The Tennessee Volunteers fell behind Alabama by a lot of points very quickly. They gave up a very large amount of points to Alabama. They lost by a very large amount of points to Alabama.
By Matt Zemek
None of it was fun. None of it was uplifting or inspiring. None of it offered conclusive proof that the Volunteers are getting progressively better as the season moves along…
… but that is what it is like to play Alabama in 2018.
The Crimson Tide are making every team they play look bad. Every Bama opponent walks away from a game knowing how huge the talent disparity was, and that it won’t face a better team all season long. Every Bama opponent faces a level of speed, physicality and depth other programs in the SEC simply don’t match, with LSU and Georgia possibly having a chance to become exceptions in November and December.
Playing Alabama has a distorting effect, and that is what Tennessee must deal with more than anything else as it shifts its focus to South Carolina for a very important SEC East game in Week 9.
1 – LEARN THE LESSONS
The Alabama experience, as said above, does not show teams that they are getting better. It does, however, offer teams a chance to show they have improved the next week. Playing almost any other SEC team the week after playing Alabama represents a dramatic drop in the degree of difficulty. The first opponent AFTER Alabama should be a lot easier to handle – not EASY in itself, but a lot less of a headache than Nick Saban’s team.
What happens in film study after an Alabama game is a revelation in terms of how dependable the Tide are in terms of how they carry out their assignments and punish an opponent’s mistakes. The Tide have a way of teaching teams what head coaches often fail to communicate with mere words: “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T EXHIBIT PERFECT TECHNIQUE OR MAKE THE RIGHT READ.” Alabama can convey this message much more efficiently than a coaching staff can. One is the hard truth of a 58-21 loss. The other is mere theory and conceptual speech.
Tennessee needs to show it really and truly learned what Alabama taught the Vols. South Carolina has underperformed this season and is entirely vulnerable if the Vols play slightly better than they did against Auburn. The Vols just have to show they derived something substantial from their own Alabama experience.
2 – GUARANTANO GUN SHOW
Falling behind by multiple touchdowns in the blink of an eye deprived Jarrett Guarantano of the ability to stack together strong performances. He was very good against Auburn, but Bama took the ball out of his hands by removing any drama from The Third Saturday In October. Keller Chryst looked good in mop-up duty… but that was mop-up duty. Lots of players look good in that circumstance.
This is Guarantano’s chance to firmly reclaim not only his job, but his winning ways from the Auburn game.
3 – STUFF THE RUN
When Tennessee contained Auburn’s running game, it was in position to fluster Jarrett Stidham. UT can achieve the same basic goal against South Carolina if it can first stuff the run.
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