With its final game of October, Alabama is right where Nick Saban wants it. The Crimson Tide coach is orchestrating behavior on the field and in the seats, and all parties seem only too glad to follow the dear leader’s every command so long as the championships keep coming.
The power of Saban was on full display Saturday.
His team put up another name-the-score kind of victory, this time taking apart Tennessee 45-10. The unbeaten (8-0) and No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide have won their past five games by an average of 37 points.
And, after suggesting last week that the fans were not doing their part, daring to leave these blowouts early, there was a marked loud presence in the stands right to the final whistle of a fourth quarter as compelling as a quilting bee.
Oh, what a pleased man the coach was, an almost microscopic trace of a smile appearing on his face as he said: “I’m really happy, our players are really happy and I hope our fans are really happy. I certainly appreciated our fans today. They stayed for the game and did a great job of supporting our team.”
Yes, that blase Alabama fan base is really starting to come together.
The team is not so shabby either.
Possessing two consecutive BCS championships — and three of the past four — Alabama is still playing like a team starving for glory. There were thoughts that this Bama team was vulnerable — with its offensive line all gone to the NFL and its defense giving ground in the first two games against Virginia Tech and Texas A&M.
But something very Alabama-like has happened since: Saban’s team has gotten progressively better every week. And as the rest of the SEC has been cannibalizing itself, the Crimson Tide have just been separating themselves further from the rest of the conference.
Someone even dared to ask receiver Kevin (six catches, 112 yards and a touchdown) Norwood on Saturday if this might be the best Alabama team of the past three seasons. “I hope so,” he answered coyly.
Oh, and that supposedly inferior offensive line: Quarterback AJ McCarron went another game without suffering a sack, his fourth in a row.
Tennessee is a benchmark for two of the more prominent teams jockeying for position atop the BCS standings. Earlier this year, Oregon beat the Volunteers by 45. Alabama’s 35-point victory was against a Vols team that had professed marked improvement. The proof included a victory over South Carolina a week ago.
It long ago stopped mattering how Alabama won. Now, it is strictly a matter of by how many.
This dynasty has to do something far more difficult now than win a game in the toughest conference in college football. It has to please itself. And it came close Saturday.
Here was an example of how the lords of college football operate in the pursuit of self-improvement:
With its first possession Saturday the Crimson Tide ran a flanker screen to the left that gained 11 yards, but was nullified by an illegal block. Only one thing to do then: They ran the exact same play to the other side, and Amari Cooper went undisturbed for a 54-yard touchdown.
There, guess that little problem was solved.
On the next possession, running back T.J. Yeldon was stopped a foot short of the goal line. He was handed the ball on the next play and scored as routinely as if finishing a practice drill.
Give Saban a free afternoon — and the Crimson Tide have an off week before meeting LSU — he perhaps could clear up those glitches on the health care web site.
The first half was Alabama performing at a perfect pitch, running to a 35-0 lead. Saban, almost giddy, repeated, “I want to say again how proud and how pleased I was with how our guys came out and competed in the first half of this game.”
Tennessee coach Butch Jones had a slightly different view. “We probably played our worst half of football that we have played all year,” he said. “Some of it was due to the quality of our opponent. Some of it was self-inflicted wounds.” The Vols, 4-4, 1-3 in the SEC, are now 0-3 on the road this season.
In that first half, the Crimson Tide churned out 16 first downs to Tennessee’s six, and put up 292 yards of offense to the Vols’ 150. It was a first-half TKO, the last 30 minutes but a formality.
The end result was an Alabama team gaining steam at the right time. “We are very close to where we want to be,” said safety Landon Collins, whose 89-yard interception return wrapped up the first-half scoring binge. “We know where we want to be at the end of the season, and it feels great now.”
And the fans seem to be peaking as well.
“We’re just asking them to do the things our players do,” Saban said. No one is allowed to take off a single play, even the paying customer.
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