“The honeymoon for Butch Jones is over.”

Matt Hinton nails it:  Nathan Peterman’s passer rating against Florida was an almost unheard of 3.8 and he wasn’t made the starter for that game out of necessity.  No, somebody actually thought it was a good idea.

So a 3.8 is not even worth snapping the ball for. If Peterman had replaced his dozen pass attempts on Saturday with a dozen kneel-downs, at least the Volunteers would have been able to punt; instead, he committed three turnovers that led to Florida points before halftime. The worst part? Unlike virtually every other quarterback listed here, Peterman was not thrust into the lineup by injury or attrition: Coaches actually thought he gave Tennessee a better chance to win than the starter through the first three games, Justin Worley, and refused to concede otherwise until the damage was done.

The Vols have an easy mark in their next game, but October is a brutal month, with Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama filling the slate.  That means Jones will need three wins in November for his team to become bowl eligible.  And while it’s a kinder month, it’s still an all-SEC month, with Kentucky looking like the only gimme from here.

UT fans may be left with nothing to hang their hats on when the regular season ends except hoping for a good recruiting class.