TRADITION SHIFT: Alabama-Tennessee Rivalry EVOLVES as Playoff IMPLICATIONS Take Center Stage

This is the Locked On Podcast Network, celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Hey, sports fans, it's JD, the host of Locked On Cardinals. And did you know with the Discover Cashback Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5 percent cash back in different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5 percent cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas and at restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details. It's the third Saturday in October. Let's predict it. You are Locked On Bama, your daily podcast on the Alabama Crimson Tide, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Luke Robinson. That's Alabama Internet Legend, Jimmy Stein. This is Locked On Bama. Thanks for making Locked On the number one sports podcast network there is. And thanks for FanDuel for sponsoring this particular episode. All of y'all are the best, every one of you. Maybe not you, but all of you, except you. Now you are too, I'm just teasing. So Jimmy, lots to talk about today. And this is the Prediction Show. But I wanted to start with what Bama, Tennessee means to you in the past, to Bama fans in the past, and then the present and the future and what this particular game means. We'll get in to more predictions in the second segment. But I did have somebody say in the comments recently, hey, y'all aren't making big enough deal about what Bama, Tennessee means. And I don't mean to discount it, because it is important. I know how important it is. I also know it's much more important for the generation before you and me, Jimmy. You and I went through some Tennessee troubles, for sure. Our generation. But we also were very streaky. It's probably the streakiest rivalry there is. I know lately it's been, you know, win at home, lose on the road, win at home, lose on the road. That'll change this weekend. But it was like Tennessee would win four, we'd win five. Tennessee would win seven, we'd win eight, whatever. And I know the old guard loves it more, because Bear Bryant probably looked at it more as, as a test. I mean, to me, it was Bear Bryant's Red River rivalry. I mean, it's sort of Oklahoma-Texas. There are people who think Oklahoma-Texas is the best rivalry in college football. We all know that's untrue, because first of all, it takes place in the middle of the season, which is also weird. But so it can't be by definition. But Tennessee, Alabama is sort of always right in the middle of the season. I think Bear always looked at it as like, it's a good way to judge where I am and what I have to do going forward, and how tough we are to this point. And it's been a little different, because our generation, again, it's been so streaky. And then we went on the whatever the crazy streak under Saban, which really should still probably be going. If it weren't for a horrible miscall in that game in 2022, that streak would have gone on a couple of more games. But I digress. And so, to me, this game still is very important. And I love the fact that we're going home jersey, home jersey for this. It's gonna be cool, man. It's gonna look cooler there than it will in Tuscaloosa to me. Like the deep crimson red juxtaposed to that sort of funky looking highlighter losing its ink orange, that's gonna be nice. Okay, it's gonna look, it's gonna remind you of foliage. I like it. But I think this rivalry still means a lot. It means a lot to me. I've had some great memories. I've been to Tennessee a bunch of times. And I don't think we mean to discount it at all. But it is also very true that the Georgia game, even if we've just played them in the National Championship or in Atlanta, has meant more. The LSU game has certainly meant more. In fact, I would say the LSU game, LeapFrog Tennessee in terms of our arrival for a while, even though long term that hasn't been the case. But for the short term, the last 20 years, yeah, that's definitely the case. I think this game used to mean a ton. And I'm glad you bought up Coach Bryant, because I think it was really that Coach Bryant years in particular that the Tennessee game was so big. And then it got kind of nasty during the former years. And then Tennessee had a lot of success during that time. And then Saban, of course, dominated Tennessee to the point the game almost became an afterthought, because Tennessee just wasn't... It was during a period of time when Tennessee was just bad for a long period of time, and Alabama Saban was awesome. And Alabama completely dominated the series. But I would argue why it's not as big as it used to be. First of all, both teams are ranked very high right now, and they have been for two, three, four years in a row. So this has been a rank vs. rank type game. So this has been a pretty big game since Hypal has rejuvenated Tennessee. It's a back to being a big game. But this is the problem, and I don't think it will ever be totally huge again. It's not where Tennessee ranks on the list of Alabama rivalries. To me, it's Auburn, and then it's Tennessee, in terms of like the history of the program. Auburn's our biggest rival, Tennessee's second biggest rival. It's the playoff. I think the playoff just has swallowed up the meaning of these games. Because if you think about it, in Bryant's time particularly, you played a regular season and you hoped to win the SEC Championship by virtue of