Tennessee football: Vols’ second half attendance vs. UMass is embarrassing

Tennessee football had a bad turnout in the second half against the Massachusetts Minutemen Saturday. Volunteers fans made Neyland Stadium look empty.

Remember when Tennessee football fans would laugh at the Memphis Tigers for terrible attendance? Remember when Vols fans would brag about filling the stadium whenever they played Memphis or Vanderbilt on the road?

The tables may now have turned. On Saturday, in the second half against the UMass Minutemen, Tennessee didn’t have enough players to have a majority at either the Liberty Bowl or Vanderbilt Stadium.

It was that pathetically embarrassing. Take a look at it here.

Now you can blame Butch Jones, the administration, or anything else. But none of that makes sense.

Tennessee football’s season ticket sales were reminiscent of what the program had going on during the Phillip Fulmer peak days this summer.

We even wrote a post about it here back in July.

So you can’t blame Jones for some built-in apathy the way you could blame Derek Dooley. No, this is fans just quitting on the team.

And they deserved to be called out.

A heartbreaking loss to the Florida Gators three games into the season hurts. But it’s no reason to quit on the team. Tennessee football hasn’t lost anything this year yet.

Yes, Jones and the coaching staff deserve blame for that loss. Yes, this game was against UMass, a terrible team.

But looking like the Miami Hurricanes’ fan base is simply pathetic. Tennessee football fans like to sell the passion of their program.

Unless there was some organized protest against Jones and co., Vols fans should be ashamed. And they have no right to ever again laugh at Vanderbilt or Memphis when it comes to attendance. Because Saturday was just pathetic.