Alabama Football Possessed Anxiety Problem Ahead of Tennessee Game

Nick Saban said that his players lacked focus during preparation for the game against the Volunteers.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It seems that Alabama football's woes at Tennessee last weekend began even before the players had stepped foot on the field inside Neyland Stadium last Saturday.

According to head coach Nick Saban during his Monday press conference, the energy levels of the team were down even as the team was in the tunnel before the start of the game.

"You wanna have great energy and you wanna be loose," Saban said. "I thought we were tight, especially starting the game. Coming out of the locker room, our players always chant. They weren’t chanting. I said, ‘Why aren’t you guys chanting? What’s up with that?’ It’s not that they don’t wanna do it, it’s not that they’re not trying. I just think we’ve got to place our focus in the right place and our psychological disposition in the right place so that we can — look, when you compete, it’s fun to compete when you play the next play."

The Crimson Tide ultimately lost to the Volunteers due to a field goal as time expired, giving Tennessee its first win over Alabama since Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa back in 2007.

In the first quarter of the game, the Crimson Tide was outscored 21-7. While Alabama was ultimately able to pull within eight points at halftime and keep the game close until the end, the tough start to the game forced the Crimson Tide to play from behind for the majority of the next 45 minutes.

Alabama linebacker Will Anderson Jr. agreed that intensity and energy at Tennessee was inferior to the team's efforts in prior weeks.

"I think we probably just had a lot of anxiety," Anderson said. "We didn't have the same intensity that, you know, we had a couple of weeks ago. We most definitely needed that to carry over into this game, but just the intensity was just not ready."

A slow start wasn't the worst of Alabama's problems. Lack of discipline led to a program-record of 17 penalties over the course of the game, many of which were avoidable offsides and false starts. Pass interference was also an issue. At the end of the day, there wasn't a singular problem for the Crimson Tide to point to. Rather, it was a plethora of issues.

Saban said that if his team wants to regain control and use the loss as a means of learning, then his team is going to have to focus on not worrying about outside influences.

“Not looking at the scoreboard, not worrying about results, not being fearful of what’s gonna happen if something bad happens or if we lose a game," Saban said. "Just go play, compete, and then when the game’s over and we do that and do it well as a collective group, we can live with the results. So that’s what it’s our job, my job to help these players get to that point."

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