Wasson: Cigars and fireworks signal Tennessee solving Alabama in an ugly masterpiece
Some college football games are artistic beauties, back-and-forth battles between talented offenses and tenacious defenses that have stories told about them passed down from generation to generation.
Then there are college football games like Saturday’s Third Saturday in October matchup between No. 7 Alabama and No. 11 Tennessee. Precisely no one will be painting commemorative pictures in the wake of this one. But scoreboards don’t always require artwork, and the resulting 24-17 victory by the Volunteers in the 107th edition of this rivalry falls squarely into the “any win is a great one” category.
That result, combined with the tremendous amount of cigar smoke wafting above Neyland Stadium coming from the home team’s orange-bathed fans, signaled an official end of the Alabama dynasty.
What it also signaled is that Josh Heupel’s Volunteers bunch is still very much in the national title picture, still battling in an Southeastern Conference that is as unrelenting as it is electric.
Tennessee kept its cool down the stretch, executing on both sides of the football precisely as Alabama was burning through its composure. Tennessee’s offense, led by talented-if-young quarterback Nico Iamaleava, righted what was an abysmal first-half effort and engineered 3 poised touchdown drives. And for Alabama, Kendrick Law’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty turned into a 4th-and-22 prayer that went answered – the Tide emptying the clip into their own foot for a final time on a Saturday to forget.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer will face plenty of questions about his squad’s anemic offense, all of them deserved. Jalen Milroe has digressed to the point that any remaining Heisman Trophy conversation dissolved the nanosecond he flicked a spiral directly into the midsection of Vols defensive back Will Brooks with 1:24 to play.
The Crimson Tide showed ominous signs early that it wasn’t going to be their night, and each one breathed new life into a Tennessee team that hadn’t shown much of it in the recent past. Alabama’s defense was relentless early, forcing Iamaleava into uncorking an interception and then luring 1-play replacement Gaston Moore into another pick.
But time and again, Alabama couldn’t capitalize on the gifts. The Tide’s only points of the first half were delivered by transcendent freshman Ryan Williams – a juggling TD catch to cap a lengthy drive that was born off a missed Vols field goal.
Tennessee scored as many points in the first half Saturday as it had the past 2 first halves of football, which is precisely nil – the first time the Vols had managed that level of offensive ineptitude since 1963. It is worth noting how difficult it is to win SEC games when you can’t change a scoreboard off 0 in 30 minutes of football, regardless of how many times your opponent fails to capitalize on your own miscues.
In addition to giving the football to the Tide 3 times via turnovers in the first 30, Tennessee also whiffed on 2 field-goal attempts – the second of which drew more than a smattering of boos from the faithful who get their corn from a jar.
Much credit for Alabama’s first-half defensive bagel should go to defensive coordinator Kane Wommack, who has taken more lip from the Tide fan base over the past couple weeks. Losing to Vanderbilt and barely escaping South Carolina will earn you that kind of enmity from your own faithful. But Wommack dialed up all kinds of confusion in Iamaleava’s face and kept Tennessee off balance throughout.
Which is a good thing, too, as the Tide offense wasn’t exactly clicking on all cylinders – unless said offense was engineered to play Saturday with only 2.5 cylinders to start with. Milroe looked Williams’ way 12 times in the first 30 minutes – which is 1 more pass attempt than the rest of his Tide receivers saw in the same time frame. And the running game was largely absent, gaining just 14 yards against a salty Tennessee defense bent to bottle up the Tide.
Whatever Tennessee talked about at intermission about its offensive ineptitude, it appeared to revolve around feeding running back Dylan Sampson. That strategy worked – as the Vols cracked the code midway through the third quarter when Sampson chewed up 53 yards by himself over a 91-yard scoring drive to knot it at 7.
Sampson’s second score late in the third quarter made it 14-10 and portended more doom for the Tide, as he was en route to a 139-yard rushing effort. Brick by steady brick, Tennessee was erecting the kind of confident wall in the face of a one-dimensional Alabama offense that had basically abandoned the run.
By the time it was all said and done on this oft-ugly Saturday afternoon – Heupel’s Vols arranging in the Victory formation and underclassmen struggling with smuggled matchbooks and Zippos in the stands — one point above all others became alarmingly clear.
