TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Less than eight minutes remained in Alabama's eventual 45-7 college football victory over Tennessee Saturday afternoon, the Crimson Tide leading 38-7, but the Vols less than a yard from the end zone. A score here would make it 38-14, as well as making at least some semblance of an argument to keep Butch Jones as UT's head coach, if only for the endless fight his teams often show when all is seemingly lost.
But a penalty cost UT 5 yards. Then on fourth down - a surprisingly enthusiastic Bama crowd in full throat and on its feet, crimson and white shakers shaking as furiously as they had all afternoon - the Tide intercepted Vols quarterback Jarrett Guarantano and UT's string of quarters in which they have failed to score an offensive touchdown reached 14.
It was that noise and enthusiasm from a Bama crowd in a game in which victory had long before been won that provided the day's lasting memory, however.
Mark WiedmerIf this had been for the SEC championship, or a rout of bitter rival Auburn, such passion might have been understandable, even expected. And an earlier two-fisted, one-finger salute to the Bama student section by UT defensive back Rashaan Gaulden might also have inspired such passion, given that every cell phone screen among the nearly 102,000 in attendance had surely seen his gesture by then.
But the Third Saturday in October has pretty much lacked that intensity since Nick Saban arrived to end much doubt about the outcomes save 2009 and 2015, when the Vols made shockingly stout attempts at upsets inside this same Bryant-Denny Stadium, losing 12-10 in 2009 on a last-second blocked field goal and 19–14 in 2015 after owning the lead inside the final 10 minutes.
Both those Bama squads, by the way, went on to win national championships, and this 2017 edition may very well follow that script.
It can also be hard for anyone watching the Tide in person these days not to think they're watching a defensive secondary that might shut down at least a handful of NFL teams' passing attacks, including one we're all fairly familiar with just up the road in Nashville.
That atmosphere is every bit as untouchable, however. All those shakers. All those unusually well-dressed fans - it's still acceptable in T-town for the male students to wear blazers and the coeds dresses to a game - and all that ageless reverence for the late, great Paul "Bear" Bryant, gone from this earth since Jan. 26, 1983, but never to be forgotten within the Heart of Dixie, as the state of Alabama license plates long declared.
A single story about what college football, especially Alabama-Auburn football, means to that state. My family moved to Birmingham when I was in junior high in the early 1970s. The first question I was asked wasn't my name, but whether I was for Alabama or Auburn.
As former Tide coach Gene Stallings once mused, "It's the only rivalry I know where they hate each other 365 days a year."
And it's been that way for close to 60 years, or at least pretty much from the time Bryant came home in 1958 to "Momma," as he called his alma mater, to make Bama football synonymous with success.
Or to once more recall Steely Dan's timeless lyrics, "They've got a name for the winners in the world, I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, call me Deacon Blues."
You can say it's time to advance past all that tradition and that's your right. But there's also something comforting about it, as if at least one small corner of the country still treats going to a college football game as a major event, to be "spruced up for," as my grandparents used to say, rather than merely treated as a trip to the mall.
Does it help Saban recruit his No. 1 classes year after year? Probably not. Players of the Tide's caliber - four- and five-star prospects to use the recruiting vernacular of the day - are pretty much attracted to how well Saban can prepare them to become highly prized NFL draft picks.
But the flawlessness of Bryant-Denny Stadium and feverishness of the fans surely elevates those players' adrenaline on game days, possibly causing them to play even the slightest bit better than they might have without that atmosphere.
Make no mistake. Should UT decide in the days ahead to part company with Jones, it's first and only goal should be to find someone who can stand up to Saban on both the recruiting trail and the sideline. Erasing the national debt might be easier.
But it should also continue to embrace the traditions it has to rival Bama. Neyland Stadium made into a checkerboard pattern through card sections. Rocky Top. The beauty that is the Tennessee River and the Vol Navy that anchors there on game day.
Good as "Sweet Home Alabama" sounds inside Bryant-Denny, it's not stronger than Rocky Top when the Vols are rolling. Vols fans just have to hope that their football program can one day return to a point when a game against Bama that already boasts a 31-point UT fourth-quarter lead can elicit the noise Bama Nation did on Saturday.
And let us hope that at least part of the reason for that noise isn't because a frustrated Crimson Tider delivers a double one-fingered salute to the Vols student section.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com