Tennessee called Alabama “the Red Team” going into Saturday afternoon’s game. The Crimson Tide took a different approach to the nickname in its 45-10 win over the Volunteers.
“We just took it as the Red Team, we can be the Red Team, but we’re going to be the Navy SEAL Red Team,” senior cornerback Deion Belue said. “Then, when we step in, it’s time for everything to stop; we get straight to business.”
For a rivalry, the Alabama-Tennessee game was almost entirely one-sided, with the first half dominated by the Crimson Tide.
Happy was the word coach Nick Saban used over and over again. He was happy, and his players were happy, he said.
“We knew Tennessee was a team who could play with anyone in the country, and it was a challenge to our guys to try to prove who we were and how we could play against them,” Saban said.
As it turned out, Alabama could have slept on Tennessee. The offense at the very least could have taken the afternoon off. Instead, it put up 28 unanswered points over the Volunteers in the first half.
“It’s very important because I think there’s a moment where we take over the game, we gain all the momentum, and then we just put the dagger in the heart,” senior wide receiver Kevin Norwood said. “That’s what we take pride in.”
Amari Cooper started the scoring in the first half on a 54-yard pass from AJ McCarron. T.J. Yeldon scored three touchdowns Saturday afternoon, each a 1-yard run into the end zone and each in consecutive quarters.
Norwood caught six passes for 112 yards including one he caught on his back. He said McCarron just looked his way and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground with the ball. He also had a 22-yard catch at the end of the first quarter that put Alabama up by three touchdowns.
“It’s just all the hard work we’ve put in; it’s coming out,” Norwood said. “I’m telling you, we work really hard for what we’re doing, and for these guys to play the way we do is just amazing.”
Landon Collins added one last touchdown to Alabama’s lead in the first half. He intercepted a pass off Tennessee’s Justin Worley and returned it 89 yards. He had a little help getting into the end zone after a timely block from an unlikely source: Jeoffrey Pagan.
“He’s a big dude,” Collins said. “He’s pretty fast for his size, but I didn’t think he was that fast to keep up as much as he [did].”
Alabama scored the final points of the game off a 20-yard field goal by Adam Griffith with just under seven minutes left in the fourth. The 45-10 win reflected the offense’s growth, according to Norwood.
“[The offense] is definitely [better],” he said. “After that moment where AJ, C.J. Mosely and Vinnie Sunseri, after the game of Colorado State, after they talked to us, I think everybody just started buying in and just a couple people said that they realized that we can do it, that we’ve worked hard for it, and we can do it.”
