Jarrett Guarantano grimaced in pain, trotting onto the field after a Kentucky timeout set up the final play of the game. He took the snap, unleashed a bomb downfield that was caught by senior receiver Jeff George.

Three yards short.

On a Hail Mary that was supposed to be caught to win the game. Like the rest of the season, it simply fell short.

Now, we all wonder how long we’ll have to wait on what seems like inevitable news on coach Butch Jones, who surely can’t survive this, can he? When George was tackled, UT’s record dropped to 3-5. The Vols are 0-5 in the conference now.

That’s even more painful than whatever injury Guarantano battled through.

Did the strong-armed Guarantano’s pain prevent him from getting it all the way there? If so, that would be Tennessee’s luck. We saw the Vols fall victim to their own cruel Vol-dom all night. This is the same team that saw a ridiculous blanket unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called at the first of the game on both teams that ultimately cost them two of their best defenders in Daniel Bituli and Rashaan Gaulden.

[Gaulden will miss the first half of next week’s game against Southern Miss, too. Seriously, has that ever been called? Only SEC officials, man. What kind of idiocy was that?]

Regardless, it was only the beginning of Tennessee finding a way to mess up the game. On the play before Kentucky took the final lead with under a minute remaining on quarterback Stephen Johnson’s designed run, Johnson threw a ball that was tipped in the air and into the arms of Nigel Warrior.

It would have been a difficult interception as he rolled to the end zone turf, but if you catch it, the game is over. He didn’t. One play later, UT was losing.

That was only the worst of the luck that came all night. Senior receiver Josh Smith was carted off the field. The Vols again saw a false start penalty on the goal line keep them from six points in what ultimately became a field goal. Later in the game, freshman Brent Cimaglia missed two field goals that could have given the Vols an insurmountable lead.

Instead, UT kept handing the game to Kentucky despite getting four turnovers, scoring touchdowns and actually looking like a decent team for snippets of the night.

These Vols keep finding ways to lose, and time is running out for Jones and his staff. The Vols — you have to figure — can’t beat LSU. That means they must beat Southern Miss, Vanderbilt and Missouri just to make a bowl game.

That isn’t happening the way things are right now.

As prized recruit Cade Mays visited Clemson and watched the Tigers beat Georgia Tech on Saturday night, UT was losing to Kentucky for just the second time in 33 years. The last time it happened, it signified the beginning of the end for Derek Dooley. It may usher in the end for Jones.

Time is wasting now. You may ask what can be done at this point of the season? The answer is salvaging some hope for the future, giving these players in limbo a direction, even if it may not be the direction they want or even if it means losing recruits in the process.

If Butch coaches against Southern Miss next week, there may not be 50,000 people in Neyland Stadium. Unfortunately, there may not be anyway.

Nobody wants to hear about all the good things Jones did for this program right now, and that’s a shame. It’s the nature of college football, but there were some good things; there were some good times. The talent level and the overall program are in better shape than the program he inherited.

But when you get right down to the bottom of the barrel, the end of a tenure, the only thing that really matters right now is this: Jones came to a Tennessee program that couldn’t make a bowl game, and this 2017 version of the Vols looks like it won’t make one, either.

A long line of blunders, off-the-field frustrations and futility have led to what we’re seeing on the field this season. Maybe it all started when the major red flag began flying in the middle of last year, when a supposed team leader, junior running back Jalen Hurd, who was about to become the school’s all-time leading rusher, simply quit the team.

Back then, we searched and scrambled, looking for an answer. We didn’t want to believe that it was the latest in a pattern, that the “brick-by-brick” class that saw so many defections was maybe just not what we all thought it would be.

Instead, we should have known that when the first ever Jones commit, the kid who began to help Jones build — receiver Vic Wharton — transferred to California, followed by the Hurd situation, this was deeper than we could even realize.

You know what they say about hindsight.

