Alabama is coming off a big win over Georgia, and Tennessee is trying to bounce back from a blowout loss to Kentucky when the teams meet this week in Knoxville.
Alabama has won 13 straight over Tennessee.
Alabama coach Nick Saban shared several thoughts about the Vols and coach Jeremy Pruitt at his Monday press conference:
- “I think Tennessee has made progress. They’re playing with a lot of effort, toughness, they’re very well coached. When you turn the ball over it’s hard to overcome. That’s been their issue, it’s not the rest of their team or how they’re capable of playing.”
- “This Tennessee game is a big rivalry game, means a lot to a lot of people in the state of Alabama. Because it’s a rivalry game we’ll get the absolute best version of Tennessee’s team. Jeremy’s done a great job there in my opinion.”
- “They’ve played very, very well this year. Last week was a little bit of an anomaly, and again that same old word comes up, they turned the ball over. That made a huge difference in the game.”
- “They have some very capable players. I think they’ve got two really good running backs, their quarterback’s very athletic. They’ve got some good skill players outside, their defense is playing really well. They’ve got really good pass defense. Their defense is fourth or fifth in the league overall. … We’re going to see a good team. They play their best against us. They’ve beaten some good teams this year when they’ve played well and they’re very capable and I would expect that we’ll see that kind of effort from them this weekend.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
