Third Saturday in October: Us vs Y'all

A version of this has appeared in this space (almost) every year since this blog started publishing with its own domain in 2010. Enjoy.

Alabama plays Tennessee at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday, October 19, 2019.

This is one of the most intense and storied rivalries in SEC and college football history. For many Alabama fans, Tennessee is the program's most despised rival, even over that thing we have on the last regular season game of every year. For many Tennessee fans, this rivalry’s intensity exceeds the one they have with Florida.

On the field, Tennessee has beaten Alabama 37 times. No other team on the planet can claim 37 victories against Alabama.

Tennessee has 13 SEC Championships. No other school in the league is as close to Alabama’s 27.

Tennessee rightfully claims six National Championships. No other team in the SEC is as close as Alabama’s 17.

Beginning in 1995 with Peyton Manning as a sophomore leading the band in that absolutely awful Rocky Top song in Knoxville, Tennessee ran off a streak of seven straight victories in the series. No team in the SEC has ever beaten Alabama seven straight times and it may not ever happen again.

Alabama currently has the longest streak by either team, with 12 straight wins. There are 6th graders in Knoxville that have never seen Tennessee beat Alabama in their whole life, and their parents don't like that very much.

Alabama and Tennessee both have 12 shutouts in the series. No other team has ever kept Alabama scoreless 12 times.

These are the two marquee programs of SEC Football lore. These are the two flagships. Florida may have more fans and more TV viewers. Georgia, too. But no two programs have done more on the field than Alabama and Tennessee.

Nobody.

No two programs can claim head coaching legends like Paul W. Bryant and General Robert Neyland.

Neyland said: “You never know what a football player is made of until he plays against Alabama.” Bryant said: “Yeah, Auburn’s got a pretty good team but Tennessee is the one you gotta look out for.”

It’s 11 decades of college football at its finest and most intense.

Early in the series and up until the advent of televised football games, both teams wore their home colors. Tennessee in their bright Orange; Alabama in their deep Crimson. What better symbol of Autumn could there be than seeing these two line up against each other in colors like that?

One of my earliest football memories was listening to the 1972 game on the patio with my father. Bama was down 10-3 late in the fourth quarter due to a very stout Tennessee defense. But the Tide somehow managed to score two touchdowns in under two minutes and pulled out a 17-10 victory. Bama play-by-play announcer John Forney was nearly unintelligible as the final seconds ran off the clock, but my father’s grin as he pulled out the Victory Cigar was all I needed to be told—beating Tennessee is special.

It’s the Third Saturday in October.

It’s Us vs Y’all.

Tennessee Sucks so bad, ESPN almost didn't want the TSIO game

You know an SEC football game is gonna be bad television when ESPN has to decide whether it wants to broadcast it or let the SEC Network deal with awful ratings.

Alabama will host the Tennessee Vols on Oct 19 at 7:00pm CDT. It's prime time, yes. But ESPN rarely puts SEC matchups in that slot, usually choosing to take mid-major and/or direction school games instead. It means that the game will certainly go well past midnight in the Eastern time zone.

This is happening because Tennessee sucks.  The Vols haven't been competitive in the SEC or national title races since 2001 and haven't beaten Alabama on the field since 2006. They have never beaten Alabama under Nick Saban.

It didn't used to be that way. Tennessee used to be Bama's most potent rival and the traditional Third Saturday in October used to be the marquis game of the SEC regular schedule.

A win over a tough UT team used to mean something. Hell, a win over Alabama used to mean something to Tennessee. A win next Saturday night would probably mean a raise and a contract extension for current coach Jeremy Pruitt. That has about a 0.2% chance of happening because Alabama is gonna dog-slaughter'em. Again.

So, Bama fans. Get a nap on that Saturday afternoon and get ready to stay up late if you want to watch the 13th straight dog-whipping of Smoky & The Vawls.

