Monday’s revelations were alarming in every way.

They were startling, stunning and telling.

And they were a foreshadowing for what happened on Saturday in Knoxville.

Nick Saban revealed during his Monday press conference that he noticed something different about his players before kickoff against Tennessee, before the biggest game of the season to date between the then-No. 3 and No. 6 teams in the country.

And even more telling, his all-world linebacker, Will Anderson Jr., noticed it, too.

Head coach and star player didn’t see the energy that is normally there before a big game — before any game for that matter — and that’s just mystifying for a program that plays this many big games every year, that prides itself on being ready for every single game.

It’s weird. It’s confusing. And it’s frustrating for a program that is always ready for the exact moments that it apparently wasn’t ready for as it got set to play in front of 102,000 fans at Neyland Stadium, on national television.

But it happened, all of it. And the uneasy feelings were so real that a guy like Saban, who usually wouldn’t reveal something like this, did.

And then Anderson did, too.

That’s how much this apparent lack of great fire and energy permeated the locker room. And there was more from Saban.

He also revealed on Monday that his players weren’t their normally loose selves as they came out of the locker room. Again, it’s all so confusing and stunning. But it also explains a lot about how Alabama played once it got out on the field.

It explains how the Crimson Tide, hardly a perfect team in 2022 but still a pretty darn good one, let all these strange and disappointing things happen within 1 afternoon of football:

• The school-record 17 penalties.

• The 52 points allowed, the most given up by an Alabama team in 115 years of football, and that’s a whole lot of Saturdays.

• The 0 quarterback hurries on a day when Hendon Hooker needed to be hurried and wasn’t, not even once.

• Letting 1 receiver — a very good receiver, mind you — but letting 1 receiver, Jalin Hyatt, beat them for 5 touchdown catches on a day when he caught only 6 passes and during a season when he had only 5 touchdown catches coming in. Suddenly, he matches that total in 1 bolt-of-lightning afternoon against a defense with all the talent that Bama possesses?

• The forgettable 1st quarter, when the Volunteers became the 1st team to score 21 or more points against the Tide in a quarter since 2019, when eventual national champion LSU scored 23 in the 2nd quarter of its 46-41 victory in Tuscaloosa.

• Allowing The Streak to end in Knoxville, its proud streak of 15 straight wins over the Vols, on a day when it put up 49 points, on a day Bryce Young returned from his sprained right shoulder, threw for 455 yards and didn’t throw an interception.

All of these troubling things added up to 1 giant loss and 1 Neyland Stadium field taken over by Tennessee fans, ripped-down goalposts and all.

And Saban and Anderson’s intuitions about how Alabama’s players looked before kickoff added up, too. They saw it. And, worse, they didn’t see it — the energy, the intensity, the confidence that this was going to be their day and not Tennesee’s, that The Streak was going to endure at least 1 more arduous afternoon in Knoxville, Tennessee.

There was no energy, apparently. They were not loose, apparently. And the worst part about it is that it’s not speculation from someone on the outside looking in. Rather, it was coming straight from Saban. And all the negative feelings and energy must’ve been so overwhelming that Saban felt the need to reveal it at his Monday press conference.

He didn’t feel like hiding it all, when he easily could have. He could’ve addressed it with his team after the game and/or this week but kept it private. But he chose to go public with it all, and that tells you that it was all probably worse than what he was even letting on to the media.

“I thought we were tight, especially starting the game,” Saban said. “Coming out of the locker room, our players always chant. They weren’t chanting. I said, ‘Why aren’t you guys chanting? What’s up with that?'”

Lack of energy is revealing and telling enough. But then Anderson brought up another word — anxiety. Bama’s players were anxious, for some reason, when they would usually be raring to go break hearts in the kind of hostile environment that they all look forward to playing in front of when they sign letters of intent at Alabama. Once again, weird and confusing, even for human beings who are supposed to have faults and make mistakes and be less than perfect.

No, these aren’t robots wearing crimson and white every Saturday. But they are Alabama football players, and that’s supposed to count for something strong and sturdy. Last Saturday, it did not, and it led to what everyone saw out there against the hungrier, more confident Vols.

“Yeah, I think we just had a lot of anxiety … the intensity wasn’t where it needed to be,” Anderson said.

Wow.

It’s incredible that it happened and, again, more telling that Anderson told the world about it, along with his normally tight-lipped head coach. Yeah, it was that real and raw. An Alabama team wasn’t quite ready to play its biggest game of the season, and it paid for it dearly in that opening quarter.

And although it spent the rest of the afternoon rallying and even taking the lead on Tennessee, that 1st quarter, after which Bama trailed 21-7, ultimately cost the Tide the game.

Lack of intensity. Lack of energy. Being tight and then playing tight.

But that wasn’t all.

Saban also detected that his players were worrying a little too much about everything on Saturday instead of just going out and being Alabama. According to Saban, they were worrying about the outcome.

Maybe the pressure of The Streak had gotten to them? Maybe it was just Saturday’s high-stakes moment that got the best of them, which never should happen, especially at Alabama. But it also shows that ultimately, these guys are human, even if they are wearing Alabama jerseys and everybody thinks they are supposed to be superhuman every Saturday.

Saban wants his players to enjoy competing more and not worry about what happens on the scoreboard.

“Not looking at the scoreboard, not worrying about results, not being fearful of what’s going to happen if something bad happens, or if we lose the game,” Saban said Monday. “Just go play.”

Bama’s players emerged from that Neyland Stadium tunnel on Saturday, low energy, low intensity and all. They went out and played. And they got steamrolled in that 1st quarter. It was all so confusing and infuriating for Saban, the team and its legion of fans who expect the best.

But, oh, was it all so real. And it was real enough that Saban stepped to the microphone on Monday and spilled the beans. He didn’t feel the need to hold back, to conceal it, like he usually would with something as shocking as this. It was all so stunning, but in a weird way, the weirdness of what happened on Saturday at Neyland and then on Monday at that press conference was refreshingly human.

It was refreshing in that it was so darned revealing. It told everyone that you don’t have to be a 9-year-old Little League baseball player to feel tense. That you can be a 20-year-old Alabama football player, with helmet and pads and snarl, and still feel that tension, for whatever reason Alabama players were feeling that tension before Saturday’s game.

So now we have an explanation, because Saban felt the want and need to explain on Monday. He probably didn’t reveal quite everything, but Monday’s revelations were plenty enough. They revealed plenty. And explained a lot.

It probably won’t make Terry from Tuscaloosa feel much better about what happened on Saturday. But it should give him and everyone else a dose of reality about the human nature of football, even at Alabama, where intensity and energy are supposed to be automatic and fear and worry aren’t supposed to show up on the radar.

On Saturday before the game, it was all out in the open for Saban and Anderson to see.

And on Monday, they opened up.

This Saturday night before facing Mississippi State, in the bowels of Bryant-Denny Stadium, it will be that much more revealing to see if the chanting resumes.