KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Halloween came early to Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon. A horde of careless and undisciplined football players spent the first half of Saturday’s Alabama-Tennessee game dressed as the former No. 1 and No. 4 teams in the country. However, the real stuff came in the second half, and the result was a 24-17 victory for the No. 11 Volunteers.
There are no points for style, however, and Tennessee has cleared another hurdle in its quest for a playoff berth and a possible SEC championship berth. Meanwhile, two-loss Alabama faces a much more uncertain path in a crowded playoff field.
No. 7 Alabama had a chance to take the lead with two minutes left to fall 21-17, but receiver Kendrick Law was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for shoving UT defensive back Arion Carter. Carter had confronted Law and threw a punch that appeared to narrowly miss in retaliation, but Law was the only player punished.
That forced Alabama to take a fourth down with 22 yards left. Coach Kalen DeBoer opted to go for it instead of punting with all three timeouts, and Jalen Milroe’s completion to Judge Haynes fell well short of the first attempt.
The Crimson Tide prevented Tennessee from getting a first down and forced the Vols to kick a field goal and extend the lead to seven. Alabama had one more chance for a touchdown, and that chance lasted an entire play when Milroe threw an interception to safety Will Brooks on Alabama’s first play.
Tennessee took the lead for good with 5:52 left when Nico Iamaleava found Chris Brazzell Jr. for a fantastic 16-yard touchdown.
Two weeks ago, this game looked like it was going to be one of the legendary collapses of the season, with Alabama at No. 1 and Tennessee at No. 4. But both teams have struggled through a loss and an unremarkable comeback performance. since then, and so Both came into the game with their SEC championship hopes dented and their auras substantially dimmed.
The first half did little to improve the perception of either team as overrated and/or unreliable. Both quarterbacks lacked accuracy, both lines committed penalty after penalty, both offenses failed, both kickers missed field goals with ugly efforts, both porous defenses allowed massive plays.
Playing under a gorgeous blue sky and in front of a huge orange crowd, Tennessee couldn’t muster anything resembling competition on offense. Redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava is a far cry from his excellence at the start of the season, and he spent much of the first half throwing passes well over the heads or out of reach of his receivers.
Tennessee’s offense in the first half was an ugly parade of failures: fumble, punt, missed field goal, interception, interception, missed field goal. A promising opening drive ended when Dylan Sampson coughed up the ball at the Alabama 20. Iamaleava briefly left the game with an injury, and his replacement, Gaston Moore, immediately threw an interception into the hands of Alabama’s Malachi Moore. Iamaleava’s return briefly invigorated Tennessee’s offense, until he threw a horrendous interception on a blown play deep in the red zone.
The only reason Tennessee was tied in the game at the end of the first half was because Alabama’s offense was only marginally more competent. Jalen Milroe continued to fall from the heights he had reached in the first half against Georgia, his fights starting too late and his passes going wide. The low point came late in the first quarter when, deep in Tennessee territory, he threw an interception in the end zone that hit Tennessee’s Jermod McCoy in the numbers.
Alabama managed to get the ball into the end zone on its next drive, Milroe found Ryan (he’s only 17) Williams for a five-yard touchdown pass on the only drive of the first half where Alabama seemed locked in. After the Tide missed a late field goal attempt, that’s how the first half ended. Alabama 7, Tennessee 0, total turnovers 4, total field goals missed 3.
The Vols opened the second half with another series of tackles and misses by Iamaleava, although at least one (a deep pass at the Alabama 15 to Squirrel White) appeared to be at least potentially catchable. Alabama responded by running eight straight runs and stopping at midfield. So whatever adjustments Kalen DeBoer and Josh Heupel made at halftime, they didn’t have an immediate effect.
However, on its second possession of the second half, Tennessee discovered something. Sampson broke off a 36-yard run and then Iamaleava ran another 27 yards to the edge of the end zone. Sampson capped the drive with a two-yard run that tied the game with 6:32 left in the third quarter.
Alabama drove to the Tennessee 14 on the next drive, but two consecutive Milroe tackles in the end zone forced the Tide to settle for a go-ahead field goal to make the game 10-7.
And then, with just over a minute left in the third quarter, Iamaleava finally looked like the bomb thrower of the season opener, finally finding a deep target: Dont’e Thornton Jr., who pulled off a spectacular 55-yard pass during the whole game. the road to the Alabama 3. One play later, Sampson attacked for his second touchdown of the game, and Tennessee had its first lead of the game.
It wouldn’t last. Alabama also found its foot (and arm) and executed a near-perfect six-play, 75-yard drive in just over two minutes to retake the lead at 17-14. Germie Bernard caught the biggest pass of the series, a 28-yard pass that once again put Alabama in Tennessee’s red zone. And this time, Alabama didn’t risk passing; Judge Haynes thundered into the end zone virtually intact from 7 yards away.
Crushing penalties stopped Tennessee’s next drive, but the Volunteers’ punt team managed to pin Alabama at its own 4. Milroe narrowly avoided a sack that would have been a safety, and Alabama punted the ball back to Tennessee in the midfield.
Once again, Iamaleava found his mark, throwing a pass straight into the hands of Brazzell who dove in to score the go-ahead touchdown.