Now, fast-forward to this season, and you see unkept promises that are leading to a divided locker room, you see the holes on the roster, you see the infighting, you see the recruits dropping. Above all else, you see the offensive futility, the coaching blunders, the bad hires and the losses piling up. You see Georgia bursting onto national scene in Year 2 of Kirby Smart. You see Alabama embarrassing you on the field, weeks after the Dawgs did.

We’re about to see Florida enter the coaching market, a team with deep pockets, fertile grounds and bragging rights on the Vols. That’s another reason why the difficult decision must be made.

I pulled for the Vols every single step of the way tonight. But this was an 18-wheeler we all saw coming from a mile away, and we were stuck in the intersection with nowhere to go. You could feel that UT was going to lose this game. You just knew the Vols would find a way.

And that simple fact right there is why a change needs to happen now more than ever. You expect Tennessee to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You expect them to find a way to fail. Despite the solid performances of Guarantano, running backs Ty Chandler and Carlin Fils-aime and a few others, you just knew there would be players put in a position to lose the game because we’ve seen exactly that too often under Butch Jones.

Here we are. Back again. Another mediocre hire that we’d hope would mature stayed stuck in neutral until it started rolling back down the hill from where it came. This program is not in shambles, but this team is. If you don’t do something now — right now — you run the risk of everything falling apart. Again.

We’re all out of bricks.

The Tennessee Volunteers travel to Lexington today to take on the Kentucky Wildcats at 7:30 on the SEC Network.

In an age where the term is overused, this may actually be a must-win game for Butch Jones. He’ll have to do it with an offense that has spent much of the season stumbling around in the dark, drunk, with a shotgun pointed at its own feet, and he’ll have to do it without reserve offensive lineman Jack Jones,  without star running back John Kelly and backup linebacker Will Ignont, and without former starting quarterback Quinten Dormady ready if something happens to Jarrett Guarantano.

The good news is that for a guy whose teams play too many close games, Butch Jones has dominated Kentucky. Tennessee is also much more talented, and Kentucky’s stats prove that they’re not Alabama. If the Vols can do these five things, they can win.

That said, the Vols are 5.5-point underdogs, and the GRT Statsy Preview Machine and all of the other stat models like Kentucky to win in a close one.

While you’re waiting for kickoff, download and listen to our game preview podcast, submit your answers to our weekly GRT Guessing Game, and use our handy college football TV schedule and rooting guide for Vols fans to enjoy the rest of the day.

Go Vols.

• Kickoff: Oct. 28, 7:30 p.m. ET
• TV: SEC Network
• Watch online
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• Live stats

This week of college football features a night game for the Vols and a Saturday afternoon filled with a ton of bright shiny objects for Tennessee fans.

Here’s the Week 9 college football TV schedule, curated for Vols fans. It includes kickoff times, TV stations, and what might be of interest to a Vols fan. It also includes helpful suggestions on how to watch everything most efficiently and who to root for in each game.

The full schedule for the entire weekend is also included at the bottom of the post.

Go Vols!

Thursday, October 26

Hey, it’s Thursday, and the weekend’s football is starting. Be there.

Friday, October 27

If you’re feeling down in the dumps this season, have a look at Florida State. That grass is browner. And here’s to wishing former Vol Riley Ferguson success.

Gameday, October 28

It seems like forever since we Vols fans have had a night game, but pace yourself, because there are a lot of games on tap today, especially in the afternoon time slot.

Noon slot

SHOOTOUT! I’M 50!

Afternoon slot

My goodness, there’s a lot of interesting shiny objects to look at here for Vols fans. First, there’s the Cocktail Party, between two teams we both want to lose even though it wouldn’t matter. Then there are two big national games, NC State at Notre Dame and Penn State at Ohio State. And finally, two games featuring future opponents and a game featuring UCF, which we’re suddenly interested in for some reason.

Evening slot

Go Vols, and when we’re done, go Yellow Jackets.

