

Coach Butch Jones is under heavy pressure now that Tennessee has lost three of four games and has failed to score a touchdown in the last 10 quarters. (C.B. Schmelter/AP)

They don't play "Rocky Top" at Neyland Stadium nearly as much these days, an unmistakable indication of the travails that have befallen the Tennessee football team this season under embattled Coach Butch Jones.

The Volunteers produced another clunker Saturday afternoon in a 15-9 loss to South Carolina in front of an announced crowd of 98,104. Many of those orange-clad fans made haste for the exits when the Gamecocks got a field goal with 1:13 to play for the final margin. Tennessee compounded the despair by reaching the 2-yard line in the waning seconds only to have consecutive passes fall incomplete.

Among the loyal supporters remaining until the bitter end was Larry Pratt, a major benefactor for the university's athletic department who has a building named after him adjacent to Thompson-Boling Arena. His $5 million donation helped fund construction of Pratt Pavilion, a state-of-the-art athletic complex that houses multiple basketball practice courts, team meeting rooms and offices.

Such generosity means Pratt, the president and chief executive of First Savings Mortgage, the Washington area's largest privately owned mortgage banker, has the ear of the decision-makers within the athletic department. He has gone on fishing trips with Athletic Director John Currie, who was hired in February and could be facing a decision on Jones's future at season's end, if not sooner.

"We expect to win here," Pratt said shortly after Tennessee (3-3 overall, 0-3 Southeastern Conference) dropped its third game out of four. "We expect to see competitive and improving teams, so it's disappointing that we lost. We've still got quite a few games to play this season and we'll see how it plays out."

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Currie has not commented publicly about the status of Jones, whose contract reportedly runs through 2020 at an annual salary of $4.1 million. Jones did reach nine victories in each of the past two seasons and has won three straight bowl games, but the bar measuring prosperity is far higher at one of the most storied programs in the tradition-rich SEC.

Winning the SEC East is, for instance, a priority, especially considering Alabama plays in the West, but Tennessee has not done so since Jones took over in 2013. Its best finish in that time has been second the past two years.

Tennessee has not finished first in the East since 2007, the penultimate season under Phillip Fulmer. The Volunteers' last national championship also came under Fulmer, in 1998.

The Volunteers are fifth out of seven schools in the East this season, with top-ranked Alabama next on the schedule, Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Tennessee has dropped 10 in a row to the heavily favored Crimson Tide and has not won in Tuscaloosa since 2003.

"Your character is being tested, competitive character," said Jones, who told a Nashville radio station last week that Currie has been supportive and that the two speak regularly. "We just have to get back to work."

Angst among the Volunteers faithful has escalated during the recent swoon. In recent weeks a car has been spotted with a checkerboard hood and side panels spray-painted with the words "Tennessee" in orange and "Fire Butch" in black.

This past weekend, bartenders at watering holes near Neyland Stadium, at the request of Gamecocks fans celebrating the win, donned South Carolina-colored T-shirts with white lettering that read, "Keep Butch Jones."

Discontent even spilled over to Tuesday's NHL game between the Colorado Avalanche and Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena, where several fans sitting near the ice held a "Fire Butch Jones" sign.

Privately, some of the athletic department's most influential donors continue to fume over the latest results, most notably a 41-0 loss to visiting Georgia on Sept. 30. It was the first time the Volunteers failed to score in a game since 1994 and their most lopsided loss at home since 1905.

The previous week, Tennessee barely survived, 17-13, against winless Massachusetts. Tennessee has not scored a touchdown — the point-after attempt being the traditional cue for the band to play "Rocky Top" — since the second quarter of that home game, a span of 10 quarters.

The Volunteers failed to score a point in the second half against South Carolina, compelling one reporter to inquire about the team's dearth of production coming out of its bye.

"Well, did we not play a good football team?" Jones replied somewhat testily. "Our kids, we got better. Unfortunately we came up short. We had an opportunity to win the football game, but [South Carolina is] a good football team."

Simply being competitive, however, isn't why Pratt and other major financial backers donated millions to upgrade the on-campus athletic facilities, including the 145,000-square-foot Anderson Training Center adjoining the Lawson Athletic Center, into among the most luxurious in the country.

Peyton Manning didn't provide funding for the exclusive meeting room bearing his name only to witness his beloved Volunteers get dismantled at the hands of the Bulldogs, certainly not on a day meant to celebrate his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame and that also featured visits from high-profile recruits.

Manning, who is a regular at Neyland Stadium on football Saturdays, did not attend this past weekend's game.

Jones "has us back where we have SEC talent, which we did not have before Butch arrived, so we've made a lot of improvements on many fronts, and I'm proud of what he's done," said Pratt, who counts Manning as a close friend. "We just need to start winning some, and it's disappointing when you don't."