Alabama Football: Can Tide push win streak vs. Tennessee to 12 games?

Alabama football renews its Third Saturday in October rivalry with Tennessee, looking to remain undefeated and run their winning streak against the Vols to 12.

Alabama continued their dominant start to the 2018 season with a workmanlike 39-10 win over Missouri last week. The Crimson Tide jumped out to a 30-10 lead at the half, and after a scare with QB Tua Tagovailoa, Nick Saban elected to mostly take the air out of the ball in the second half as the Tide cruised to another victory.

It was the Alabama defense that was on full display in Tuscaloosa last Saturday as they held a potent Missouri offense to just 10 points and 212 total yards. Defensive shortcomings have made Nick Saban grumpy in spite of the 7-0 record with seven blowouts, but he had to be pleased with his defense’s performance against the Tigers.

This week, Alabama heads to Knoxville to renew their Third Saturday in October rivalry with Tennessee; a rivalry that has struggled to be called such by outside observers since Saban’s arrival in Tuscaloosa. Alabama is riding an 11-game winning streak in the series, which matches the longest such streak in the history of the game.

Tennessee enters Saturday’s showdown with a renewed sense of confidence. Their head coach Jeremy Pruitt commented on the perceived progress of his Volunteers after their loss to Georgia a couple of weeks ago, and finally got tangible proof of it with Tennessee’s upset victory over Auburn in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Can Pruitt’s squad continue that momentum and end the program’s longest losing streak against Alabama?

Here’s how you can watch Saturday’s rivalry matchup between Alabama and Tennessee:

Date: Saturday, Oct. 20
Time: 3:30 p.m. ET
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
Venue: Neyland Stadium
TV: CBS
Live Stream: CBS Sports Live | FuboTV

Keys to Victory

With Tua Tagovailoa’s knee sprain, look for Alabama to invoke a similar gameplan this week to what they did in last week’s second half against Missouri. Even with Saban and Tua saying all the right things about the injury, you have to believe that Saban will want to play his star quarterback as little as possible against the Volunteers to preserve his health for the de-facto SEC West Championship game in Baton Rouge in two weeks. Alabama will try to hit some big passing plays early, and then will look to ground and pound with their trio of running backs Damien Harris, Josh Jacobs, and Najee Harris.

For Tennessee to pull the upset, they’ll need to stop the run and get pressure on Tua to test how healthy he really is. If the Vols can stop the run, I believe they’ll throw the Tide gameplan out of whack this week — that’ll be easier said than done for Vols defense that gives up 150-plus yards-per-game on the ground. Offensively, Tennessee will likely use a similar strategy to what they had success with against Auburn last week. Look for Jarrett Guarantano to find one-on-one matchups for receivers Jauan Jennings, Marquez Callaway, and Josh Palmer.

Betting Odds

Odds courtesy of oddsshark.com

Point Spread: Alabama -29
Over/Under: 57

Prediction

Alabama is going to do what it can to get off to a quick start with some big plays in the passing game. Tua will look to hit chunk plays down the field to Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III, or Jaylen Waddle early in the game to give the Crimson Tide as comfortable of a lead as he can as quickly as he can get it. This would allow Saban to remove Tua from the game, wrap him up in bubble-wrap, and ship him to Baton Rouge. Jalen Hurts will come in, and mostly cede way to Damien Harris and company on the ground. Tennessee will try and hit some big plays with jump-balls on the outside, but roaming ball-hawk safety Deionte Thompson will be lurking to pick off one or two of those.

Final Score: Alabama 48, Tennessee 17