The expectation from a lot of folks in the national media going into last weekend’s matchup between Tennessee and Alabama was that the Crimson Tide’s offense was going to be too much for the Vols’ defense to handle.

And that was not the case at all.

Tennessee’s defense was downright dominant, holding Alabama to just 10 points and 201 total yards (a chunk of which came on the Tide’s final drive when the Vols’ defense was playing soft zone coverage to make Bama use clock).

Some have speculated that Tennessee defensive coordinator Jim Knowles outschemed Alabama so bad that Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb had no answers.

But that’s not exactly what happened.

There’s no doubt that Knowles had a great game plan, but the Vols’ dominance came down to one thing: Tennessee’s players out-executed and out-physicaled Alabama’s players.

It wasn’t a gimmicky game plan where Tennessee’s defense gave Alabama’s offense a bunch of looks it wasn’t expecting.

DeBoer, in fact, admitted on Monday that Tennessee’s defense did pretty much what Alabama was expecting the Vols to do.

“I think you’re building a game plan throughout the week that has the adjustments built into it,” said DeBoer when asked about the in-game offensive adjustments against Tennessee. “So you just go to those adjustments based on what we saw. I can’t say it was different than really what we thought going in. There’s wrinkles and there’s tendencies that they have, and certain stuff they might run a little bit more against you because of how they viewed our offense. But I don’t think it was really anything that we felt that was a surprise.”

You gotta love hearing that if you’re a Tennessee fan. We all know that Knowles can game plan and scheme as well as anyone in the business. But he didn’t have to do anything that caught Alabama off guard in this game. Tennessee’s players were able to go out and play their game, and that was more than enough. It shows you that while Knowles’ scheme obviously works, the players are good enough to go one-on-one with one of the most talented rosters in the nation and consistently win matchups.

If a defense can do that, then it’s an awfully good sign that Tennessee has the kind of defense that can compete with anyone in the country the rest of the season.