having the best record in the league of the regular season, and then you got to go to the Sugar Bowl, and who the hell knows what's going to happen in terms of people voting for a national champion because you're probably not even playing number two, you know, in the Sugar Bowl. So I think the individual games during the regular season took on a huge meaning because there wasn't a playoff. There wasn't even a national championship game. The games people look forward to wasn't the playoff. It wasn't a countdown to the playoff. It was the countdown to the Tennessee game, the countdown to the Auburn game. Now you're playing Tennessee and everyone's thoughts are, how is a win or loss going to affect our playoff chances? And I think that's why, really, none of these games were as big as they used to be. Yeah, that's a great point. To me, it's more of the NFL-cation of the game. And for example, I just typed in New York Giants versus Washington Commanders. That's one of the big rivalries, and they're in the same division, and they just hate each other, and they whatever. They just played to one of the most floundering ties I've ever seen in my life, by the way. But the Giants have a... They played 189 times, and I'd be willing to bet that very few of their fans can tell you who even leads the series. You know what I mean? Like, the regular season games... Well, I mean, I know that Fox and CBS and NBC and ESPN, whoever shows... Amazon, whoever shows the games, they'd love to tell you, these two programs hate each other. These two teams hate each other. Not like that. I mean, they probably don't. Not the way that college does. Not the way that we do. Like, hate other rivals. And that rivals hate us. And that's what I don't... I've dreaded about this whole thing with 2014s and whatever. So that is frightening to me that all of a sudden, Bama, Tennessee is gonna be the Giants and the Commanders. And it's like, okay, yeah, it's a big deal, but really what it is is just another NFL game because it doesn't have any more significance than anything else. I guess it could be involved with some tiebreaker if X and Y and Z all happen. But for the most part, it's not, they can call it a rivalry. If you want to tell me the Cowboys and the Eagles' rivalry is as big a deal as Bama, Tennessee or Oklahoma, Texas, I'm gonna tell you you're crazy. Now, maybe I just don't live in a big enough city. Alexander City does not have a protein yet, yet. Well, I mean, I don't know what Easton Pryor is making over there, but it's kind of protein. I think it's a real shame in terms of what the 2014 playoff is gonna do the regular season, because I agree with Luke, it turns it into the NFL's regular season, which is A, entertaining. So it's still going to be entertaining. It's gonna be, but in the NFL September and October games, they're entertaining and they do have an effect on who's gonna make the playoffs, but no one's talking about it. If you watch, pick an NFL game this weekend and watch, see how many times they reference the playoffs during the game, or even when the game's over. The answer may be none, because it's kind of too soon to talk about that. So, and since it doesn't feel like a playoff spot's on the line, and no one cares, like Luke said so correctly, no one really cares about NFL rivalries, not really. TV tries to make it so, but not really. Maybe the Bears Packers, maybe. But that's what college football is headed towards, an entertaining September and October that has very little to do with rivalries and has very little to do with the playoffs. Now, once November rolls around and people start playing with the rankings and the math and, hey, you got to beat so-and-so, I mean, it's going to be, you know, mildly entertaining in the same way December NFL games are. You know, December, and frankly, I'll be completely honest, some of y'all are probably a lot like me. I keep up with the NFL 365 days a year. I really keep up with it. But I don't watch from sun up, sun down on Sunday NFL games until December when college football is kind of over and I don't have all day. If I do college football all day Saturday, personally, I just want to kind of keep up with what's happening on the NFL. I'll probably watch the Sunday night game. Just saying, now when college football season's over and so my all day Saturday viewing is gone, that then morphs into all day Sunday viewing for me. And that's when the playoff race gets super interesting too because you're down to the last couple of games. But I'll just hate when college football turns into that because we're halfway there now. I think once we go to 24 teams, we'll be fully there. And what will the Alabama Tennessee game mean then? It'll be entertaining. I don't know that it's going to mean, it certainly won't mean what it did during the Bryant years. And not even during the Saban years. I can tell you this, I just remember going to some games even in the mid 80s in Tennessee. And I remember their fans being so upset when we beat them. They'd be like, I got another year of this. And I don't know that there's a Giants fan who, when they play the Cowboys, if they lose, I got to deal with this for another year. We really got to deal with it for another month because they do play twice. OK, well, let's just say they got swept. And they're like, I got to do it. No, they're like, as long as we make the playoffs, we're cool. I don't like that. And I know that it's the way it's going. And that's my point about talking about the past, present, and future, where somebody tells you and I that we are not emphasizing this game enough. I think you're about to see even less emphasis on the rivalry itself and just more about, oh, they're the next team up. And I know Saban tried to program us to look at it that way. There's not a fan among us who said, I looked at Vanderbilt the same way I look at Auburn. If you did, you're nuts and you're probably lying. So quit lying. I don't like that. Stop lying. FanDuel. Love FanDuel. