Tennessee KNOCKS OFF Alabama, 26-10: Josh Heupel, Vols win Third Saturday in October vs Crimson Tide

Welcome to an Instant Reaction edition of Andy & Ari On3, presented by Polymarket. But guys, we know who the star of this particular episode of Andy & Ari On3 is. Producer River, get up here. What's up, fellas? Our vault for life. Tennessee 26, Alabama 10, smoke them if you got them. If you look at the blimp shot of Neyland Stadium right now, everybody's on the field and it is hazy from all the cigar smoke. Good day. Good day when the Big Orange win third Saturday in October, huh? Yeah, I think it's absolutely malpractice, fan malpractice on your part that you don't have a stogie lit up in your house right now. I know you've got some roommates, but, you know, I feel like I got to say. Night's still young. I know that Texas is having offensive issues. I know that stopping Texas the way that Tennessee did three weeks ago seemed less impressive coming into the game because of those offensive issues. Holy shit. Right? Like that defense is like awesome. Like that's a top 10 team in America, you know, and is as upset as producer River Bailey was a few weeks ago when Tennessee wasn't able to complete the what would have been an awesome comeback. Man, that was impressive. That was an impressive defensive performance. Remember on Thursday when we were talking about potentially taking the Mulligan, and I was looking at the Alabama injury report and was like, maybe I should take the Mulligan here and flip to Tennessee. What did producer River, who never ever gave up on his Vols, say? What did he say? You said you might think about using your Mulligan, your switcheroo here, and River... Don't you do it. Don't you do it. Stay on that side. You pick a side, you stay on that side. He doesn't want to hear it, dude. I don't want to hear it. No, both of you stay on that side. You stay on Alabama, and I'll stay over here with the big orange like I normally do. Well, let's just see. I want to see if it made a difference. It didn't make a difference in the spread, so hasn't changed the spread one bit. You know what? I'm going to ride with Keelan Russell and the boys. I'm going to ride with them. Good. Stay over there. River is predicting like a Deshaun Bishop 250-yard rushing game. Yeah, got to have hope. Faisal and Brandon is questionable for this. Deshaun Bishop ran 32 times for 159 yards in two touchdowns and really did ice the game. The defense was the star, but Deshaun Bishop was awesome. You know, the one thing that we didn't count for, which seems stupid in hindsight, is Alabama scoring 10 points. Like what? And that's the thing. We knew on Thursday that Rayson Delgatti, their center, probably wasn't going to play. We knew Ryan Coleman Williams, their best receiver, was not going to play. And we really should have taken that more into account. And, you know, I'm sure that Kaelan DeBoer and Kirby Smart will probably either directly or obliquely mention the body blow theory that they, you know, Alabama and Georgia beat each other up so much last week that it left them vulnerable this week. I don't care about that. Like you still got to come out and play and like in Georgia's case, they got pushed around up front by Auburn. Alabama got dominated up front by Tennessee's defensive line. Dominated. This is the worst we've seen Kaelan Russell play. And they just, I mean, they gave him no chance. Tennessee gave him no chance. You know, in Tennessee, offense was pretty bad for most of the game, but you got to give them credit, man. When the game was on the line, they started moving it at the end. They did. Even George McIntyre started throwing the ball really well toward the end. And I remember there was one play where he evaded pressure and then found, it was a third down and he found the guy over the middle to keep the chains moving. And it gets him down the field. They eventually score and it's like, okay, they got something here. They got something. And it's not that because if you're going to have a defense like that, your offense only needs to be adequate and you're going to win most of your games. Yeah. Okay. And can I put you on the spot? Yeah. Give me your updated SEC rankings one through seven. Can you do it? Oh, my God. Well, can you just try just for the bit? Tennessee might be number one. The reason why I asked. Don't start that. Don't start that. Do not start that. Come on. Big win. But man, I think I'd leave Georgia number one. This is something else we have to get used to in this new world. Like NFL, like NFL people, when the Seahawks lose a game, don't change. Well, now they suck. Like, no, no, they're still good. They lost. Yeah. The question is, is how does that manifest in the following week's rankings? Because those are still important. And that's going to be a big deal when the CFP ranking committee or committee starts releasing their. Georgia will still be ranked high. But Alabama losing is the thing is if Alabama had gone and beaten Tennessee, just thinking from a ranking perspective, then a one loss Alabama would still have to be ranked behind Georgia. Alabama would still be kept pretty high. Georgia would be kept pretty high despite the loss. You can freefall them if you want. What I think voters will do because voters are lazy, is they will put whoever looks more impressed between Notre Dame and Miami, they'll put them number one. The other one will be number two. They'll move Ohio State to number three, even though they lost