What to Expect in This Year’s 3rd Saturday in October Annual Fight

By: Larry Burton

First of all, let’s get something out of the way early, Tennessee will lose this game. That said, let’s examine why and what you should watch for.

Tennessee’s Gameplan –

So far this season Tennessee has dug itself a hole early in the game and had to rely on late game heroics to pull off a win. They could do that against lesser opponents, but Alabama is not a team that will wear down as the game goes on. They are just more physical, better and more plentiful.

Therefore Tennessee has to strike early before the Tide can start imposing their will on them. That will do two big things and not one. It will get the crowd rowdy and raucous and maybe gain momentum for Tennessee to play over their heads. What it will not do is shake the minds of the Crimson Tide players. They know it’s a four quarter game and they have superior athletes on both sides of the ball and that will show.

So Tennessee will run enough to keep the defense honest, but take deep shots early. They may even try a reverse or throw back on a kickoff to try and get a cheap score. Alabama’s proven to be vulnerable to the deep ball and they’ll try it early and often.

They know that it’s going to be a long day trying to get Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara past the line of scrimmage with the ball in their hands, but they can’t allow the Tide to keep them for being an asset, so you’ll see screens, jet sweeps and dump off passes to them. You’ll also see them and especially Kamara, move from running back to slot in shifts to try and gain a mismatch on a linebacker. That will work some, Karma is third on the team in receiving, but not enough. Alabama will be expecting this and will shift a good cover to Karma when he looks to move to a receiving mode.

On defense Tennessee is facing a double barrel shotgun and they can only hope to stop one barrel at a time. I think you can realize what will happen when you get shot a few times by one barrel of a shotgun.

For Alabama fans that think that with the injury and dismissal of Vol defensive tackle Danny O’Brien that they are without a capable player, they don’t know about Kahlil McKenzie and Shy Tuttle. Both are adequate replacements. The problem however will be their experience and the injuries the Vols on that side of the ball.

Recent injuries to  Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Cortz McDowell, Cameron Sutton, Quarte Sapp and Darrin Kirkland, Malik Foreman and Emmanuel Moseley also show a defense that is pretty beat up after last week. Though Foreman and Moseley both came to play some after getting injured last week, it’s really not known just how nicked up they’ll be on Saturday.

On the other side, only Alabama guard Alphonse Taylor could be banged up a bit.

So on defense Tennessee will try and stick their finger in the finger in the running game barrel and risk having a freshman quarterback beat them with his arm. With a 76% completion ration from last week and a bevy a very dangerous receivers, that is quite a gamble to take, but one they have to.

They know that if Alabama can establish the run, keep the Vol defense on the field too long and run the clock that they little chance of winning. It is not Nick Saban’s first choice to win a track meet and they know that. Saban would love a 17 point win more in a 23-6 game than by winning 48-31. Long chain moving drives that put seven on the board and nine minutes off the clock is what Tennessee will try and stop.

Alabama’s Gameplan – 

On offense, Saban will try and establish the run, putting in enough passing plays to keep them honest. He’ll start the game with very conservative, low risk passing plays and avoid the deep shots early to avoid an early turnover and some game changing momentum. He wants just what we talked about, some chain moving long drives that shows Tennessee early that they are going to be punched in the mouth all day long and there isn’t a darn thing they can do about it.

The first quarter will be an exercise in ball control and ball safety for the Tide. Don’t look for anything too flashy early on. Only if the try and stack the box too much and get the backs too close to the line will he turn the passing game loose.

Alabama knows that Tennessee is going to try and stop the run and the problem with that from the Vols perspective, is that Calvin Ridley, ArDarius Stewart and Robert Foster will eventually be in one on one matchups and that could prove be pretty disastrous for Tennessee.

Lastly, Saban isn’t like an old spinster who has really good silver tableware and doesn’t use it except on holidays. His philosophy is, if you’ve got it you use it, so in Alabama’s case, if you have a running quarterback who can burn defenses as Hurts has so far this season, you run him. So look for planned running plays from the quarterback. He’ll do that in a lot of sure looking pass situations when the field is a bit more spread.

I’d also look for O.J. Howard to get work early on in short to mid-route safe passes.

On defense the Alabama plan is simple. Stop the run, force Dobbs to beat them with arm and do so under the most duress he’s had all season. Against Arkansas, Alabama put a lot of pressure on the quarterback with just a standard four man rush, but when they turned the dogs loose, they really “affected” the play as Saban likes to say.

With the secondary the Tide’s weak spot, nothing will help the defensive backs more than forcing Dobbs to throw too early, on the run, off balance or retreating backward.  The main reason for the wild success the defensive backs have had this year in returning interceptions for touchdowns is that most of them came because the quarterback made a bad throw while under extreme duress.

Alabama will have some one on one matchups that they’ll have to cover and make good on and given the pressure the front line can put on a quarterback, expect to see Alabama in the nickle for most of the game.

Unless Tennessee gets a late meaningless score at the very end, Alabama should win this game by 17 points. Yes Tennessee has looked good so far this season, but the bricks like the nursery rhyme “London Bridge” are falling down.

Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter

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