KNOXVILLE – The past two bowl games for Tennessee were about punctuating the end of a season of progress.
This year is very different.
Beating Nebraska in the Music City Bowl won’t salvage a disappointing season for the Volunteers, and the game itself is just a small part of the big picture moving forward as fourth-year coach Butch Jones evaluates what went wrong this season and where his program now goes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been through a football season like this in terms of the amount of adversities week in and week out and the challenges week in and week out,” Jones said Monday. “Our players, they’ve persevered. They’ve showed leadership, but I’ve never been through a season like this (with) the highs, the lows.
“That’s why you have to take a consistent approach week in and week out, and that’s why you have to sit back and take the emotion out. Obviously we did not finish the way we wanted to finish, and that’s unacceptable in our program. I take responsibility for that as the leader of this program, but we have to do a better job of finishing.”