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Alabama Football vs Tennessee Preview: Q&A With Rocky Top Talk

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Alabama Football vs Tennessee Preview: Q&A With Rocky Top Talk


In what has been an annual tradition for years now, Terry Lambert from Rocky Top Talk joins us (mostly in peace) once again to talk a little about the Tennessee Volunteers from a fan’s perspective. Hopefully, this is the only time you’ll have to interact with a Vols fan this year – he is one of the best.

While you’re at it, go check out my responses over on their site.


1) Josh Heupel is now in year 4 (my how time flies!), what are your feelings about him now? I know after 2022, he was the best coach ever, but sometimes a taste of achievement makes anything less than that underwhelming. 2023 was a bit of a meh year for the Vols, and after a hot start this season, the last three games have been a struggle (in fact, it’s kind of mirrored Alabama’s season, absent a big win over an overrated* UGA squad). Starting to feel a little bit of discontent?

*yeah, I said it. UGA ain’t it this year.

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Admittedly I was not a huge fan of the hire back in 2021, simply based off the regression we saw at UCF. But it’s worked, in large part to his hyper-speed spread offense. People forget just how far down Tennessee was here after Heupel was installed only weeks after the Jeremy Pruitt-McDonald’s-Bag-Of-Money fiasco. It’s important to keep that context in mind when evaluating Heupel.

Going forward, it remains to be seen if he can win big. We have big questions about his ability on the road, which we saw pop up once again against Arkansas. His clock management can be maddening at times, too. Overall though, looking at the big picture, it’s hard to not say Tennessee is on the right track. They’ve got their NIL collective rolling, which is going to net another top ten class. He’s landed five-star quarterbacks in three of the last four cycles.

Heupel has Tennessee back to a perennial nine-win per year program, which was the first step. Getting to that next level is expected now though, and the Tennessee fanbase isn’t exactly a patient bunch. It kinda feels like he needs to beat Alabama or Georgia now to make this season a success. If he does that, Tennessee will be right back in the thick of the CFP picture.

2) Nico Iamaleava. Some, not me, have said he’s the next Trevor Lawrence. Others, which may actually be me, have said that Trevor Lawrence and Iamaleava both run like a giraffe, but that’s the extent of the similarities. What do you think about him? Can he get the Tennessee offense back to Hendon Hooker level eventually, or are there some limitations?

It’s an interesting case. He came out guns blazing, even if it was against inferior opponents. Now you’re seeing some freshman moments pop up. Personally, I don’t really feel like he’s been as bad as the narrative suggests. We’re still talking about a 19-year-old kid making his first starts in the SEC. Did we really expect him to come in and have a full grasp of the offense like Hendon Hooker did back in 2022? That was always unrealistic, but after his hot start, I get the frustration.

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One big part of this equation has been the offensive line. Particularly the tackles — they’ve been flat out bad. Almost every time Nico scrambles, they get hit with a holding call. Five-star LSU transfer Lance Heard has been atrocious in pass protection, which has created several blindside hits. He’s dealing with constant pressure and probably seeing some ghosts at this point.

Long story short, he’s a guy with all the tools and still trying to master the offense. But his protection has to get fixed before we get a true snapshot of his upside.

3) Is Dylan Sampson the best running back in the SEC? I’m not sure who I’d even put against him.

Yes, like you said it’s not even close. He’s been really impressive in his development, turning himself into a do-it-all back. He was initially thought of as a homerun hitter, but his vision and toughness in between the tackles is what has set him apart now. Tennessee really leans on him without much depth behind him.

Like Nico, he’s been dealing with some offensive line issues. Tennessee’s rushing attack is the key to everything, and far too often the offensive line has failed to get a push. Sampson has bailed them out several times, but there’s only so much he can do.

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4) How’s Miles Kitselman doing? He was an interesting JUCO guy that never would have gotten any real playing time with us, but I liked the way he ran routes back in the JUCO days.

This guy seemingly came out of nowhere, but he’s essentially TE1 for Tennessee now. They’ll use three guys there, but he’s been out-snapping everyone the last few weeks. He was kind of a late take out of the portal, following the higher profile pickup of Holden Staes from Notre Dame. But really since the second game of the season he’s been the main tight end threat in the passing game.

Tennessee doesn’t throw to tight ends a ton, but if they do, Kitselman has turned into the guy.

5) Statistically, Tennessee has arguably the best defense in the country. Where did that come from?? Any chance there’s a weak spot or two that you see that aren’t showing up in the stats yet?

Continuity on the coaching staff, honestly. Tennessee is in year four with this staff and all they’ve had to replace is a linebackers coach. The core of this group has been there since the start, and the staff has been able to build them from the ground up.