Yes, Neyland fireworks lit up the night sky and Rocky Top blared over and and over and over again to celebrate another chapter in this Third Saturday in October rivalry. But if you listened closely, you could also hear a million Joe Barstools across the country turned to the guy two chairs down and spoke the words all of college football longed to hear …
“Alabama is dead.”
As they said when I was in basic training:
“If you got’m, smoke’m’
It’s a good night to be Vol.
“Alabama is dead.”
Roll Turds Roll!
This just in; Alabama will not elect anyone as permanent co-captains as there’s no leadership to be found.
Sounds like something Biden and Harris would do
There is no leadership there either.
Right now dumb dumb Milroe and the one truck pony receiver are slow dancing to “I will always love you” by Whitney.
Trick
Truck Pony should be the name of a band.
Alot of mobile homes and sisters are getting beat up right now in Bama
Maybe they’ll try to bulldoze the Rock since we don’t have trees to poison. Actually, they might try to poison a rock
Great win. Now we can see if UT or Vandy is the best team in the state of Tennessee and Alabama
It’s over Bama. Even Vandy has moved past yall. It’s yall, Kentucky, Miss State.
Perfect, kids football heros with tobacco turds in their mouths!
Dude, go celebrate your come from behind victory over Auburn. Tradition is something a Missouri fan would not understand.
Well, see you in Athens lol
The worst discipline in an Alabama squad (can’t even use team) that I’ve ever seen. Also been many years since we’ve seen coaching this bad.
But you have the tiebreaker lol
Have a seat . I’ll guide you through the hellish future that aways your fanbase . These burns on my face aren’t from a grease fire bud.
awaits :/
Can we at least mention Dylan Sampson in some Heisman talks? He’s got 17 TDS and over 800 yards rushing both best in the SEC.
Definitely a Doak Walker finalist, he’s got my vote
I keep telling myself our QB will finally figure it out. I keep saying our offense can’t stay this bad all season
Our defense is elite
Am I asking for too much?
You might be asking too much. This offense goes through Sampson and the running game. Nico just needs to manage the game plan and cut down on errors, although that was a great throw and catch for the TD.
Nice. A 7 million dollar game manager.
I beleive it is $8M
No you aren’t. But I hope you really mean our passing game. The running game is pretty solid.
I will take this opportunity to say that I finally will agree that our defense is elite. The secondary is very much improved and they still have much room for improvement, but regardless of the quality of the offenses we have faced, our defense has bailed out our offense time and again.
I don’t know. I still have hopes that Nico will develop into a superstar QB in this league, but man, he is insanely inaccurate right now. He missed several wide open receivers really bad last night. Like, he made Joe Milton’s overthrows look good. Then, when he actually does throw an accurate ball, the receivers drop it. I don’t get it. There are no words for how bad the passing game is. If it was just average, they would be undefeated given the defense and running game they have. Something has to click soon for Nico. I have faith that it will eventually, but wow is he going through some growing pains.
What I do know is that there should be absolutely NO clambering for Nico to be benched. Good Lord, Gaston Moore……at least he had a good completion percentage last night…..one pass, one completion to Alabama.
Bama has two losses and apparently the sky is falling. New coach, new scheme, and new culture. The other factor (which was largely responsible for Saban’s retirement) is NIL and the portal. I think upsets and leveling the field is going to be the norm rather than the exception. Vandy is where they are because of the portal and I am sure NIL.
It’s not losses as much as it is the behavior in those losses. There is a distinct difference.
The dynasty is officially dead.
Nice job winning the whole cares bowl.Vols lol.
Solid game to decide who is the king of the SEC mid teams
Congrats to the Volunteers and even to the real Bama fans. Glass half-full for you guys– a lot of the fake fans will be moving on to a new favorite team they will claim to be “lifelong fans” of even though the tags are still dangling from their newly bought gear.
As for UT, great for you that you can keep winning, but Nico is not the answer. I’ve never seen someone miss so many wide open receivers. If he could throw the deepball you would be unstoppable and hands down favorite to win the National Title.