9 seconds of heroics by Zabien Brown spark Alabama against arch-rival Tennessee
By David Wasson
Published:
The clock read 0:09. Tennessee had matriculated the football all the way down to the 1-yard line into the teeth of the Alabama defense and into the wide-open maw of the Alabama student section.
The clock read 0:09 in the second quarter, and the 11th-ranked Volunteers were literally on the doorstep of making Saturday night a nail-biter for the Crimson Tide inside their own home stadium.
The clock read 0:09 when Zabien Brown lined up across from the Tennessee offense, searching the eyes of Vols quarterback Joey Aguilar for a clue. And when Brown saw Tennessee tight end Miles Kitselman flash in front of him looking for the football, he knew exactly what was about to happen.
Brown stepped in front of Kitselman to both snatch Aguilar’s would-be touchdown pass at the 1 and race 99 yards in the opposite direction – away from what would have been a game-changing play for Tennessee and into all that green grass in front of him. By the time Brown pranced into that faraway end zone and into the epicenter of a sea of crimson-clad glee, the clock read 0:00 and 6th-ranked Alabama stunningly delivered a 14-point swing for a back-breaking 23-7 lead.
Game-defining plays come along only so often for defensive backs like Brown, but that is often how it works in rivalries like this Third Saturday in October. And when it was over, what began as a crisp fall evening in Tuscaloosa ended up in haze of smoke from thousands of celebratory cigars – both in the Bryant-Denny Stadium stands and in the Crimson Tide locker room.
Saturday’s 37-20 Alabama victory, a 6th-straight triumph after a season-opening setback against Florida State that seems like it happened eons ago, has the Tide primed to move back into the top 5 on Sunday. The victory also writ another chapter in crimson flame about a team – virtually written off on Aug. 30 – that took another step toward adding their names in granite on Alabama’s Walk of Champions.
Yes, Saturday’s victory counts exactly the same in the standings and record books as any of Alabama’s 5 previous wins this season. But anyone who has stepped foot on either campus in Tuscaloosa or Knoxville understands at a visceral level that the Tide-Vols winner each annum gets remembered way more than the team that beats the Kentuckys and Mississippi States of the conference.
Alabama’s second half didn’t see the same defensive fireworks that the Tide delivered in the first half – which also included harassing Aguilar so much that he uncorked an intentional grounding in the end zone for a safety – but it made up for it with a bruising style of offense fans had been begging for.
First, Heisman Trophy candidate Ty Simpson capped a 9-play, 99-yard drive (there’s that number again, numerology fans…) with an 11-yard touchdown pass to freshman Rico Scott late in the third quarter. And then, after Tennessee answered with a scoring march of its own, Alabama bruised and banged and leaned on a winded Volunteers defense all the way down the field leading to a 4-yard touchdown run from Daniel Hill.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your Zippos.
Alabama won’t get a chance to rattle off a 5th-straight victory against a ranked opponent, of course, because next week’s trip at South Carolina won’t feature a Top 25 Gamecocks unit. But there are still plenty of landmines ahead for Alabama. The annual slugfest against LSU looms large on Nov. 8, as does a dangerous Oklahoma unit on Nov. 15. And of course, anyone who was sparking up a Punch or an Arturo Fuente or a Cohiba on Saturday night knows what kind of oddities occur every time Alabama ventures near the west Georgia border to take on That Team Down The Road.
Still, this was the kind of complete performance that would have cracked a smile on the face of the originator of the Alabama cigar tradition. Coach Paul W. Bryant embraced the tradition even though each victory also delivered a minor NCAA violation for all that evil tobacco being gifted to precious student-athletes.
Because beating Tennessee to cap off Tennessee Hate Week is just about as good as it gets. The Iron Bowl is still the Iron Bowl, of course, and Auburn is still Auburn. But as Tide fans regaled each other deep into a smoke-infused Saturday night, they may hate Auburn because they have to – but they hate Tennessee because they want to.
That want-to resulted in an 11th-straight home victory against the Volunteers. That want-to is the result of playing to the triple 0s instead of just to the 0:09 mark – which Alabama did at the end, too, keeping the Vols out of the end zone in the game’s final embers. That want-to is what makes coeds willingly taste their first cigar and makes finely trained athletes spark up as well.
“I’m going to go light ’em up with my boys,” a grinning Simpson said, stogie in hand, after the game to ABC’s Molly McGrath. “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
