The 2015 season began with so much promise for Tennessee heading into head coach Butch Jones’ third season on the sidelines. After destroying a solid Bowling Green team in Nashville to open the slate and taking an early 17-point lead over Oklahoma in Week 2, things were looking good.

Of course the Vols would choke away the lead against the Sooners, followed by an even more heart-wrenching fourth quarterback giveaway at Florida two weeks later. Tennessee returned home and lost against a 1-3 Arkansas team after taking another two touchdown lead early in that game.

At that point, Jones’ Rocky Top tenure appeared unlikely to ever reach the level of the hype the coach helped create in Knoxville.

According to GoVols247, Jones credits the aftermath of that game as the “turning point” from the 2015 season:

“Everyone says, ‘What was the turning point?’ The media asks me a lot of those questions,” Jones said to the crowd gathered for the latest Big Orange Caravan stop in Chattanooga. “Everyone wants to point towards Georgia, but I’m gonna point towards the Arkansas game. That was probably, for myself and our family and our football team, probably the hardest number of weeks I’ve ever had in my life.”

The Tennessee staff typically gives the players Sunday following gamedays off to rest and reflect, however Jones called a team meeting that Sunday night. Jones discussed what was expressed during that meeting and why he felt the need to break from tradition:

“And then I said, ‘The truth of the matter is … we’re a really good football team. And we just went through the most difficult schedule in college football. If we can stay afloat, if we can keep our leadership, if we can bond together, we’re gonna go on a run here, and we’re gonna like our body of work.’”

Following the Arkansas game, Jones credits his players with coming to practice with a new sense of urgency and focus. The results from the rest of the season show something certainly clicked for the team that week. The Vols finished the season 7-1 with their only loss coming at eventual national champion Alabama – and by only five points in an incredible hostile environment.

Jones claims “leadership was born” during that meeting and must believe the leaders of the team continue to carry that responsibility to this day, as Joshua Dobbs, Cam Sutton, Jalen Reeves-Maybin and Alvin Kamara were named permanent team captains during the 2016 Orange & White Game.

For the first time in the Butch Jones era, Tennessee has the necessary talent, depth and leadership coming into a season to compete for the league title – all and any of which could be argued to have been absent during his first three seasons with the school.

If Tennessee is capable of living up to their incredible hype this offseason, they’ll need all three areas to come through to accomplish their ultimate goal of winning the SEC title and ultimately land a spot in the 2016 College Football Playoff.