Alabama 34, Tennessee 20: 'Felt like we won the game already'
Things were looking great for the Tennessee Vols at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday afternoon. With a Joe Milton touchdown pass to McKellan Castles with just seconds left in the first half, the Vols hit the locker room with a 20-7 lead over the Alabama Crimson Tide and all the momentum in the game. It was […]
Things were looking great for the Tennessee Vols at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday afternoon. With a Joe Milton touchdown pass to McKellan Castles with just seconds left in the first half, the Vols hit the locker room with a 20-7 lead over the Alabama Crimson Tide and all the momentum in the game.
It was a different game in the second half, as Alabama outscored the Vols 27-0 the rest of the game to secure a 34-20 win.
How could Tennessee, who looked so in control of the game in the first half, look so overmatched and underwhelming in the second half? According to one Vol, some of the players thought they already had the win in the bag.
How that kind of thing can happen is honestly inconceivable. Given the stakes, the opportunity ahead for the Vols, getting "comfortable" instead of fired up is absolutely baffling. The halftime scoreboard didn't read: Tennessee 35, Alabama 0. It was less than a two-touchdown game, and Alabama was getting the ball first out of the locker room with the opportunity to cut lead down to one score immediately after the break.
And that's exactly what happened two plays after the second half kickoff. 29-yard run. 46-yard pass to Isaiah Bond. Boom. Game flipped. But even with that wake up call happening to start the half, the Vols operated at what seemed like half speed in the second half to what we saw in the first half. And they were never able to get that edge back for the rest of the game.
Nick Saban talked last week about intensity and playing for sixty minutes, as Arkansas almost caught a napping Tide team last week. Josh Heupel has talked about maintaining intensity, focus, and physicality in the second half before. Heck, one of General Neyland's maxims is: "carry the fight to our opponent and keep it there for 60 minutes."
It's Alabama. There are 100,000 screaming fans around you. There's a whole half of football to go. If you lost because your intensity level was less than 100%, then that's one of the most unfortunate and disappointing reasons to lose a big football game that there is.
Tennessee has one massive opportunity left this season – at home against Georgia on November 18 before a raucous Neyland Stadium crowd. If they can't get energized and maintain high intensity level for 60 minutes in that game, then there is something truly worrisome at the very core of this team.
