Diego Pavia has Tennessee fans in their feelings - and not the good ones

Diego Pavia may be a special player for the Vanderbilt Commodores, but the Tennessee Volunteers' defense was nothing but a bunch of sad boys during their huge rivalry game. The Vols may have had the upper hand in this rivalry series, but Vanderbilt was thinking all about the College Football Playoff. Pavia may have a seat at the Heisman Trophy ceremony, but Tim Banks may be out of a job here soon.

Pavia completed 18-of-28 passes for 268 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, to go along with 20 carries on the ground for 165 yards and an additional scamper to pay dirt. Tennessee won the turnover battle, but got its teeth kicked in at home during rivalry week. Clearly, Vol Nation is not the least bit thrilled about it. Vanderbilt won the game by the final score of 45-24 to end up at 10-2 (6-2).

This was every bit an up-and-down year for Tennessee, but Vol Nation is beside itself over this loss.

Tennessee Volunteers fans cannot believe what Diego Pavia did to them

For as great as Banks was calling the defense a year ago, he has been anything but that for the Vols.

This is a huge consequence of Josh Heupel running a gimmicky Air Raid offense opposite of that.

For years, Tennessee owned Vanderbilt in this rivalry series, but that is no longer the case here...

While Vanderbilt is thinking about the playoff, Tennessee fans better get ready for the Gator Bowl...

Diego Pavia's big day has Tennessee fans reaching a critical point already

As stated above, this offseason needs to be one where the Volunteers find a way to get tougher. They can score a lot of points, but they give them up in bunches, too. Although Heupel has brought this program back to relevancy in some capacities, he may have hit his ceiling as a head coach. Whenever Tennessee has to go up against a physical and well-coached team, the Vols will almost always lose it.

Moving on from Banks may make fans feel better and be able to sleep at night, but this is a Heupel issue. Any team, that runs with any sort of a imposing ground game has this Volunteers' defense playing on its heels, especially in the second half. It is a problem with the offense as much as it is the defense. If you do not inflict pain on the opposing defense early, it could bring the pressure later on.

But perhaps this tweet best encapsulates what the problem really is plaguing the Volunteers of late...

Simply put, if the Volunteers want to compete at the highest level in the SEC, then they need a head coach and staff worthy of competing at the highest level in the SEC. There are levels to this, but Heupel, Banks and whomever you want to throw blame at is no longer up to standard. After this hellacious beatdown at the hands of Vanderbilt, Danny White has some big decisions to make here...

Then again, maybe he is not going to be the one to make them after what we just saw from Neyland.