Tennessee football: Arkansas did the Vols no favors against Alabama
Sometimes a wake-up call is needed, whether it's in sports or just in life in general. It appears that Arkansas' K.J. Jefferson might have given the Crimson Tide a big one ahead of Alabama's clash with Tennessee this weekend. Nick Saban joined the Pat McAfee Show on Thursday, where he got a good ribbing from […]
Sometimes a wake-up call is needed, whether it's in sports or just in life in general. It appears that Arkansas' K.J. Jefferson might have given the Crimson Tide a big one ahead of Alabama's clash with Tennessee this weekend.
Nick Saban joined the Pat McAfee Show on Thursday, where he got a good ribbing from McAfee about the Tide hanging on and winning 24-21 against the Razorbacks last weekend.
"Only won by three, that's a loss," McAfee joked with Saban.
"We got ahead 24-6 in the game and we sort of lost our collective focus in the game," Saban said. "I think it's a great lesson for everybody to learn that when you have the right sort of mental intensity and focus how well you play, and when you lose that focus for whatever reasons – scoreboard, get relieved, relief syndrome I call it, like 'we got this' – how people can take advantage of that lack of intensity that you play with. Hopefully that's a lesson that our players learned. They learned that they have to play one play at a time for 60 minutes in the game, which everybody has heard that a thousand times, but it's still the truth."
Last Saturday Alabama jumped out to a 24-6 lead early midway through the third quarter on a Will Reichard field goal. From there, Arkansas went on a 15-0 run highlighted by K.J. Jefferson breaking out of an attempted tackle by Terrion Arnold and completing a pass to Var'Keyes Gumms for a 25-yard gain that set up a touchdown. However, Alabama was just able to hang on and run out the clock with its four-minute offense.
Alabama blowing a huge lead isn't something that happens very often, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Saban has spent the week preparing for Tennessee by hammering the importance of staying focused and playing hard for 60 minutes over and over again.
The Vols are capable of beating Alabama on Saturday, but if they do it, it won't be because Alabama gave them any help by letting up during the game. Between that and last year's result, Tennessee unquestionably will get Alabama's best shot on Saturday afternoon.
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