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever if you're a Commanders or Giants fan. We've been talking about you already. Only on FanDuel. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring. More rewarding than an 18-point comeback. Maybe even more rewarding than an offensive lineman catching a touchdown. This season FanDuel is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all-new FanDuel Rewards Club featuring exclusive offers, surprises and more. Every week check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you. It's there. It's on the FanDuel app or on the FanDuel website. Go to either one. They're both easy to get to. Anybody can do it. It's a ton of fun. I've been telling you about it for years now. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Visit fanduel.com to get started. That's fanduel.com. Go get your bad self started with fanduel.com. All right. Let's get into some predictions for this particular game, Jimmy. So, GMAC2, that's going to be our new name for George McIntyre. He is your starter for Tennessee. I mean, that's a shocker. No, we all kind of knew that. Brandon Faison or Faison Brandon was not going to be the starter. By the way, I did have somebody in the comments. You believe he's a robot. Somebody in the comments said, I hate Luke because I could no longer say Faison Brandon without saying it's just like that. That's quite the affliction. I didn't know he was a robot. I'm fascinated by that. Well, that's it. He just needs a little oil in his shoulder. That's all he needs. Look, McIntyre, nice quarterback. He's fine. And I think he's a nice SEC starter. I also think he was the backup to a true freshman for a reason. I also think it's bad for him that Justin Hill is now probable and should be playing. It is good for him, I guess, that Terrence Green is out. I hate that. But overall, it didn't matter to me which quarterback. I'm going to feel the same way, and I'm going to make my same prediction either way. I don't think Tennessee's quarterback situation is very good. These two guys are both okay so far. Maybe Faison Brandon will be good later on in his career. Right now, he's not great. I think most true freshmen wouldn't be. I think we're looking at a sack fest, and by that, I mean for both teams. I think with Alabama's issue on the offensive line with Mal Waldrop in for racing Delgadi and having to deal with Xavier Gilliam, good, disgracious, that's a handful. Gilliam may be the best defensive lineman in the country. Cole Kubilic called him the best defensive player in the country, and Mal Waldrop, after snapping the ball for the first time in a college game has to somehow contribute to blocking him. And Tennessee leads the nation in sacks. Tennessee is number one in the whole country in number of sacks. Conversely, Alabama has been a little shorter on sacks, and I thought they would be, so they're due for a market correction game. They're due for a five or six sack game. And now you're playing an offensive line that's not great, and a quarterback that's a redshirt freshman that's not very mobile. So I think Luke, good and bad, I see Tennessee sacking Alabama four or five times. I see Alabama sacking Tennessee four or five times, and it's just a sack fest. Hawk, if you've sacked somebody, that'll be the new bumper sticker, I guess. But I think altogether, it's going to contribute it to being a game where both teams have almost more success on the ground. Tennessee certainly will with Deseaun Bishop. I think this is a game where Alabama will run the ball pretty well. As good as Tennessee is on defense and they are very good. They've given up some pretty productive games to the other teams tailback. And I can see Alabama between Danny Hill, EJ Crowell and Treshaun Brown. I think the three of them together in committee form will put up some pretty good numbers. But overall, I'm kind of seeing a low scoring game coming that's going to look a little bit like the Texas-Tennessee game. And I think it's going to be close and low scoring with both teams creating quite a bit of havoc at the line of scrimmage. I was a little shocked to see on Bama Online, they interviewed one of the Volquest guys, I think it was. And he actually predicted Alabama to win 31-21. I guess maybe it's not shocking. I thought he would have gone more low scoring. It's not shocking that he picks Alabama to win. I think Alabama is going to win too. And I think he's a smart dude. But 31 points from a Tennessee guy seems a little shocking. Like, I'm going to predict more than 31 points again, but I'm a Bama homer. So if he's picking that, maybe I'm not even picking enough points. Now, one thing to note... Eric Kane yesterday right here, yesterday, Thursday, on our Locked On Crossover Show, Eric Kane predicted that Alabama would win the game. Now, I think he said 28-24. But Eric Kane