal line fell incomplete. UT lost its third SEC game in three tries this season. Jones lost his last, best chance to save his job.

"A better throw would have had it," Guarantano said with admirable maturity and leadership.

Countered redshirt senior offensive lineman Brett Kendrick, equally determined not to let his quarterback unfairly accept blame for a pretty good throw done in by a better defensive play: "I thought he was incredible. I don't know what else he could have done. What else can we ask him to do? He ran the ball when we needed it and took some hits. I thought his poise was incredible right there at the end of the game. He's special."

Some might wonder how such a special talent - if Guarantano turns out to be worthy of such praise - had largely languished on the bench behind the stiff and stoic Quinten Dormady through the season's first five games.

After all, it's not as if Dormady was doing great work. The Vols have now gone 10 straight quarters without a single touchdown. The U.S. men's soccer team lights up the scoreboard more, and it's so terrible it didn't make the World Cup.

And that, of course, is one reason why Jones is all but certain to be gone, if not this week, then surely by the close of this season. Despite an off week to get ready for the Gamecocks for a second straight season, the Vols lost both of those games.

Moeover, the continual scrutiny and speculation about his future appear to be wearing on the coach who's won all three of his bowl games at UT and finished 9-4 the past two seasons.

Asked about why he chose to throw rather than run the often unstoppable Kelly on the final play, Jones said: "If you run the ball and don't get it, then that's the final play. Then you're sitting in here and asking me why we handed the ball off."

You think Bama boss Nick Saban shows any concern for what the media might think, win or lose? You think Jones should let us know he even entertains those thoughts with everything else swirling through his head theses days?

Beyond that, though this is not to write that he absolutely, positively should have given the ball to Kelly, is there anyone on Team 121 you'd feel more confident reaching the end zone from 2 yards out on a single play than No. 4?

As Guarantano wrapped up his postgame comments, he said of his future: "I can only go up from here."

The notion of UT football going up with him as long as Jones remains in charge now seems far more uncertain, if not downright impossible.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com

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