to Texas. That actually makes things more questionable, I think. Then I don't know who the highest ranked SEC team will be. I think it might stay Georgia. Yeah. Because Ole Miss has a very bad loss. Alabama now has two losses and the Tennessee loss was a beat down. The Georgia game, you can be like, well, that was PI, could have gone either way. This one could not have gone either way. Tennessee kicked Alabama's ass, and I didn't think that was going to happen at first. When they went up nine nothing, and all they could do is kick field goals, you're like, I don't know. They're never going to get to the end zone, and Alabama's offense will eventually start clicking. Never happened, the Alabama offense clicking part, getting to the end zone for Tennessee started happening. They just wore them out. Yeah, without question. And I do wonder, as we talk about Texas, and frame it as, well, their offense is going through some lumps, their defense will carry them all. Doesn't Tennessee get the same benefit? Yes. Don't teams have to struggle with that? I think Tennessee has more benefit, because their offense has done enough. Yeah, I guess they not played as hard of a schedule. I think that's probably the only reason. I mean, they literally lost to Texas, too. So, like, I don't want to compare those two. But I do want to at least try to frame the conversation in a fair way. When Texas, you know, loses games, you still think, yeah, well, they're a national championship contender. It's like, I don't know if this is just one of the weird results that we're going to get in SEC football, or if this is something that we need to be paying attention to. But Texas and Alabama are two of the three teams in the SEC that we thought were going to reign supreme. Tennessee played Texas to a three-point game and beat the other one on its home field pretty soundly on Saturday. So like, as you start to frame where Tennessee goes, like Tennessee is a bona fide top 10 team now in my mind, I would be scared shitless about their offense. I think that that's a scary, it's a scary situation that is going to pop up again later in the season and potentially cost them a game if they don't figure it out. I don't know what this means for the quarterback competition. Faison Brandon was in uniform, he didn't play. I don't know how injured he is or how much that injury played into a factor of how they chose who started the game at quarterback. But I thought George McIntyre, to your point, played much better in the second half, got more comfortable, and you also have to remember that the guy doesn't have a lot of reps either. Like he's learning on the fly. So I don't know a lot. And I think the theme of today's show is we don't know anything because I think it's kind of funny. But Tennessee is certainly in the top 10. Congratulations, River, enjoy it with your rowback shirt on. Where are you at, River? Come on, man. Why are you being so shy? It's just a good day, man. You know, big win. I don't know what else to say. I mean, smoke them if you got them. Smoke them if you got them. Yeah. Defense is a real deal. Like I told George, I got a bone to pick with George next time we get them on. Well, yeah, George Reister jinxed Alabama. He said this was going to be a bloodbath. He said this was going to be easy. Not easy. Not a bloodbath. None of the above. And Ari and I were very confident that Alabama would win this game, too. So we're all wrong here. Yeah. River was at the game where they beat Alabama initially. River coming in 2022. About the 2022 game that everybody wishes they were at if they weren't there. And what does this compare to your happiness level? Well, the 2022 is just like the biggest weight you've ever had lifted off your shoulder. Like, Tennessee hadn't beaten Alabama since Nick Saban's first year at that point. And so it had been 15 years of hell. It was the only time you ever really felt like they had a shot in 2022 to win it. And, you know, this, I mean, it still feels just as good to beat Alabama. It will never feel quite like that day did in 2022. But at the end of the day, it's just as much satisfying as it was. I mean, I actually think that. Well, no, this is different, though, because like the 2024 game was very close. Like that was that that was decided. That was decided on a pretty controversial non call, right? Or the Alabama fans think the refs jobbed him in that game. Yeah, it was an offensive struggle, that one for sure. Yeah. But this was an absolute ass kicking. This was convincing. This was convincing. Alabama's ass. Yeah. Started in the first half and just continued. Can I make an unpopular galaxy brain thought? Like I know when Hendon Hooker was on the team and they had Jalen Hyatt and those teams were just airing it out and it was fun to watch that beating Alabama in that period of time in college football might be one of the best nights in Neyland Stadium history. But doesn't beating them for the second time since then mean like there's a regular recurrence that like means a little bit more in the sense that like this isn't a shocking or this isn't as weird as that one was and that this is like a regular thing now for Tennessee. Like I think that like I think that that matters a lot. And again, I don't know how to frame that as it pertains to like the future of Tennessee's season. But if I'm a Vol fan right now, got some things to work on. Everything in the SEC is always you know, you spring everything forward. But man, that's that's