also... I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to be disappointed if we give up 24 points. I'm going to be disappointed. This is not a 24-24 game. To me, the bar is 17. To me, I'm looking at 17. If we give up 17, fine. Giving up over 17 means the defense didn't play well enough because Tennessee shouldn't. This Tennessee, with the redshirt freshman being a little one-dimensional, offensive line issues, they shouldn't score more than 17. Now, I do agree that Alabama getting 17 makes me a little nervous in this sense. Alabama only got 17 one week ago against Georgia. And statistically, Tennessee is Georgia. Now, vastly different. Everyone's played vastly different schedules. Now, Georgia didn't play a tough schedule either for play in Alabama, so their numbers defensively ended up looking pretty legit. Is Tennessee's defensive numbers a product of who they played, or are they legit? I think they're probably pretty legit because of Knowles and Gilliam and Arian Carter and a few other freaks they have. You know, I wouldn't be super confident about Alabama scoring in the 30s. I know you're going to predict that, and they may, they may. But Tennessee's defensive numbers indicate they're pretty elite. Alabama only got 17 last week against Georgia. Fair. All of that's very fair. Tennessee ain't George's defense. Now, Tennessee's got some dudes. There's no doubt about that. I'm not disputing it. Arian Carter is as good as they come linebacker wise. I would, shoot, Alabama wanted him badly. And Gilliam, a beast, an absolute beast transfer from Penn State. That said, they ain't Georgia. And they also just gave up 17 points to Arkansas. Now, you say, well, they only gave up 17 points. Arkansas is ho-ho-rendous. I mean, they are very bad at American football. So I think that Alabama, look, here's the other thing. I think this offense, I think Keelon Russell had a taste of, oh, this is the big stage. And I think once he got himself gathered and he played better in the second half, as somebody very astutely pointed out when I was on the radio and talked about this, I said, I thought Keelon Russell played even better in the second half. They said, well, Alabama only scored three points. I said, I understand. But the points don't always equal exactly. You know, you gotta look a little deeper sometimes. In the end, you are what the score says you are. But you also need to look and go, oh, he made some much better throws that he got, in a much better position. Yeah, he had a bad, didn't throw it away on that sack after the non-DPI call. But that was a bad moment. But see, I think Keelon learns from that. He's like Doomsday, Superman's villain Doomsday. You can't kill him the same way twice. That's the cool thing about Doomsday. Like you can kill him one time, but the next time he's going to come back, you can't kill him that way again. And I think that's Keelon Russell. He's Doomsday. That's fascinating. I'm new to Doomsday. It also should be pointed out, and I'm blaming you on this too. The other day when you said something about DaVinci, and I go, DaVinci didn't do that. Did he paint? I think he did. He painted the freaking Mona Lisa. I knew he painted the Mona Lisa. Well, no, you didn't. I don't know what else. I don't know what else. Well, you freaked me out when you're like, he didn't paint. I'm like, he did? Like, I think he did. I think he did. Then I thought later, but did he do, did he do nothing? Was he like Harper Lee, who wrote like one book? And so Da Vinci did like one. He's like, today I'm going to paint for the first time. He does the Mona Lisa. He's like, I'm done painting. I don't know. What's the second most famous painter? I don't know, but he did a lot of other stuff. Hell, I've been to the Mona Lisa and I just, I just had brain gas. By the way, as I've said many times, Harper Lee used to stay at the cabin that my parents owned that I actually lived in for a while myself when I grew up. And yeah, she might have tied one on a few times there. So, and she, I have an autographed book of To Kill a Mockingbird made out personally to me by Harper Lee. And there is a, I think there's a whiskey stain on one of the pages. Attended Alabama. She's a, she's a royal, she's a Tide. I can make Tennessee sound pretty bad. You know, here, here, here's some true things about Tennessee, their best win. Hold it. Auburn. Save it. Dang it. I said, hold it. All right. 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That's never happened. Whoa, I didn't know that. That's pretty cool. What I was gonna say is I can make Tennessee sound pretty bad. Their best win is Auburn. And their game against Auburn was a statistical dead heat. They beat Auburn on the scoreboard 24-14, but I think they were outgained 345 to 325. They didn't beat the heck out of Auburn. They were 17-17 with Arkansas with two minutes left in the game last week. They haven't settled on a quarterback deciding between a true freshman and a redshirt freshman. I mean, I know that Faison's hurt or banged up, but it wasn't like he was playing great before. They don't have big wins. Their offensive line, they've had a lot of injury situations, particularly in the offensive line. So, I'm not sure that Tennessee is that great. That said, they did play a very good Texas team and lost by three points at home. We'd be nuts to ignore that. And I know people say, but Texas, yeah, I still think Texas. I think they're good too, Jimmy. I