(Above: Saban’s full press conference)
Even though Tennessee has fallen on hard times recently, the feelings Alabama fans have toward the team in orange and white have not gotten any friendlier.
Tennessee hate week still goes stronger than most, the game is still “the Third Saturday in October” – though this year it falls on the fourth Saturday – cigars are still handed out to the team after a win and enjoyed by the fans, too. And the pregame hype video in Bryant-Denny still shows the famous Terrence Cody Rocky Block game, which always garners a huge cheer from the crowd.
The coach of Tennessee during the Rocky Block game was current Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, who will return to Knoxville for the first time since he left the school. Kiffin is still reviled in Knoxville, leaving the school after only one season to become the head coach of USC.
Luckily for Kiffin, Alabama head coach Nick Saban knows how returning to old programs goes, having done it when he returned to LSU.
“The only experience that I have is when I went back to Baton Rouge,” Saban said. “It was very negative, getting hung in effigy, burnt at the stake, just about everything that could happen happened.
“But the way I try to manage that with the players is to let them know that was going to happen in advance, and not to be affected by it. And that it would probably be pretty rowdy when we got off the bus to go in the locker room but that really would have nothing to do with what happened in the game. That was going to come down to what we did on the field. I would hope that it’s our approach to do the same thing in this game.”
Saban said there’s no way to control the negativity of the opposing fans, all Alabama and Kiffin can do is drown out the noise, stay positive, and play their game.
“I think it’s only a distraction if you allow it to be a distraction,” Saban said. “What I always used to tell the team was, ‘That doesn’t mean anything unless it means something to you.’ If it doesn’t mean anything to us and we can stay focused on what we need to do to do what’s best for our team, then I think that’s the way you manage it, that’s the way you handle it and that’s the way we need to look at it.
“The game, our players, their players, that’s what means something to us and that’s what should mean something to every coach on our staff.”
Saban said the team can’t lose focus when playing on road. The players have to execute to their abilities and the quarterback has to properly manage the game.
“We can’t be affected by the external factors that are involved in playing on the road,” Saban said. “We’ve got to have a better energy level to execute what we want to do and the quarterback is really the starting point of all that.”
Eddie Jackson and Jarrick Williams returning to full strength helped the defense against Texas A&M, and Alabama will also get injured starting center Ryan Kelly back this week for Tennessee, helping the offensive line’s continued cohesion.
But the pressure will again be on Alabama quarterback Blake Sims, who has yet to play to his full potential on the road. This game will also be personal for Sims, who said if Kiffin hadn’t gone to USC, he would have played at Tennessee.
“The way that [Kiffin’s] attitude was, you could see he wanted to be a guy that wants to win,” Sims said. “That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that Coach Saban went and got him and brought him here for this program because he fits it all the way around.”
Saban reiterated that Tennessee is an improved team that Alabama has its usual “tremendous amount of respect for,” but this game for Alabama will be about executing their game plan and maintaining the energy it had in last week’s game.
“Everybody chooses their energy, I think that’s everybody’s choice,” Saban said. “Hopefully our team will choose that kind of positive energy, that kind of positive attitude in terms of what they want to build on and what they want to accomplish.”
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