Playing UMass this week in Neyland Stadium is the worst possible situation for Tennessee coach Butch Jones.

Well, the worst possible situation would be losing to a mediocre Florida team on the last play of the game after your offense squandered a multitude of opportunities to win. But now that that’s over with …

There’s no need to reiterate what happened against Florida. If you’re reading this, you already know. You’re tired of hearing about it. You still can’t believe Tennessee lost to a Florida team that looked that bad.

It is now gut-check time for Jones.

And that doesn’t mean the scenario is necessarily the same for the Volunteers’ football team. The team could probably use this week’s game against UMass to regain some confidence and get healthy before hosting Georgia on Sept. 30.

Also, forget attendance. Spirits are low at the moment, so there may only be 85,000 people at this game. But that’s not the problem for Jones.

The problem is that the Georgia game is beginning to look more and more like a must-win situation. That’s not to say he’ll be immediately fired if he loses it after a gutsy performance, but if coaching mistakes are as prevalent in that game as they were against Florida, he might be.

And even a “pretty loss” would then just lead to South Carolina becoming a must-win to keep his job, and so on.

Jones needs some momentum, and if Tennessee had the opportunity to take down Georgia this week, it would help him tremendously from a perception standpoint.

Folks, even the most negative of folks, would be looking forward to a home contest against the Bulldogs and would have already — somewhat — moved on from Florida (though they may never actually get over it … and for good reason, because that Gators team looked terrible).

Instead, all of this negative attention on Jones and his staff is just stewing. It’s like a big pot of chili that needs to simmer for a while before it can be eaten. You just added in the beans and you can’t immediately throw that slop right on top of the Fritos. Gotta let those spices soak in.

A hypothetical win over Georgia this week wouldn’t heal all wounds, of course. Tennessee likely needs to win the SEC East, or else fans are going to continue to want Jones’ head. Many will want it regardless.

But at least an immediate win over a fringe-top-10 Georgia team would ease the pain. It would reduce the pressure, and make life a bit easier for Jones than the current scenario of fans having two weeks to be mad.

Tennessee fans couldn’t care less about this week’s game against UMass. They are concerned about one of two things — finding a way to salvage this down the stretch (one loss is still just one loss), or finding a new coach. It’s that latter part that should have Jones worried.

He desperately needs a key win, and the Minutemen — with all due respect — don’t provide that. The Vols can’t beat UMass by enough  points for it to matter. It could be 70-0 on Saturday and it still wouldn’t make a dent in the aching hearts of Tennessee fans.

Instead, that big batch of chili will just keep simmering.

That is, until it boils over.