Poor Jeremy Pruitt: Vols have the want to, but don’t have the can do

Expect Tennessee fans to be fired up when Alabama pays a visit to Neyland Stadium Saturday afternoon. Expect that moment of optimism to last until CBS’ first commercial break. The Vols have absolutely no chance of scoring another upset and claiming a win against the Tide.

There’s a bit of a creepy backstory to this year’s game. Phil Fulmer dragged himself out of retirement last summer as a “special assistant to the university President and immediately began his characteristic manipulations of the power structure. Surprising no one, he seized control of the UT Athletic Department last December. Reports have him literally breathing down Pruitt’s neck. He no doubt has had this date circled since seizing control of the  Alabama’s re-ascendance to the top of the College Football pantheon was an eventuality that Fulmer desperately sought to head off through his direct involvement with the Albert Means recruiting scandal in 2000.

It bears noting that Jeremy Pruitt is an Alabama grad. He played for Bama in 1995 and 1996, and learned the defensive side of the ball from legendary defensive coach Bill Oliver. He is also a disciple of Nick Saban’s 3-4 Over/Under defense, having coached under Saban off and on since 2010. He is widely regarded as one of the best defensive minds in college football and, if Fulmer will just gtf out of his way, he could reestablish Tennessee as an SEC and national powerhouse.

Enough backstory.

The Alabama offense leads the nation in almost every noteworthy category, and even at half-speed Tua Tagavailoa is too much for an already thin Tennessee defense that will come in shorthanded due to an injury and a forced suspension.

Expect Alabama to get back into the 50-point neighborhood.

Tennessee has a good quarterback itself in Jarrett Guarantano, and he has a group of receivers who could play for Bama on any given Saturday. What they lack are legitimate every down ball carriers and an offensive line for the kind of offense Jeremy Pruitt wants to run. Tennessee won’t run the ball well against Bama and a one dimensional offense spells a long afternoon against a big, deep and physical Tide defense.

Tennessee also has a decent defense, though it’s not built yet for a thoroughbred 3-4 O/U. They are too thin, undersized and still have a lot of learning to do. I expect the Vols to cede ground and stick to mostly nickel and dime zones to keep Tua from hitting deep balls. The hope is that they get a turnover or two, keep the crowd in the game and hope Alabama makes road mistakes.

So how did Tennessee go down to Auburn and spank the boogs? There is a strong sense that Pruitt quickly deciphered Auburn’s playbooks on both sides of the ball, and called the plays before Auburn even lined up. Attaboy, Jeremy. 

If there’s one weakness on the Alabama side, it’s… special teams. We suck at punting, field goals and extra points, and that’s probably not gonna get better anytime soon. While it could make a difference in post-season play, it can only be an annoyance this Third Saturday in October.

This is CBS’ Game of the Week, meaning that a national audience will get to see a systematic dismemberment of a young, thin and growing Tennessee squad. Alabama could name its score here, but Master Saban won’t thoroughly embarrass his promising Padawan.

Alabama 56, Tennessee 6

Tennessee Week: Us vs Y’all

Here we go again. This time, the calendar is right.

Alabama plays Tennessee at Neyland Stadium on Saturday, 20 October 2018.

This is absolutely one of the most intense and storied rivalries in SEC and college football history. For many Alabama fans, Tennessee is the most despised rival, even over that thing we have on the last regular season game of every year. For many Tennessee fans, this rivalry’s intensity exceeds the one they have with Florida.

On the field, Tennessee has beaten Alabama 37 times. No other team on the planet can claim 37 victories against Alabama.

Tennessee has 13 SEC Championships. No other school in the league is as close to Alabama’s 25.

Beginning in 1995 with Peyton Manning as a sophomore leading the band in that absolutely awful Rocky Top song in Knoxville, Tennessee ran off a streak of seven straight victories in the series. No team in the SEC has ever beaten Alabama seven straight times and it may not ever happen again. Tennessee rightfully claims six National Championships. No other team in the SEC is as close as Alabama’s 16.

