Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel needs to be careful to avoid making the same mistake that former UT head coach Butch Jones once made while on Rocky Top.

After giving up 63 points to the South Carolina Gamecocks last week, some fans/media analysts feel like the Vols might need to replace defensive coordinator Tim Banks.

Tennessee's defense has been up and down all year, but the performance against South Carolina was by far the worst we've seen this season.

Does that mean that Banks needs to go?

I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. Before the game against South Carolina, I thought Banks had been doing a good job this year despite not having elite talent on the defensive side of the ball.

When it comes to the South Carolina game, it depends on where you place the blame. Did Banks make the right calls, or did the players just not execute?

Vols senior pass rusher Byron Young felt like Tennessee made the right calls, but they just didn't execute.

"I just felt like we didn't execute the calls the right way and do our assignments," said Young earlier this week. "We felt like we had the best call for (their plays), but we just didn't execute. We didn't make it happen. That's what happened."

The natural inclination after a bad defensive performance is to fire the defensive coordinator.

And maybe someone would do a better job than Banks. There's no way to know for sure.

But the idea that a change will automatically make the defense better is flawed.

We know this because of past decisions at Tennessee.

In 2015, the Vols had the No. 17 scoring defense in the nation under defensive coordinator John Jancek. After the season, then-head coach Butch Jones decided that a change was needed.

Jones moved on from Jancek in favor of Penn State defensive coordinator Bob Shoop.

The move was wildly popular at the time. It was viewed as Tennessee making a "big-time hire".

And it completely backfired.

The Vols went from having the No. 17 scoring defense in 2015 under Jancek to the No. 70 scoring defense in 2016 under Shoop.

I'm not saying that Jones' decision to hire Shoop should scare Heupel away from making a move.

But I do think it should prevent Heupel from making a snap decision that could be detrimental to the program.

Heupel first needs to find out the reasoning for the Vols' defensive struggles. Is it technique? Is it a lack of talent? Or is Banks not putting the defense in the best calls?

The game against South Carolina, despite what Young said this week, looked like a mixture of both. It's hard to ask the secondary to have success when they're playing so far off the line of scrimmage on every play.

At the same time, the tackling was poor and the execution was certainly lacking.

Ultimately, Heupel has to decide what the problem with the defense was this season. If he doesn't think it was Banks, and instead it was just an all-around bad night for the program, then he shouldn't overreact to a poor showing in Columbia.

And if that's the case, fans are going to have to trust Heupel — they can look to 2016 as the reason why.

Sometimes the best moves are the moves you don't make.

Featured image via USA TODAY Sports