Rick Neuheisel stopped by “The Dan Patrick Show” on Monday to discuss the Alabama-Tennessee game with fill-in host Ross Tucker.

Neuheisel questioned Nick Saban’s end-game strategy against Tennessee even though he described the Alabama coach as one of the great tacticians in college football.

“Not only does he recruit the best talent, but he manages games extremely well,” Neuheisel said. “You have to run the ball at the end of that game. You have to run the ball and not only try to get a few more yards for your kicker, you have to make Tennessee use their timeouts. Without those timeouts, Tennessee can’t get themselves back into field goal range.”

Neuheisel said Alabama could have eliminated Tennessee’s 2 timeouts, which the Vols needed with 15 seconds remaining.

Tucker then turned the conversation to Tennessee, and whether the Vols are actually back as a contender in college football, which he called a top 10 blue-blood program for years.

“It will all be reliant on the success of their quarterback in the Josh Heupel system,” Neuheisel said. “… When you spread people out, you can basically pick your poison as to how you’re going to play them. If they go out and spread with us, we have a running game inside, including with the quarterback run. … The offense works as long as you have a trigger man. I kind of liken this team now to what we saw in 2019 with (Joe) Burrow and company. Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, this receiving corps, and remember Cedric Tillman’s not available, he wasn’t available this game. … This is a really potent offense.”