What started as a personal vendetta to see how many points Alabama could score, turned into an injury-ridden slugfest as the Crimson Tide beat Tennessee 34-20.
Similarly to last week’s game against Texas A&M, in the first quarter, it wasn’t a matter of whether Alabama would win, it was by how much, as the Tide amassed a 27-0 lead to start the game.
In Lane Kiffin’s return to Knoxville, Alabama head coach Nick Saban said the team wasn’t affected by the noise in Neyland Stadium.
“Lane’s done a really good job for us all year,” Saban said. “The players like him, respond well to him. He’s really a good coach. And I think while all the people in Tennessee are pissed off at him, it’s because they know he’s a good coach and they were upset when he left. I get that, I understand that.”
In the first quarter, the offense under Kiffin was, as Alabama safety Landon Collins says, “balling.” Wide receiver Amari Cooper had 185 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter alone, and quarterback Blake Sims decided to join the party with a 24-yard touchdown run of his own.
Cooper started the game off with an 80-yard touchdown reception on the first offensive play from scrimmage. He apparently loves playing in Knoxville. In his last trip to Neyland Stadium he had seven catches for 162 yards and 2 touchdowns, tonight he finished with nine receptions for 224 yards and two touchdowns. Cooper passed former Alabama great Julio Jones for most receiving yards in a game and also passed Jones for second all-time in receiving yards. Cooper needs just 55 yards to pass D.J. Hall for the top spot on the career list.
Alabama had scored 93 unanswered points until Tennessee finally scored with seven minutes remaining in the second quarter.
That second quarter, however, slowed down for the Crimson Tide as it reverted to how it played on the road earlier this season.
Alabama’s defense was swarming in the first half, but the Vols switched out quarterbacks and started playing well with Josh Dobbs under center. After a few big runs and a couple of successful pass plays, Tennessee had 239 yards just before the half on an Alabama defense that came into the game allowing an average of only 262 yards per game, good for No. 3 in the nation in total defense.
“I think what we did is we relaxed a little bit, but you’ve got to give Tennessee’s guys a whole lot of credit because they surely didn’t flinch,” Saban said. “They didn’t give up at all. They kept playing hard.”
Tennessee was able to bring the score to within 10 points, but that was as close as it would get. Even with a late fumble from Sims, what sealed the game was a backbreaking drive from Alabama to make it 34-17 late in the third quarter. It was a slow, methodical, typical Alabama drive with four third down conversions and a touchdown from Derrick Henry at the end.
“I was really proud of the way our guys competed in the second half,” Saban said. “When they made the score 27-17, and we put a great drive together offensively, and went down and scored, that was huge in the game.”
Alabama wasn’t without its low points in the game, with offensive lineman Cam Robinson going down with what is now being called a high ankle sprain. Safety Landon Collins had to hobble to the locker room with cramps but would eventually return. The Crimson Tide could have also finished the game off with two potential scores but fumbled the ball twice on the goal line.
Early on Alabama looked like it could have hung triple digits on Tennessee, but the game became one of survival instead of domination. But in Kiffin’s return, Alabama hung on to win the team’s eighth straight victory over Tennessee.
“I’m still wanting this team to be a consistently dominant team like we were last week for 60 minutes in the game, and you see signs of it, but we weren’t able to do it the whole time,” Saban said. “But I have to give Tennessee’s players a whole lot of credit.”
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