Mark WiedmerKNOXVILLE - Saturday evening ended the way the way it should have for a Tennessee senior class of football players that's done as much for the Big Orange Nation as quarterback Josh Dobbs, defensive back Cam Sutton and Co. have.
It ended with Dobbs directing UT's Pride of the Southland band from high atop a ladder, much as Peyton Manning once did. It ended with Dobbs, Sutton and their classmates all smiles and laughter and understandable pride after crushing Missouri 63-37 as a fairly respectable portion of the crowd of 101,012 - almost all of them bundled up in orange - stuck around to cheer this 2013 recruiting class a final time in Neyland Stadium.
"That last walk through the 'T,' I took my time," Sutton said. "So many special times here."
But the really special thing they all wanted, the thing they talked about wanting all summer, was taken from them before the Mizzou win was a quarter old.
They had wanted to represent the SEC East Division in the league title game in Atlanta. As this season progressed, they often referenced that. And after West winner Alabama buried them 49-10 inside this same Neyland Stadium on Oct. 15, they talked about getting healthy enough to challenge the Crimson Tide in the championship game inside the Georgia Dome on Dec. 3.
And that might have been interesting. Especially if this awesome offense the Vols suddenly have displayed since a certain running back quit the team on Halloween - a Tennessee treat, it turned out - was more a function of repetition than competition.
After all, as impressive as this scoring average of 54.3 points a game in wins over Tennessee Tech (55-0), Kentucky (49-36) and Missouri looks on paper, it did come against Tennessee Tech, Kentucky and Missouri.
Still, 54.3 points over three games is 54.3, and Tennessee hadn't scored 40-plus points in three straight games since 1995.
"Right now we have a really good rhythm going and we have a lot of confidence," coach Butch Jones said of that productivity. "Getting (running back) Alvin Kamara has really helped, too - the luxury of being able to run the football."
But now we'll only see that really good offensive rhythm on display against Vanderbilt in Nashville two days after Thanksgiving and in a mid-level bowl game rather than against Vanderbilt, Alabama in the SEC title and a higher-level bowl foe.
That's because Florida stunned LSU in Baton Rouge with a goal-line stand inside the final minute of the Gators' 16-10 win, which thrust the Rowdy Reptiles into the Dec. 3 championship game inside the Georgia Dome rather than the Vols getting a chance to avenge their earlier loss to Bama.
And because of that, we'll never know what might have been with Tennessee's 120th college football team. What we know is that in the same year the Vols beat the Gators for the first time in 11 seasons, Florida got the last laugh by somehow winning the East by a full game over Tennessee. In that way, you could argue that the Gators got the ultimate revenge by winning the East despite losing the game to the Vols.
And no matter how fervently Jones denies it - "You never heard me talk about it (reaching the SEC title game) or my players talk about," he said during a postgame presser - it was on somebody's mind enough to make sure the Florida-LSU score never showed up in Neyland's video screen once that score went final.
Beyond that, Vols Network sideline reporter John Brice made a point of discussing players shaking their heads and lowering their heads as the score ran through the team near the close of the first quarter. He even noted one adult member of the coaching or support staff saying, "Now we're playing for pride."
This team has pride. It had a purpose (SEC title game). It quickly embraced a new purpose - being the first UT team since 2007 to finish with 10 wins, which the Vols will do if they win at Vanderbilt before emerging victorious from a bowl.
But they won't reach the SEC title game. And you need look no further than the SEC defensive stats to understand why. In conference games only, Alabama entered Saturday with the league's top total defense. Florida was second. Tennessee was 12th.
Moreover, these Vols fell behind game after game in the opening quarter - nine of opponents counting Mizzou's 6-0 lead early in this one - which screams of an overmatched defense or a lack of preparation.
This was surely not why Jones had the school pay big money to lure defensive coordinator Bob Shoop from Penn State last season, though New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick might have had trouble building a solid defense with this battered bunch.
Much as Phillip Fulmer's final offensive coordinator Dave Clawson reportedly needed more than a year to implement his scheme, Shoop's system is supposed to look a lot better in year two than year one. And it very well may.
Beyond that, it's clear that the Vols - now 8-3 - were good enough more times than not to overcome such icy starts. But as Florida, which was one of those nine teams that scored first against the Vols, proved Saturday, it's often helpful to keep opponent scoring to a minimum.
Otherwise, whether you choose to talk about it or not beforehand, you'll never have a reason to talk about reaching the SEC title game when it's actually played.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com