No. 6 Alabama rides epic pick-6 to dominant win over No. 11 Tennessee, marking fourth straight ranked win

Tennessee's hopes of getting back in the game were destroyed on a 99-yard pick-6 at the end of the first half.

Ty Simpson and Alabama faced a ranked and dangerous Tennessee team on Saturday night. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Ty Simpson and Alabama faced a ranked and dangerous Tennessee team on Saturday night. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Kevin C. Cox via Getty Images

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Every season for every team has a defining play, a moment that sums up and symbolizes a year’s worth of work, effort, hope or desolation. Sometimes that defining play is obvious only in retrospect, and sometimes it’s clear even before it’s over.

Maybe Alabama goes on to win the national championship. Maybe the Tide sputter in November. (Everything’s on the table this college season.) What’s clear is this: in a crucial ranked-on-ranked matchup, No. 6 Alabama knocked off No. 11 Tennessee 37-20, a victory that gave Alabama hope for bigger things this season, and showed just how dangerous the new-model Crimson Tide can be.

And it all hinged on a single play, the kind of play that — depending on how the rest of the season goes — might be replayed an awful lot in the coming weeks, months and years. 

On the evening of the Third Saturday in October, with six seconds remaining in the half and Tennessee an arm’s length from the Alabama end zone, Volunteers quarterback Joey Aguilar took the snap under center, but then took four hasty steps backward. Accurate and forceful most of the night up to that point, the game’s most crucial snap to that point, he was neither.

Aguilar’s goal-line pass in the direction of Miles Kitselman drifted inward, and Alabama’s Zabien Brown simply stepped in its line for an easy interception, and, 99 yards later, a crushing touchdown:

The pick-6 was effectively a 14-point swing, flipping what could have been a two-point Tennessee deficit heading into halftime into a 16-point advantage for the Tide.

The Third Saturday rivalry dates all the way back to 1901, and Alabama holds a decided edge, particularly during a 15-win streak in the Nick Saban era. But Tennessee has won two of the last three, a record that corresponds with the Volunteers’ return to the national conversation. And Alabama hasn’t exactly been the Alabama of old over the last season-and-a-half. That’s what happens when your rival makes the initial 12-team College Football Playoff and you don’t.

Alabama came out of the gates hot on Saturday, three-and-out'ing Tennessee to start the game, then marching 91 yards for a touchdown on its first drive. The Tide's Ty Simpson bolstered his Heisman case, spreading the ball around, over and through Tennessee's overmatched secondary for 253 yards and two touchdowns on 19-of-29 completions. Jam Miller, back from a concussion suffered last week against Missouri, managed a touchdown, while receiver Ryan Williams returned to form with 87 field-stretching yards on five catches.

Aguilar, meanwhile, struggled, throwing that one backbreaking interception and another on an attempted two-point conversion. Tennessee's DeSean Bishop piled up the yards on the ground, finishing with 123 yards and two touchdowns in long, time-consuming drives. 

Alabama (6-1, 4-0 in SEC) now controls its SEC destiny, since only Texas A&M also remains undefeated in the conference. A date with unranked South Carolina awaits next week, with ranked opponents LSU and Oklahoma yet to come, both at home.   

With two SEC losses, Tennessee (5-2, 2-2) is now out of the conference championship equation and will need to win out — and get some real help up and down the rankings — in order to make the College Football Playoff. The Volunteers still have ranked opponents in Oklahoma and Vanderbilt on the slate ahead.

The entire Alabama campus is a no-smoking zone on most days of the year. But on the Third Saturday in October, the law is merely a suggestion. Fans began lighting up the traditional victory cigars early in the fourth quarter, and by the game’s end, a fine tobacco haze hung over Bryant-Denny Stadium.

The Saban Years aren’t coming back, not for Alabama and not for anyone else. But right now, the Tide are in the top 10 and riding a six-game winning streak, including four straight over ranked teams, and in this chaotic college football season, that’s more than enough.

Category: General Sports