Alabama-Tennessee: Third Saturday in October is now the First Saturday of the Playoffs

Things change quickly in the SEC. Two weeks ago, Alabama was ranked No. 1 in the nation and Tennessee No. 4, and their traditional rivalry game — called “Third Saturday in October,” and you can probably guess when it’s scheduled — was setting up to be a battle not just for SEC dominance, but national preeminence.

Well, Vanderbilt and Arkansas made statements, and then South Carolina and Florida threw some punches, and suddenly what had been a battle of titans is now a scrabble of desperation. Two teams on similar paths — dominance, a shocking loss, an uninspiring bounceback game — meet Saturday in Knoxville, and the stakes for both are huge.

Alabama is fighting to determine its own identity. Since the second half of the Georgia victory, 10 quarters ago, the Crimson Tide has looked alternately lost, opportunistic and erratic, but rarely dominant. Over eight quarters against the Hogs and Gators, Tennessee has seen its early-season high-powered offense vanish into vapor.

Neither team is out of the playoff stretch; one loss might even be good enough to make the SEC championship game. But while Alabama and Tennessee have spun their wheels in mud, other teams — Texas, Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M — have kept on piling up wins, shrinking the margin for error. Two losses might not eliminate a onetime top-5 team from the playoffs, but two losses could very well mean the difference between a home-campus playoff game and a cold trip to a hostile environment in late December.

The Tennessee-Alabama rivalry dates back to 1901, and it’s inspired hate and ferocity on the level of virtually any SEC matchup. Dotted with characters from Bear Bryant to General Neyland to Peyton Manning to Ken Stabler, it’s a rivalry of streaks. Most recently, Tennessee won 9 of 10 from the mid-90s to the mid-00s, and then Alabama won 15…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-18 16:44:54

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