COLUMBIA, Mo. – In the 2001 SEC Championship game, LSU redshirt freshman quarterback Matt Mauck entered for injured starter Rohan Davey and completed less than half of his passes against UT.

But Mauck ran wild and found the end zone twice with his legs while leading his team to 31 points against the Vols.

Thanks to Mauck, LSU defeated Tennessee 31-20 that night and knocked Phillip Fulmer’s squad out of the BCS Championship game.

That championship-crushing defeat stands as UT’s high water mark in the years passed since the increasingly distancing 1998 National Championship season.

Things have gotten progressively worse for the Vols since that night, almost as if that average backup quarterback for a yellow SEC team called the Tigers put a curse on them.

There have been no more near-national title appearances; instead, a steady tapering off of previously sustained success, culminating with three consecutive losing seasons under Derek Dooley from 2010-12.

Now Butch Jones is on the sidelines at UT trying to clean up the mess that Mauck started with his legs all those years ago.

But if Jones is to exorcise that demon, it will have to wait at least another year.

In eerily ironic fashion, a redshirt freshman quarterback named Maty Mauk completed less than 50 percent of his passes and helped his team put up 31 points against UT on Saturday as Missouri trounced the Vols 31-3.

And like the man with a similar name did 12 years ago, Mauk only played because of an injury to the quarterback ahead of him.

The similarity was no more evident – if not creepy – than on any of Mauk’s 13 rushes that totaled 114 yards. He led Missouri to victory and proved UT remains a product of its past in spite of concentrated efforts to erase it.

On Saturday, the Vols allowed 502 total yards, which is 48 more than they did in 2012 when the worst UT defense in recent memory played Missouri.

So Jones challenged his seniors after the game “to be different” and show resiliency. After all, the goal of a bowl game is still alive.

No, there was no symbolic snapping of the Matt Mauck curse. No, the Vols didn’t take what Jones described as “the next step” and win a road game.

But unless that curse was rejuvenated by Missouri’s Mauk, UT should make a bowl.

Games against Vanderbilt and Kentucky wait at the end of the schedule as games the Vols will be favored to win.

First is a Saturday date at Neyland Stadium with the No. 7 Auburn Tigers whose running quarterback should make those contests against the Commodores and Wildcats must-win games.

There’s no denying adjustments are necessary after what Mauk did. The question for the Vols is simple: Will they heed Jones’ plea and be different than the teams before them coached by Dooley?

Auburn is not an ideal opponent for a team coming off consecutive SEC beatings, but at least the Tigers’ quarterback is named Nick Marshall and not Matthew Mawk.

David Cobb is a junior in journalism & electronic media. He can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @DavidWCobb.