Tennessee Shows It's on the Right Track in Close Loss to Alabama

If you were to ask Tennessee head coach Butch Jones if he would have been happy to have the ball with 2:24 to play and two timeouts in hand at Alabama with a chance to win the game, he'd have probably taken it.

He would have shaken your hand, jumped for joy and belted out a couple verses of "Rocky Top," too.

That's exactly where he found himself on Saturday, but the strength of the Alabama defense shined through when it mattered most.

Jonathan Allen came barreling through the middle of the young Tennessee offensive line, which started two true freshmen, to sack quarterback Joshua Dobbs on the Vols' final drive of the game, putting the Vols behind the sticks.

Butch Dill/Associated Press/Associated Press

Then in an obvious passing down on 2nd-and-24 with 1:18 to play, Ryan Anderson came in hot off of the right side, sacked Dobbs, caused a fumble that A'Shawn Robinson recovered and closed the door on a classic showdown between two SEC rivals in Tuscaloosa.

Moral victory? Jones did his best to downplay the moral-victory talk after the game, according to Tennessee's official Twitter account.

"

JONES: Very, very proud of our players. We came up a little short, there are no moral victories. We expect to win at Tennessee.

— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) October 24, 2015"

Except the Vols have plenty to be proud of, and this was absolutely a moral victory.

This wasn't a case of Tennessee laying an egg against a team it had on the ropes. It was the one backing the opponent into a corner. 

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

The Vols went cruising down the field on a four-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that culminated with a 12-yard Jalen Hurd touchdown run with 5:49 to take a 14-13 lead and silence the crimson and white crowd.

Tennessee wasn't the bully in the game. In fact, that was the first lead Tennessee had held on the Crimson Tide since 2011. But it wasn't the overmatched lightweight either. For the first since the 2009 game in Tuscaloosa that ended with a blocked field goal by Alabama's Terrence Cody, Tennessee belonged.

As Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network noted on Twitter, it was equally as impressive for Tennessee as it was for Alabama, which was more than a two-touchdown favorite according to OddsShark.com.

It wasn't the second-straight signature win for Tennessee, which came back from a three-score deficit two weeks ago to stun Georgia. But it was validation.

Validation that Jones has this program going on the right track.

After all, the Vols could have packed it in and looked forward to the offseason after starting 2-3, losing two touchdown leads in all three losses and working through key injuries, including one to stud defensive end/linebacker Curt Maggitt, two key members of the secondary and several in the wide receiving corps.

They didn't.

They fought back when everybody counted them out against Georgia last time out, and then went toe-to-toe with Alabama—the gold standard of the SEC—in front of a hostile crowd.

It was no fluke that Tennessee gave Alabama a game. The Vols held the Crimson Tide offense to just 364 total yards on the night, just 2.8 yards per rush, and harassed quarterback Jake Coker early and often.

Butch Dill/Associated Press

We found out on Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa that there is such a thing as a moral victory.

Tennessee earned one against Alabama.

That's big moving forward.

While the SEC East is Florida's to lose, Jones and the Vols have learned valuable lessons during the first two months of the season. 

Jones learned not to coach scared after three horrible losses, Dobbs learned to trust himself in the passing game when he was forced to air things out down three touchdowns against Georgia and the entire program learned it can be a top-tier SEC program on Saturday afternoon.

The next step is becoming one of the first teams mentioned in that conversation.

That might not happen this year. With Kentucky, South Carolina, North Texas, Missouri and Vanderbilt left on the schedule, the Vols shouldn't lose another game before bowl season, nor should they be talked about all that much if they run the table.

They're on the right track, though.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Statistics are courtesy of cfbstats.com. 

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report, as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.