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Legendary DL coach Rodney Garner is the secret. His defensive line has developed into the best group in the SEC, which is pretty wild to think about considering where Tennessee was just a few years ago. The defensive front rotates about 12 guys, which keeps them fresh even in the fourth quarter. They want to wear offenses down and they’ve been really successful at doing that so far. Defensive coordinator Tim Banks’ aggression is a large piece of this puzzle too — he’s going to come after you for four quarters.

Tennessee has yet to give up more than 17 points all year long. A Josh Heupel team led by defense isn’t something I had on my bingo card, but here we are.

As far as a weakness, senior linebacker Keenan Pili was lost for the season last week to a torn ACL. This shifts responsibility down to two sophomores, Arion Carter and Jeremiah Telander. They’ll apparently be sharing the communication helmet this weekend, so we could see some growing pains there.

6) Are there any freshmen getting on the field that you think are going to be an All-American a year and a half from now?

Tennessee notoriously hasn’t played true freshmen under Heupel, but Chattanooga native Boo Carter has found the field. He’s quickly finding a home at the nickel spot and has made several plays so far. He was a guy that most felt was going to be hard to keep off the field following a strong spring, and he’s certainly delivered to this point.

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Five-star receiver Mike Matthews has also flashed, but hasn’t really found playing time yet. He’s a guy that could make a big jump quickly, however. I’d expect him to get a couple of drives on Saturday.

7) Okay, what’s the actual injury situation right now? I’ve seen some things saying that your entire WR core is injured, and others saying most everyone is playing. Are there any major pieces not playing in this game?

It was pretty strange after the Arkansas game. Bru McCoy was in a cast and Squirrel White was in a sling. Those in the know painted a pretty grim picture, but then they were both listed as probable last week and both ended up playing. I’m expecting the receivers to be a full strength this weekend, though Squirrel does seem to be paying through pain.

We’ve already touched on the Pili injury. Tennessee also lost starting nickel Jourdan Thomas for the season back in camp. Outside of that, Tennessee is about as healthy as you can ask for at this point.

8) What is a successful season for Tennessee this year? Just make the playoffs? Win a playoff game?

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Yeah, so this has probably shifted in the last couple of weeks. Tennessee looked like they were ready to set the world on fire up 19-3 on Oklahoma at halftime. They’ve been flat out bad since that point. Can they rebound? We’re going to find out Saturday.

Success for me would be making the playoff. Doing it with a redshirt freshman quarterback would certainly set up expectations for 2025. I’m not sure you can ask or expect much more at this point.

9) Who do you predict actually wins the SEC?

I mean can you go with anyone other than Texas? I do agree Georgia ain’t it this season. What exactly is Alabama? I think the Tide will probably figure it out, but are they better than Texas? Ole Miss is already dead, LSU? Maybe? Texas A&M vs. LSU in a couple of weeks will tell us a lot.

Ultimately I just don’t think anyone can hang with Texas.

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10) and, of course, what’s your game prediction?

I personally can’t get the last two weeks out of my head, and I know ‘Bama has played just as bad. The difference has been that Tennessee has gotten off to painfully slow starts, not scoring a single point in back to back first halves. The defense has stood on its head, and frankly has caught some luck to stay in these games.

As good as this defense is, ‘Bama is going to get theirs. Can the Tennessee offense get going early? That’s the key for me. I don’t think they do.

Alabama 27, Tennessee 20



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Alabama

Kalen DeBoer says kicker Graham Nicholson has found his rhythm at Alabama

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Kalen DeBoer says kicker Graham Nicholson has found his rhythm at Alabama


Kalen DeBoer calls them “gimmie kicks.” The head coach’s philosophy has always been to give his kickers as many opportunities from short-distance attempts early in the season in order to get them in a rhythm and build up their confidence.

That’s the plan anyway. Alabama’s big-play offense prevented that transition for Miami-Ohio transfer Graham Nicholson in his first season with the Crimson Tide this year.

Nicholson, who earned the Lou Groza Award last season, didn’t even attempt a field goal in Alabama’s first two games. He pushed his first attempt wide right from 46 yards out at Wisconsin in Week 3. After hitting a 28-yarder against Georgia two weeks later, he didn’t get another attempt until the Week 8 loss against Tennessee, where he went 1 of 2, coming up short on a 54-yard try before hitting the target from 35 yards out.

Since then Nicholson has been perfect, connecting on two field goals against Missouri as well as one last week against Mercer. Now it seems like the graduate kicker is finally finding his rhythm.

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“Getting that first one is hard, and it took him a long time to get that first opportunity,” DeBoer said of Nicholson during his weekly radio show on Wednesday night. “It isn’t his fault. We were just scoring touchdowns and the opportunities didn’t present themselves the same way.

“He has been just steady since Day 1. We see him every day in practice. I think he’s getting more and more comfortable in our stadium in particular.”