think they're good. They are good. They are good. They're also kind of what I thought they'd be. I mean, not to just brag on myself. Somebody's got to. But I mean, Arch is kind of mid. And frankly, people say, he is pretty mid. In fact, on Mel Kuiper's latest draft board, he's not even like in the top five quarterbacks available anymore. That's how mid he is. In fact, I would be willing to bet he's probably coming back at this point. That's my guess. I've always felt he would come back. I said he would come back even if he was number one. I mean, I think he needs more time. I think that's just very manning of him to play his whole career in college, just like Peyton and Eli did. Yeah. And so look, that same Texas team led by that same Arch Manning went to a bad Florida Gainesville game last year and got routed. And so they aren't great. They took a bad Mississippi State team like a couple of overtimes or whatever to win. They had to make it last year. Yeah, that was last year. Yeah. I mean, but what I'm saying is they've they've had just as good, if not better teams go into places that aren't as hostile as Knoxville and play like crap. So I'm not taking as much away from that. I'm not going to take away from Texas getting ten sacks. That's a pretty big deal. But we ain't got a Colin Simmons. There's no doubt about that. All right. Time for some predictions. I'm going to predict. I've been thinking about this ever since a few minutes ago. I'm going to take Bama 38-14. 38-14. You dang right. 38-14. Man, that would be awesome. I hope you're right. I wouldn't be shocked. I saw a computer model, say 40-16, and it struck me like, you know what? I might be over-selling Tennessee here, but man, what did you say? 38 to what? 14. I'm going to go Alabama 20, Tennessee 13 in a 60-minute slugfest with both teams struggling offensively, lots of sacks, lots of negative plays. Both teams run the ball pretty well. Alabama holds Deseaun Bishop in the 125 range, which is actually good, and nice days collectively from the Hill Crowell Brown group. But I think in the end, Alabama makes more plays than Tennessee in the fourth quarter and wins the game. But I have it tight, 2013. You're going to make me DM Keelon Russell and tell him to come kick your ass, right? He ought to be... Keelon Russell somewhere just, he's in class right now, and he's just got a jolt. He's like, somebody just defended me somewhere. You think he's only going to get 20 points. He only got 17 last week. We have dissected that nicely. We've also, I'll say this too, that I don't put the only 17 points on him. Partially because in my eyes, he can do no wrong, but partially because he was also put in some bad positions, that we clearly should have scored when we've got the Bray Hubbard interception, but we ran one of the dumbest plays we ran all year right after that. That took us out of full role range. Then we clearly should have scored on the DPI, or at least gotten something there, and everybody's pretty rattled. The crowd's rattled. Everything's rattled the next time we take a sack. I'm just saying, man, I know. I know what you're saying and I get it. You're probably more correct. Change the official's calls, I mean, which should have been just call the game right, call the game correctly, and you get the pass interference call to Rico. You get 15 yards in the first down with Arian targeting. You get to keep the ball after the QB reach interception, and you call Crowell for the face mask, the face mask on Crowell, giving Alabama a first and 10 at their 14. If all of those things happen and they should have happened, no doubt Alabama scores more than 17. So that's true too. All right, well, so you say 2013, I say 38-14. Let's see what happens. We ran out of time to talk about the other games. I will say this, I think that there is going to be some kind of weirdo SEC game. I'm not sure if it's Mizzou beats Ole Miss. I'm not sure if it's Florida beats Texas. But, or if it's, and I don't even think it's weird if Kentucky beats Oklahoma. So I mean, I might go the other way. It would be weird if there's a– I would think Missouri, Ole Miss could be the game to win. But there will be some other weirdo game. I bet Missouri, Ole Miss is something like 45-41. I'm so ticked off that they're saying that in our game. Yeah, that's going to be an entertaining game. Florida, Texas, anybody out there that can predict what Florida is going to look like week to week, good luck. Yeah, no kidding. And yeah, Oklahoma, Kentucky could go either way. Maybe Oklahoma has figured some things out, but that could go either way. All right, I'm going to the game. Jimmy is not. We're going to go live at some point. I may even try to figure out how to go live with him, like I did after Florida State last year. We're going to see. I'm going to do everything I can. So I just want to let you all know, even if we were to lose, which we ain't, then I'm not backing out on going live. That's not what this is about. So anyway, let's go get them. Third Saturday of October, let's get it. All right, until next time, roll tide, everybody. Roll tide. Hey, it's Isaac Shade, your host of Amazon Fire TV's College Football Kickoff. Join Kenyon Barner, Jesse Holley, myself, and the local hosts of the Locked On Podcast Network each week on Fire TV throughout the season to preview the biggest matchups across college football. Search College Football Kickoff on the Fire TV app.