Vols football can't come close to Georgia, but close to getting Butch Jones fired

Good thing that Tennessee was honoring former Vols All-American quarterback Peyton Manning at halftime Saturday afternoon. Otherwise, there might have been a blur of orange at the Neyland Stadium exits by the end of the second quarter.

You knew where the game was headed by then. You also knew there was nothing Tennessee could do about it.

Georgia proved itself superior in every area while ending a two-game losing streak to the Vols with a 41-0 victory.

Rexrode:Tennessee Vols blown out by Georgia, and Butch Jones is in trouble

It reminded me of what a former UT player said earlier in the week when I asked how he thought the Vols would fare against the Bulldogs.

“Georgia will beat them as bad as they want to,” he said.

That summed up the afternoon.

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The Bulldogs looked like a top-10 team, which they are. The Vols looked like a team that barely beat UMass, which they did.

Tennessee’s offense often was so overwhelmed, you would have thought Alabama was in town.

Neyland began to turn Georgia Red as the lead mounted. UT coach Butch Jones turned redder. But no one could blame Nick Saban’s national championship machine from Alabama.

This was the work of Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who unleashed an Alabama-like defense on UT’s fragile offense. He’s only in his second season, but his program looks like it’s on the way up.

The Vols look as though they don’t know what’s up.

The Tennessee offensive line, which shuffled its personnel again, is a mess. First-year starting quarterback Quinten Dormady’s first pass was intercepted, and the rest of his day didn’t go much better. UT receivers struggled to get open against the best defense they have faced. Turnovers kept popping up.

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Tennessee’s defense held up surprisingly well early but seemed mystified whenever freshman quarterback Jake Fromm decided to scramble — once for a touchdown, twice more for first downs. And when Georgia called a rare zone-read option, Fromm jogged into the end zone.

Never mind that the temperature had dropped after a week in the 80s. It was rising under coach-on-the-hot seat Butch Jones.

There’s no hope of an SEC East title. The Vols have lost to both Florida and Georgia, the two best teams in the division. And Alabama is still on the schedule.

Of course, the Vols still could win nine games, just as they did the two previous years. They could. But they won’t.

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Scratch my prediction for an 8-4 season. This looks like a 6-6 team.

And it looks like a team that will get Jones fired.

What happened against Georgia was no aberration. Tennessee played just as poorly a week earlier in a 17-13 victory over UMass, usually regarded as one of the worst FBS programs in the country.

A reasonable excuse was available for the UMass debacle: The Vols were still grieving a last-second loss to Florida.

But there were no excuses Saturday against Georgia.

The Vols were in over their head. And so was their coach.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: Twitter.com/johnadamskns.