Alabama stomps Tennessee in rout, 45-7: 3 takeaways

The No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide crushed the Tennessee Volunteers in Week 8, 45-7. Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Crimson Tide’s win.

As most expected, the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide obliterated the Tennessee Volunteers on the Third Saturday in October, 45-7. Alabama improves to 8-0 (5-0) on the season, while Tennessee nose dives to 3-4 (0-4) on the year.

The Crimson Tide’s quest to perfection remains intact. Tennessee has to move on from Butch Jones as its head coach, probably as soon as possible. While Alabama can compete for a national title, are we even sure that the Volunteers are going to win an SEC game this year? This game was a complete blowout and only really reaffirmed a handful of things we already knew.

Here are the three biggest takeaways from Alabama’s win over Tennessee.

Tennessee’s lack of offense is offensive. It’s just embarrassing. How does an SEC blue-blood go 14 quarters without scoring an offensive touchdown? That is the reality with the state of Tennessee football. The last time the Volunteers found pay dirt on offense, it was in the second quarter at home against the UMass Minutemen on Sep. 24.

Jones’ decision to go from Quentin Dormady to Jarrett Guarantano at starting quarterback has done absolutely nothing for the Tennessee offense. It has resulted in no offensive touchdowns and just another underwhelming quarterback whose name is hard to spell.

While many really like John Kelly at running back, it’s hard for Tennessee to even get into the red zone. On their lone trip to the red zone this week, Kelly would be stopped a foot shy of pay dirt. After a penalty by the Tennessee offense, Guarantano would throw a pick to inside linebacker Mack Wilson. Tennessee has the worst offense in the SEC by a wide margin.

Jalen Hurts is great, but who is this Tua Tagovailoa guy? Alabama has its second-year starting quarterback that it can rely on in Jalen Hurts, but there is something about his backup, true freshman Tua Tagovailoa. He played a ton on Saturday against Tennessee and definitely put together some good tape.

Yes, he had that bad pick-six on a pass he telegraphed to Tennessee inside linebacker Daniel Bituli, but he has a certain skill set that Hurts doesn’t offer. If you haven’t watched Tagovailoa sling the pigskin, you should, because he can zing it. He throws an accurate ball with a good bit of zip on it, and his passing mechanics will certainly translate to the next level.

While Hurts is more careful with the football, Tagovailoa is more of a dynamic dual-threat playmaker than him. That doesn’t mean Tagovailoa will overtake Hurts on the depth chart, but he is fun watch play backyard football in a blowout victory in SEC play.

Let’s be real. This isn’t a rivalry any more, just another guaranteed victory for Alabama. To many millennials in the Southeastern United States, The Third Saturday in October means an easy win for Alabama over Tennessee. It has been a long 12 years since the Volunteers beat the Crimson Tide, meaning this isn’t a rivalry anymore.

It’s sad to see what was once one of the greatest rivalries in the SEC completely fall to the wayside. For a time, this was considered the greatest rival Tennessee football had. The Volunteers didn’t play Georgia often enough, and Florida didn’t emerge as a national power until the 1990s. Now, Tennessee just has to take its annual loss to Alabama and move on.

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If you want to dissect the downfall of Tennessee football, just look at the school’s record against Alabama, Florida and Georgia in the last decade. It’s hard to compete for SEC East titles when you the best you can do is 2-1 in that trifecta, often times going 0-3.