going to be one tasty and fulfilling cigar. It's something that, you know, like we did in this video here, we're talking about Tennessee in the top tier of the SEC. Right. And it's not a shock at this point. Right. And look, this team made the playoff two years ago. Yeah. By the way, behind a defense in a great running game. Correct. Correct. Very similar style. So this team can make the playoff too. River, if you can throw up the schedule. So they got to go to South Carolina. South Carolina has had an off week after beating Florida. They looked, we were all there. All three of us were in Gainesville and South Carolina beat Florida and saw how good they can be when everything's clicking. But if Tennessee can win these next two, which is not easy, but if they could win these next two against South Carolina and Kentucky, then they have Texas A&M, LSU, Vandy, and they'd only need to win one. They could lose one of those, which would be LSU probably. Like this team can make the playoff. I'm trying not to jinx it, River, but this team has just as good of a chance of making the playoff as anybody else. As we're talking here, Andy, River's father is tweeting at me online. Here we go. And I sent you a tweet. He goes, Hey, Ari, how about the Vols? And they're all smoking cigars. I don't know if River's fast enough for this, but the whole Bailey family is just lit right now. And I'm curious, you guys, look at those people, just living the dream, watching their squad. Which one's your dad? My dad is the one in the orange. Okay, of course. And then my mom is with the gal in the black hoodie. Yeah, they're smoking that Alabama pack. Congratulations to the Bailey family and congratulations to everybody in Knoxville. I love these Saturdays because they're interesting, they're entertaining, they're different, but it also allows different fan bases who listen and patronize our show every day to enjoy their moments. It's better. I think college football is net better when it's not just Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia and Clemson every weekend. Think about the difference in emotions. Now, I think Tennessee fans felt more confident than say Auburn fans or Florida fans going into Saturday. But the level of emotion, the difference between what it felt like in the morning, and what it felt like post-game. Because I can tell you living in games, but everybody in the world, everyone here thought Florida was going to go lose by five touchdowns to Texas. I would imagine everybody in Auburn, Alabama, thought Auburn was going to go get beat by three touchdowns in Athens. And in this Tennessee game, they felt like they had more of a chance, but obviously they were the underdog. They were a touchdown underdog. And that defense, Jim Knowles, getting it done. He's gotten it done Ari at Oklahoma State, at Ohio State. The Penn State defense was fine last year. That wasn't really the problem. Like, and he is killing it at Tennessee. Yeah, I thought the thing with Jim Knowles is it took two years. I guess not. But he actually brought players this time, remember? He couldn't bring any players from Oklahoma State because it was kind of the beginning of the transfer portal era. And then Ohio State didn't really have any spots for him. This is Penn State year two. Yeah, you can't take anybody from Ohio State because they don't want to leave Ohio State. So Penn State year two defense. Congratulations. Man, Andy, before we get out of here, I just want to ask you, Alabama, are you, where are you at with them? I'm not out on them. I think they ran into Aurelia defense. I do think the playoff is going to be a tough ask right now, which kind of blows my mind from where we were two weeks ago. Now, if they can beat LSU in Baton Rouge, they have a very good chance. They still have to win the Iron Bowl, which is in Tuscaloosa, and I'm not going to, not going to count out Auburn in that game. We just watched Auburn go beat Georgia in Athens. I think this might be the year that a three-loss team gets in, but I don't know if Alabama would have the resume to do it. Right, right, because if you think about who those three-loss teams could be, and there's going to be a lot of options, probably. Like Texas might be one and they have an Ohio State win. They have a win against Ohio State. What Alabama would be. So unless they beat LSU and lose another weird one, they would need the LSU win, I think. But man, it is funny because every week we feel like we're getting a grasp of things like, oh, we were wrong about Alabama. How can we possibly have them rank number 13 in the preseason? God, we're stupid. They go on this great run to start the year. Now they're like going to be 14 again. Yeah, now they're kind of where we thought they were. Yeah, and the thing is that Alabama could get hot again and not lose again, and they'll finish the season ranked number six. Yeah. So Andy, we got some games going right now that's going to form our show tonight, but that was a hell of a day. That was a hell of a day, man. We're not even done yet. Congrats. One more time to River. I'm happy for you. Good day. Good day. Go find a cigar. Yeah. I'll add it tonight. Dude, Rogersville is probably lit right now. Oh, well, the entire state of Tennessee. All of Tennessee. Yeah. I'll just Rogersville. That Walmart parking lot is going crazy right now. I promise you that. Do they sell cigars at Walmart? Yeah. They sell everything at Walmart. Yeah, they sure do, bud. We'll talk to you tonight.