Butch Jones insisted more than once in the immediate aftermath of Tennessee’s 35-32 loss at 12th-ranked Georgia on Saturday that he doesn’t believe in moral victories, and that there are no moral victories at programs like Tennessee.

Tennessee football coach Butch Jones (Photo Credit: Â©Â USA Today Sports Images)

In general, I believe Jones was right. When you coach football at a place like Tennessee, there are certain things you have to say, and that’s one of them. Say anything less than that, and you’ll irritate the Big Orange Mob and find yourself coaching wide receivers in the NFL sooner or later. Jones either inherently understands this or has been schooled really well in the ways of dealing with fans and media in this area —Â I think it’s a bit of both —Â so he usually says the right thing.

In some cases, though —Â and Saturday was one of those cases —Â I believe Jones was wrong. And I believe Jones knows he was wrong but can’t and won’t say that.

There will come a day when moral victories won’t matter again for Tennessee football.

Saturday was a moral victory, but it was a significant moral victory.

Why would I suggest that?

Consider this: Last season, Tennessee hosted a Georgia team that was ranked higher but ultimately wasn’t as good as the team Georgia put on the field Saturday. Yes, 2013 quarterback Aaron Murray is an upgrade in every way over 2014 quarterback Hutson Mason, but the Bulldogs were better everywhere else save for maybe a couple of spots in the secondary. And they’re much better in a couple of crucial spots. They’re better coached on defense, and they have a couple of dynamic freshmen tailbacks to combine with junior star Todd Gurley — someone I consider the best player in all of college football, and I tried to warn anyone who would listen throughout last week that he was that special. Gurley, along with several other Georgia stars, missed the 2013 game at Tennessee with an injury, and that made an unbelievable difference in the product the Dawgs were able to put on the field. I’m not sure how many Tennessee fans know this, but Georgia’s coaches were on the sideline throughout the second half of the game in Knoxville trying to figure out which of their young players and scout-team players knew which plays, because that’s how injured they were heading into the game and in the first half of that game. Murray and his coaches worked a miracle —Â a miracle I’m not sure most Georgia fans, much less Tennessee fans, comprehended or appreciated.

So, to review: Tennessee hosts a slightly worse Georgia team in 2013, gets out-played for a majority of the game, makes a couple of plays to sneak back into it, then gets a bad break in overtime and loses. Then Tennessee goes on the road to play a better Georgia team in 2014 and goes toe-to-toe with that team for 60 minutes, challenging it on both sides of the ball in a game that was consistently competitive and really could have gone either way and ultimately went to the team with the nation’s best player making plays few other players could make.

In other words, what Tennessee showed on Saturday was progress. I saw it. Other Tennessee media saw it. Georgia media saw it, and several of them tweeted or wrote something to that end, or said something about it to me as we worked in the press box of a calmer, quieter Sanford Stadium press box late into the night. A couple of Georgia athletic department employees and other support staff people saw that, too. I know that because they came up to me and told me that, and I believe them.

Tennessee freshman tailback Jalen Hurd (Photo Credit: Â©Â USA Today Sports Images)

Tennessee looked like a big underdog to Georgia throughout the 2013 game.

It never looked like one when narrowly losing to Georgia throughout the 2014 game.

That matters.

A lot.

Tennessee is coming, folks. And Saturday was the latest —Â and one of the clearest —Â signs of that.

Saturday was a tangible step forward for the Vols, who have played exceptionally hard since the day Jones and his staff arrived on campus and now finally have enough game-changing talent to do something with it.

Have the Vols arrived? No, they haven’t. There are still a few fulcrum players this team can’t lose without being more exposed than a naked person on the North Pole. There are still depth issues in some key spots. There are still some flaws in fundamental areas. They’re not there yet.

But they’re closer. Much, much, closer.

And at this rate, they will arrive.

Look at the way Tennessee plays. Its fighting spirit cannot be contained. It has lost games, and it will lose more games, but Jones and his staff have built a tough team that will fight until the final whistle, regardless of the score, and anyone who has been around this game for a significant period of time can attest to the toughness of that task. It’s not easy. It really isn’t. But Tennessee does that.

Then look at the way Tennessee is recruiting, and look at the hit rate of the players Jones and Co. have signed to this point. There haven’t been many duds. There really haven’t. The stature and athleticism of these players is translating to the field, and it’s making a difference in the way Tennessee looks and plays.

Jones this week will be faced with perhaps the biggest challenge of his career —Â how to combat Florida’s psychological warfare against the Tennessee football program, something that’s reduced the Vols to mental midgetry for years and years and years —Â but the fact is Tennessee is coming. And it will keep coming until it gets there. And it will get there. Maybe not this week. Maybe not this season. But the SEC’s top teams can’t look at the Vols as a gimme game anymore. Saturday showed me that, and it showed it to other people, as well. And it showed that despite the visitors being one of the youngest teams in college football, something that doesn't stop being relevant just because it's been said too much.

Say what you will about Tennessee’s win over South Carolina last season, but don’t forget that it came within the confines of Neyland Stadium. The Vols’ loss at Georgia this season showed me more than last season’s win over the Gamecocks.

Tennessee came within two fluky fumbles and one superstar on the other sideline from beating Georgia between the hedges in a win the Vols certainly would have deserved, given the balance of play and the line of statistics that were square across the board. They had to settle for a moral victory, but I’m not bothered by that. I don’t think Jones is bothered by it, either, but I think he knows he can’t say that in this town.

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