These are the two marquee programs of SEC Football lore. These are the two flagships. Florida may have more fans and more TV viewers. Georgia, too. But no two programs have done more on the field than Alabama and Tennessee. Nobody. No two programs can claim head coaching legends like Paul W. Bryant and General Robert Neyland.

Neyland said: “You never know what a football player is made of until he plays against Alabama.”

Bryant said: “Yeah, Auburn’s got a pretty good team but Tennessee is the one you gotta look out for.”

It’s 11 decades of college football at its finest and most intense.

Early in the series and up until the advent of televised football games, both teams wore their home colors. Tennessee in their bright Orange; Alabama in their deep Crimson. What better symbol of Autumn could there be than seeing these two line up against each other like that?

One of my earliest football memories was listening to the 1972 game on the patio with my father. Bama was down 10-3 late in the fourth quarter due to a very stout Tennessee defense. But the Tide somehow managed to score two touchdowns in under two minutes and pulled out a 17-10 victory. Bama play-by-play announcer John Forney was nearly unintelligible as the final seconds ran off the clock, but my father’s grin as he pulled out the Victory Cigar was all I needed to be told—beating Tennessee is special.

It’s the Third Saturday in October.

It’s Us vs Y’all.

Us vs Y’all: The Third Saturday in October

Here we go again. This time, the calendar is right.

Alabama plays Tennessee at Neyland Stadium on Saturday, 15 October 2016.

This is absolutely one of the most intense and storied rivalries in SEC and college football history. For many Alabama fans, Tennessee is the most despised rival, even over that thing we have on the last regular season game of every year. For many Tennessee fans, this rivalry’s intensity exceeds the one they have with Florida.

On the field, Tennessee has beaten Alabama 37 times. No other team on the planet can claim 37 victories against Alabama. Tennessee has 13 SEC Championships. No other school in the league is as close to Alabama’s 24.

Beginning in 1995 with Peyton Manning as a sophomore in Knoxville, Tennessee ran off a streak of seven straight victories. No team in the SEC has ever beaten Alabama seven straight times and it may not ever happen again. Tennessee rightfully claims six National Championships. No other team in the SEC is as close as Alabama’s 15.

These are the two marquee programs of SEC Football lore. These are the two flagships. Florida may have more fans and more TV viewers. Georgia, too. But no two programs have done more on the field than Alabama and Tennessee. Nobody. No two programs can claim head coaching legends like Paul W. Bryant and General Robert Neyland. It’s 11 decades of college football at it’s finest and most intense.

One of my earliest football memories was listening to the 1972 game on the patio with my father. Bama was down 10-3 late in the fourth quarter due to a very stout Tennessee defense. But the Tide somehow managed to score two touchdowns in under two minutes and pulled out a 17-10 victory. Bama play-by-play announcer John Forney was nearly unintelligible as the final seconds ran off the clock, but my father’s grin, as he pulled out the Victory Cigar, was all I needed to be told—beating Tennessee is huge.

It’s the Third Saturday in October and this year the calendar is right.

It’s Us vs Y’all.

Phillip Fulmer approves this message

From al.com’s Matt Scalici:

"I say it all the time. Nasty, attitude, get after it. Do something crazy," Ainge said. "The first time AJ McCarron drops back, tell one of your boys you've got fifteen on this one. He's got a sore knee, go step on it.”

…

"If we try to play straight up with these guys and just run our stuff and they run their stuff, and we're just going to try to play with them, I don't think we're going to beat these guys. We're going to have to do something out of the norm. Whether it's from an attitude standpoint, a gameplan standpoint, or bending the rules a little bit. We're going to have to do something that makes them say 'Woah, this isn't how teams play us. Why aren't these guys scared? Everyone's supposed to be afraid of us.”

