The Tennessee Vols are nowhere close to competing with Alabama or Georgia.

But they're not in the SEC basement anymore, either.

The Vols steamrolled Missouri on Saturday, beating the Tigers 62-24.

Tennessee knew going into the game that Mizzou's rushing defense was subpar. And the Vols exploited it.

UT rushed for an insane 452 yards in the win against Mizzou, including a 156 yard, three touchdown performance from running back Tiyon Evans.

Quarterback Hendon Hooker was 15-19 for 225 yards and three touchdowns.

While it's obvious that Missouri isn't a good team, this was still a massive win for the Vols.

If Georgia or Alabama had beat Missouri 62-24, most folks would say "ok that's what they are supposed to do against Mizzou".

Tennessee did what a good team is supposed to do on Saturday — they made quick work of a not-so-good SEC team on the road.

And it's not like Missouri is Vanderbilt level bad, either. The Tigers barely lost to Kentucky earlier this year. They beat Arkansas and LSU last season. They have some talent.

I think it's safe to say that Tennessee is progressing faster than we thought they would under Heupel.

And that's a great sign.

For far too long we've seen new coaches come to Tennessee and underwhelm in their first season. Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt both went 5-7 in their first season. And they both lost to Missouri (though to be fair, the 2013 Mizzou team that Jones lost to was really good).

Heupel is giving fans a reason to be excited. Despite an extreme lack of depth (and the loss of a lot of talent from last year's team), Tennessee is showing rapid improvement.

The Vols haven't scored 60 points in an SEC game since 2016. Pruitt's offenses never even came close to operating this efficiently. And Heupel is accomplishing this mostly with players he didn't recruit.

I don't know what Heupel's ceiling is at Tennessee. And I have no clue if he'll ever win the SEC East. But I feel confident in saying that UT — at worst — will consistently be a mid-tier SEC East team with Heupel at the helm.

I mean, it's entirely possible that Tennessee will finish third in the SEC East this year.

Who would've thought that would be possible just eight months ago?

Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK