Vanderbilt football romps over UT Vols — Ralph Webb deserved it, Derek Mason needed it

KNOXVILLE — Marquez Callaway leaped high to snag a touchdown pass, one-handed. Ralph Webb got up and over the pile of bodies at the goal line, flipping and landing on his feet.

There in the south end zone at Neyland Stadium, we saw what a waste this season has been for Tennessee and Vanderbilt. It shouldn’t have been this bad. Both of these teams have too many quality players. It shouldn’t have gotten to 0-7 in the SEC vs. 0-7 in the SEC on Saturday, with an interim coach on one sideline, an embattled coach on the other, nearly 50,000 seats unoccupied and quiet holidays ahead.

But at least the Vols have done something about it. And at least Vanderbilt got something out of Saturday, a 42-24 romp — with the all-time-great Webb and Kyle Shurmur doing most of the romping — to avoid complete SEC misery and force the old in-state rival to experience it for the first time.

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"We own the state for another 364 days," Vandy senior linebacker Oren Burks said after his defense's best performance of the SEC season, and after the Commodores celebrated a second straight win over UT loudly and wildly in their locker room.

"At the end of the day you can never take away what they did in Knoxville here," Vandy coach Derek Mason said of his players, "and how they did it."

So let’s call it a win-win! Should 4-8 Tennessee be absolutely humiliated by a fourth loss to Vanderbilt (5-7) in six years, the first winless SEC season in its history and the first eight-loss season in its history? Absolutely.

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But this already was a humiliating, coach-got-fired season for the Vols. Kudos to the 60,000 or so folks who showed up wearing orange. But let’s face it: If someone in the press box tweeted during the second quarter that Jon Gruden was going to accept the UT job at halftime at Thompson-Boling Arena, the only people left in the stands by the start of the third quarter would have been the small throng of Vanderbilt parents near the north end zone.

A win for the Vols would have meant a fleeting feeling of warmth for the departing seniors and their teammates, and no one would have framed Sunday’s sports section as a keepsake. The only thing that really matters right now is that athletic director John Currie moves swiftly and effectively to hire a head coach who can make this a championship program again.

Gruden is a fantasy, Chip Kelly is off the board to UCLA (which is just fine), and Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen remains the best combination of traits of the candidates within reach. Maybe Currie can’t pry him from Starkville. Maybe he can but wants someone else.

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Whatever happens, that’s been the only game in town since Butch Jones was let go on Nov. 12. The mild distraction of bad football is over and, though I believe the Tennessee players gave effort Saturday, it’s hard to be desperate after all this losing in a program that expects so much winning.

But Vanderbilt? Vanderbilt was desperate. Mason was desperate. I don’t think his job would have been in any kind of danger with a loss and a 4-8 finish. I mean, it’s Vanderbilt — it would have been the Commodores’ 15th winless SEC season just since 1976.

Still, this season was supposed to be a step forward after Mason’s much-needed bowl breakthrough in 2016. It’s a veteran-loaded team with the best quarterback at Vandy, Shurmur, in a while. When the Commodores got to 3-0 after a gutty 14-7 win over then-No. 18 Kansas State, we were talking about other programs swooping in to poach Mason.

As Saturday arrived we were talking about one of the worst defensive performances in SEC history, overseen by a guy who is supposed to be a defensive mastermind. The Vols easily scored touchdowns on their first two possessions, putting Vandy at 336 points allowed in SEC games this season — a point shy of the record of 337 that Arkansas set Friday.

The defense responded from there and actually didn’t claim this dubious mark until UT’s Aaron Medley kicked a 49-yard field goal to cut Vandy’s lead to 21-17 in the third quarter.

"We challenged the guys this week to play their best football to date," Mason said.

I never thought the Commodores quit on Mason this season, but they certainly quit playing with the focus and intensity that marked their 3-0 start. On Saturday they battled and broke the will of a bad opponent, giving Webb (163 yards, two touchdowns, up to No. 6 on SEC all-time rushing list) a proper sendoff and Mason a badly needed shot of positivity.

His fifth season will be prove-it time with the terrific Shurmur (283 yards, four touchdowns) leading the way as a senior. Of course, USA Today reported Saturday that Arizona State already has been doing homework on Mason as a potential candidate if head coach Todd Graham is fired there.

For the record, Mason said he had no reaction to the report, that he's happy at Vandy and that it has been "great for me and my family."

That’s 18-31 Mason, with his 6-25 SEC record, on the radar of a Power 5 program. But that’s the reality of a place that gives its coaches much less to work with than their league counterparts. That’s Vanderbilt.

And for the fourth offseason out of the past six Vanderbilt, incredibly, can say it’s better than Tennessee.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.