Progress.
Isn't that all any reasonable University of Tennessee football fan hoped to see when the Volunteers hosted No. 6 Florida on Saturday afternoon inside Neyland Stadium?
Yes, a victory would have been tremendous, especially since it would have come against the Gators, who had won the past three against UT heading into this one and 14 of the past 15.
But these are also the same Gators who have the Heisman Trophy frontrunner in senior quarterback Kyle Task, the same Gators who've been averaging more than 43 points a game against an all-Southeastern Conference schedule, the same Gators who are given at least a puncher's chance against presumed SEC West champ Alabama in the league title game on Dec. 19 in Atlanta, at least as long as COVID-19 allows the playing of that game.
So while a win is always the goal, just anything better than the last five UT games, all losses and all by double-figures, would have been seen as some sort of improvement.
So did what to make of Florida 31, Tennessee 19, which is not only a sixth straight Big Orange defeat, but a sixth straight by double digits?
"We did all right," said running back Eric Gray, who always does more than all right, as shown by his 47 rushing yards, 47 receiving yards and touchdown catch against the Gators. "We're all playing hard. Everybody just has to go in the same direction at the same time."
College football is like most everything else in life. Success is about doing the little things well. Executing at all times. No mental lapses. No mistakes.
When Tennessee won its first two games against South Carolina and Missouri, it had few penalties and zero turnovers in either game.
From then on, the turnovers have come both often and at the worst of times. They aren't the only reason for six straight defeats, but they've contributed in a big way. But on Saturday against the Gators, there were zero turnovers, thus Florida had to work for everything it got. In fact, so salty was UT's defense throughout much of this one that on three different occasions the Gators got the ball on UT's end of the field, less than 50 yards from the end zone, yet failed to score.
"Defensively we played hard," said third-year Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt. "We made some mistakes and I made some bad calls. But we don't have an effort problem, we don't have a toughness problem. We have an execution problem."
Some would say any execution problem falls to the coaches. And that would be hard to argue. But also consider this: Most coaches, especially defensive coaches, always seek to make their opponent one-dimensional. Florida ran it 17 times. The Gators gained 19 yards. Almost any defensive coach in the country would be proud of that.
Alas, it mattered little against Florida. Solidifying his Heisman hype, Trask threw for 433 yards and four touchdowns.
Sometimes it's not about effort or toughness or even execution. Sometimes it's about talent. And Florida's offensive weapons, especially through the air, are way too good at the moment for UT's defensive talent.
Of course, what every Volniac everywhere wants to know, even the most reasonable ones, is how much longer must they wait to have talent capable of beating the Alabamas, Auburns, Floridas, Georgias and LSUs of the SEC rather than merely throwing a scare into them on occasion.
This was the 15th loss in the last 16 meetings against Florida. The last time UT beat Alabama, Bush 43 was in the White House. There have been a couple of notable wins over Georgia since then, especially the Hail Mary between the hedges in 2016, but nothing to make you feel the worm has turned. All five of those programs have won or played for national championships over the past 15 years. UT hasn't so much as played in a New Year's Six bowl game since the 1999 season. Given such numbers, it is not unreasonable to assume the distance between the Vols and the SEC's elite is growing rather than shrinking.
Just don't expect Pruitt to admit that.
In fact, on Saturday night's postgame Zoom news conference, Pruitt even said, "There's probably not that much difference in us and them."
On the most basic of levels, he's right. Both schools play in the SEC. Both rosters are filled with players who were probably one of the top two or three players on their high school teams, if not the very best.
But while Florida has a serious Heisman candidate at quarterback, the Vols used three players Saturday at that most important of positions, with the third of the bunch, J.T. Shrout, engineering a couple of touchdown drives late against Gators reserves.
Until some UT quarterback in the future - Saturday's starter Harrison Bailey, Brian Mauer, Shrout or a QB yet to be determined - can star more than stand in, the Vols have next to no chance to return to their former glory.
But that doesn't mean that Saturday didn't look better than the five straight losses that had come before it. Such effort, combined with improved execution, might even be enough to beat Vanderbilt and Texas A&M, the final two games left on Tennessee's schedule, pending coronavirus approval.
"There's things we can build on for next week," Gray said.
After five straight losses that built nothing but hopelessness and discontent within the Big Orange Nation, that's progress, however small and unfulfilling when compared to a much-needed victory.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.