Complete college football TV schedule for Week 9

And here’s the complete schedule for the week, paginated and searchable!

Tennessee quarterback Quinten Dormady will not be available for the Kentucky game this evening due to a shoulder injury. Dormady has reportedly been battling the injury since “well before the start of the season” and is now exploring surgery as an option to correct the problem.

Hearing now that this has been an issue since before the season really makes you wonder about Dormady starting the first five games of the season and how much it may have impacted his performance. But if he was hampered by the injury, why not start Jarrett Guarantano sooner? Perhaps the coaches felt that Dormady with the injury was still the better option at the time, and maybe Dormady figures that time spent as the backup on the bench now provides him with the opportunity to engage in a long-term fix that requires recovery time.

It does leave the team in a risky situation, though, because if Guarantano goes down with injury, that will thrust freshman Will McBride — the nation’s #29 dual-threat quarterback in the Class of 2017 — into the starting role. McBride hasn’t played yet this season and has thus far been destined for a redshirt season.

As the head coach might say, Saturday is a critical day for the Tennessee program. The good news, from the head coach’s perspective:  Butch Jones’ teams have dominated Kentucky…and only Kentucky.

Since 2013 the Vols are 4-0 against the Wildcats. The results have been much more mixed against the rest of the SEC East:  1-4 against Florida, 2-3 against Georgia, 3-2 against South Carolina, and ties waiting to be broken with Missouri and Vanderbilt. And the distance between the Vols against Kentucky and the Vols against the rest of the division is even more stark when you add point differential to the equation.

Here’s the margin of victory chart against the SEC East in Butch’s five seasons:

Remove Kentucky, and the Vols have played 18 of the other 23 division games within 11 points under Butch Jones. And the margins are razor thin against South Carolina, Missouri, and Georgia before this year. It’s never been that close with the Wildcats, including last year when Tennessee led by 27 with seven minutes to play before two Kentucky touchdowns in garbage time brought the margin closer.

If there’s good news for Kentucky here, it’s that the Vols have done it every time with offense. Last year Tennessee put the first 10+ yard per play performance on an opponent of the post-Fulmer era; the Vols have scored 151 points on the Cats in the last three years. Even the 2013 team, one week after struggling so mightily with Vanderbilt, had its best performance of the season against a power five opponent by putting 6.32 yards per play on Kentucky.

Perhaps Kentucky will be the medicine for Tennessee’s anemic offense one more time tomorrow. The more relevant point here for the Vol football conversation is how Tennessee has continued to play close games regardless of opponent, unless that opponent is Kentucky.

From @SBN_BillC… #Chance pic.twitter.com/SkVGCNAF0o

— Gabriel (@Gabe_TFB) October 13, 2017

The Vols, of course, have already played four such games this year, three of them decided on the final play. In 2016 Tennessee went to the final snap against Appalachian State, Georgia, Texas A&M, and South Carolina. The 2015 Vols, now regarded as the closest thing we’ve seen to a championship-level team under Butch Jones, played six one possession games in a span of eight contests. Plus five more in 2014 and four others in 2013. If the average team plays within one possession 35% of the time, the Vols under Butch Jones are at 43.3%.

It’s interesting now to look back at his tenure at Cincinnati and Central Michigan too, where something that looked like a strength in comparison to Derek Dooley – he knows how to win close games! – now looks more like a red flag by playing in so many of them. In his second year at Central Michigan, Butch Jones and the Chippewas were in nine one possession games.

If the Vols do end up looking for a new coach, and the pendulum continues to swing the way it typically does around here when making a change, Tennessee might look less for someone who wins close games and more for someone aggressive enough to take advantage of every snap, and avoid playing them if at all possible.

The last four years say otherwise, but the first seven weeks of this year and much of Butch’s tenure suggests we’re in for another close game tomorrow. In a critical contest, that would again make the margin of error awfully thin.