Tennessee football at Alabama: 10 keys for Vols and Crimson Tide

10. Is Alabama taking this game as seriously as it needs to?

If you’re the Crimson Tide, how do you get up for the next two weeks? Sure, Nick Saban will preach about the history of the rivalry with Tennessee football. But the oldest players on this team were under 10 years old the last time the Vols won a game in this series.

Meanwhile, they also just had a big win over the Texas A&M Aggies. So now they have the Vols and the Arkansas Razorbacks before heading to a bye ahead of their huge showdown with the LSU Tigers. It’s almost impossible for them not to be relaxed in some way.

Add in the late kickoff, as this game is a 9 p.m. start on Eastern Time, and you’ve got a situation in which the Vols may be able to cash in on the Tide’s lack of focus. Saban will do and say all the right things, but he has enough experience with the fact that you can only go so far as a head coach on that front.

The Tide have one goal in mind, and that’s to get back to facing the Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff. They know they have to get past their SEC slate to do it. But Tennessee and Arkansas are still probably afterthoughts.

Is it enough? Will it even matter given how elite they are? It might. But it will take a lot more than Bama not caring about this game for the Vols to find a way to make it interesting. This is just something they need to happen.