College Football Rewind: 5 most important games from 2009 season

4. (1) Alabama 12, Tennessee 10

Like I said in the previous slide, 2009 was a pretty boring season in terms of upsets and teams in the national championship race because Florida, Alabama and Texas rotated between being Nos. 1, 2 and 3 for much of the season and they only had a handful of close losses between them.

This was one of them.

Some of the younger college football fans may not know this, but Tennessee and Alabama used to be one of the premier rivalries in the entire SEC. Another storyline to this game was Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin. He (currently the head coach at Ole Miss) was in his first and only season in Knoxville and had made plenty of headlines with his trash talk in the offseason.

Tennessee had already played Florida tough and was looking to do the same with the Crimson Tide. The Volunteer defense played a very good game, holding the Crimson Tide to 256 yards of offense.

The biggest difference in the game was blocked field goals. Tennessee had two field goals blocked by Alabama nose tackle Terrence “Mount” Cody, including one as time expired.

This game was significant because if Alabama loses, that opens the door for either TCU or Cincinnati to make the national championship game against Texas and it would have given Kiffin a huge win under his belt. Tennessee fans may never get over this one.