How Tennessee feels about rivalry with Alabama
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HOOVER, Ala. — Tennessee defensive lineman Kendal Vickers was 11 years old the last time the Volunteers beat Alabama. Heading into his redshirt senior season, he has already been on the wrong side of four losses to the Crimson Tide since enrolling in college.
Alabama’s dominance in the now one-sided rivalry reached a precipice last season, as the Tide steamrolled the Volunteers 49-10 in the series’ most lopsided victory by either team since 1906. The win was Alabama’s 10th straight over the Volunteers, giving the Tide a perfect 10-0 record against Tennessee under head coach Nick Saban.
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So, when Vickers was questioned during SEC Media Days on Monday if he was aware of the disparity between the two programs, his response was simple.
“Yeah, I know,” Vickers said followed by a pause. “You never try to look at the past. We haven’t beat them in a while, we know about it. You can’t dwell on the past, you always got to look ahead. This team now, we’ve been working hard and we go out and try to win every game. We don’t play anybody thinking we’re going to lose. That’s the mentality we have.”
Of course, Vickers and the rest of the Volunteers don’t expect to lose to Alabama. However, a decade of crimson Ws has made the fate seem almost inevitable to some inside the Tennessee fan base. Knoxville News Sentinel columnist John Adams even proposed the idea of ending the rivalry on a yearly basis, stating the Volunteers “shouldn’t have to play Alabama every year.”
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The “Third Saturday in October” certainly hasn’t been kind to Tennessee recently. During Alabama’s winning streak, the Tide has outscored the Volunteers by a combined 351-119. It’s not like Tennessee has been awful either. The Volunteers are one of three SEC teams to win nine games in each of the past two seasons.
Alabama has just been better.
The Tide has reached the College Football Playoff in all three years of its existence and advanced to the national championship the past two seasons. In all but one of its 10 straight wins over Tennessee, Alabama has entered the game with a top-10 ranking, four times coming in as the No. 1 team in the nation.
Because Tennessee is Alabama’s permanent rival, it is the only SEC East team that has to face the Tide on a yearly basis. Since a loss to a SEC West team counts the same as one to a SEC East team, the Volunteers are given a disadvantage when competing with other division rivals who don’t have to endure the arduous task of facing the Tide. That has given momentum to Adam’s call for change among Volunteers supporters.
Just don’t expect anyone in the Tennessee program to follow suit.
“I love playing Alabama every year,” Vickers said. “They’re the best team in our conference for the past couple years, playing in national championships. They’ve been in the playoffs every year, it’s a great challenge.”
When questioned whether or not it would “be nice not to have to play Alabama every year,” Tennessee head coach Butch Jones echoed his defensive lineman’s sentiments, calling the rivalry against the Tide “great.”
“That game means so many things to so many people,” Jones said. “So, again, we take that game very, very seriously and have a lot of respect for what Coach Saban has built at Alabama and what they've done. It's also a great rivalry game, so that game means a lot to us.”
Alabama is projected to start the season as a top-5 team and could very well once again be the No. 1 team in the nation by the time the Volunteers travel to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Oct. 21. Nevertheless, Tennessee players remain confident heading into the matchup despite what history or anyone else suggests.
“We circle that game every year,” Tennessee cornerback Emmanuel Moseley said. “We didn’t come out with the win and that is going to stick with us. Our main goal is to win every game and win every time we play Alabama. This go-around with Alabama, it will be a good game. They have good players that can make you miss. We had a couple missed tackles in that game that hurt us, that we’ll get corrected for this year.”