Bama grad from “I hate Tennessee” video still hates Tennessee

Another gem from al.com’s Matt Scalici:

"I grew up rooting for Auburn and against Alabama. I came to Alabama and the Tennessee thing just kind of made sense because I couldn't bring myself to hate Auburn right away. Also though, Auburn got their brains beat out in the SEC Championship in 1997 by Peyton Manning and that always bothered me. When I got to Alabama and heard some of the stories about Phillip Fulmer and what he tried to do to Alabama, I just really started to build up a good hate for them."

Carney hasn't been back to see an Alabama-Tennessee game in person since that 2007 game but says he remains an avid Alabama football fan and has enjoyed watching the Tide stack up five straight victories against the Vols.

"Oh I still hate Tennessee for sure, especially that soft, pale orange. I want them to lose every game from here to the next century. The thing about Alabama that differentiates us from everyone else is that we're never satisfied. I love watching Tennessee lose and if we beat them by 50 points, it still won't be enough for me."

Mash it.

A couple of quick hits:

YouTube was still in a relative stage of infancy when the now-famous video was uploaded, and neither Facebook nor Twitter were even on the landscape yet. So the fact that this thing caught on so quickly was due to the original social media of the internet—message boards.

Another thing to keep in mind—Tennessee was still coached by Phil Fulmer, and in 2007, concrete evidence and details were emerging that fully framed Fulmer’s involvement in the Tide’s NCAA case over the recruitment of Albert Means. The hate flowed in ways that would make Emperor Palpatine cackle in delight.

Here’s the original video, just for the same of posterity and what not.

 

Us against Y’all: Third Saturday in October

A lot of college football fans outside of the SEC scratch their heads and wonder why Alabama vs. Tennessee on the Third Fourth Saturday in October is taken so seriously by Crimson Tide and Volunteer faithful.

After all, Alabama has the annual Iron Bowl clash with Auburn as its season ending finale, right? Isn’t that the fiercest rivalry in the league, if not the country?

Maybe, but Alabama vs. Tennessee is the annual Clash of the Titans in SEC football lore. One of my earliest football memories was listening to the 1972 game on the patio with my father. Bama was down 10-3 late in the fourth quarter due to a very stout Tennessee defense. But the Tide somehow managed to score two touchdowns in under two minutes and pulled out a 17-10 victory. Bama play-by-play announcer John Forney was nearly unintelligible as the final seconds ran off the clock, but my father’s grin as he pulled out the Victory Cigar was all I needed to be told—beating Tennessee is huge.

Tennessee has beaten Alabama 38 times. No other school in the country has beaten Alabama 38 times. Tennessee has 13 SEC Championships. No other school in the league is as close to Alabama’s 22. Beginning in 1995 with Peyton Manning as a sophomore in Knoxville, Tennessee ran off a streak of seven straight victories. No team in the SEC has ever beaten Alabama seven straight times and it may not ever happen again. Tennessee rightfully claims six National Championships. No other team in the SEC is as close as Alabama’s 13.

The games have meant more than any other matchup in the league because so many of these games have determined the SEC Championship, Sugar Bowl berths and whether either of the two would be in the National Championship race. Ten years before Alabama’s 2009 Return to Glory, Alabama won its 21st SEC Championship. Its only SEC loss that season was to Tennessee. During that 2009 run a decade later, Tennessee again tried to blemish Bama’s SEC title run and it took two blocked field goals from Terrence Cody to seal the 12-10 victory.

The average score in the series is Alabama 16, Tennessee 13.

These are the two marquee programs of SEC Football lore. These are the two flagships. Florida may have more fans and more TV viewers. Georgia, too. But no two programs have done more on the field than Alabama and Tennessee. Nobody. No two programs can claim head coaching legends like Paul W. Bryant and General Robert Neyland. It’s 110 years of college football at it’s finest and most intense.

It’s the Third Saturday in October even if the calendar is wrong. It’s Us vs. Y’all.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.