DeBoer called the two kicks Nicholson made a Missouri “critical to Alabama’s 34-0 win over the Tigers. The first of which came from a season-long 47 yards out as the kicker helped the Tide put points on the board to cap off the game’s opening possession. From there, Nicholson helped a struggling Alabama offense get some momentum by hitting a 39-yarder to put the Tide up 6-0 late in the second quarter.

“Thought [the 47-yarder] was a big kick for us right there to get three points on the board,” DeBoer said. “And then he came back and did it again.”

While kicking isn’t DeBoer’s expertise, he said he still makes an effort to monitor his kicker’s reps during practice in order to get a good feel of what affects them and what went wrong during misses.

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“A kicker might miss a kick in practice, and if you really weren’t paying attention, you might just think it was him,” DeBoer explained. “Well, it might have been the snap or the hold or something else. There’s other moving parts to that part. It might not solely fall on the kicker missing in practice, and you can quickly some thoughts about, ‘Well, he’s not in his groove right now,’ when really there were other factors that played a role in it.”

As for Nicholson, DeBoer believes he’s finally found his rhythm and should be able to return to his award-winning form to close out the season.

“He’s mentally strong,” DeBoer said. “He’s got a lot that he’s done in the past that he goes back to that gives him the confidence he has. You still got a new place and you gotta kind of reprove yourself. He’s done a good job of doing that.”

Last season, Nicholson made 27 of 28 field-goal attempts and 35 of 37 extra-point tries. That included an NCAA-record streak of 25 straight made field goals. Through 10 games at Alabama, he is 5 of 7 on field goals and has made all 48 of his extra-point tries.



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Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's win over Illinois

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Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's win over Illinois


Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama’s win over Illinois

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters after the Crimson Tide’s 100-87 win over No. 25 Illinois on Wednesday. No. 8 Alabama bounced back from a loss to Purdue in strong fashion, taking down its first Power Five opponent of the season and gaining some momentum ahead of a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Players Era Festival tournament.

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Here’s everything Oats said after the game.

Opening statement

“That’s a big win. Illinois is good. They’re talented. Got multiple guys that are gonna end up playing in the NBA. They’ve got length everywhere. They beat us on the boards, so we’ve got to get significantly better on the glass. But I thought our guys did a much better job defensively. We had a few things we had to get cleaned up, and I thought we played pretty hard. I thought we had a group in there to close the game out that played pretty well on defense and got to the rim on offense.

“There’s lots of positives. We shot the ball well from some guys. I think Grant got his confidence going, obviously, early. Labaron has been playing really hard, almost had a triple-double with 16, nine and seven. I think the ball moved a lot better. Twenty-three assists to only seven turnovers was big. So there’s a lot of positives, but a lot of stuff to improve on still.”

On Mark Sears being held scoreless, sitting the final 11:27

“He was great on the bench. He was struggling. There’s a lot of pressure on him, obviously, being a home-state kid that came back. He’s the preseason player of the year, and he’s trying to do well. Teams are gearing their defense toward him. He had some good looks tonight; they just didn’t go. I took him out to kind of let him get his head together a little bit, and I tried to put him back in and he just said, ‘Look, they’re playing well.’ “I’ll be honest with you, it’s similar to what Herb Jones has done before. We’ve had some really good players here that have just kind of been unselfish enough and want to win bad enough to just say, ‘Hey, let the guys go. They’re playing really well. Leave them in.’ So that’s what I did. I tried to put him back in the middle of that 11 minutes, but he said leave these guys. They were playing pretty well. He was right, so we left them in, and they went on a run and won it. I’m sure he’ll bounce back against Houston.”

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On Alabama’s bench

“Obviously, Holloway shooting it like he did helps a lot with the bench. Derrion, Aiden Sherrell kind of showed what they’re capable of. They’re starting to both get a little more comfortable. Dioubate threw in another three for us, and I think Jarin’s got a huge jump he can still make this year. We’re deep. Everybody knew we were deep. We needed the bench tonight with how Mark maybe struggled shooting it a little bit. Holloway came in and helped us out a little bit. So I thought it was big. I think our bench will probably give us pretty good production most of the year because there’s going to be quite a few guys that would be starting at most places coming off the bench, so we’ll get pretty good bench production most of the year.”

On Clifford Omoruyi avoiding foul trouble doing forward

“He picks up some silly ones where he gets out of position and kind of comes in late. So we gotta keep working with him on some of that. Him being in a drop like we’ve got him in, he didn’t really play it like that at Rutgers. So he’s just got to continue to get better. I thought we’ve seen him get better and better in the drop. I think when Grant went to the five and kind of got in the drop, he had a blocked shot. I think he’s done a little more, so you can see he’s a little more experienced with it. So we just got to keep working with him on that and then keep working. But like you said, I mean, he was plus-14 when he was in the game, played 15 minutes. We were plus-14 with them in there. So we gotta try to keep him out of foul trouble so we can keep him in the game a little bit longer.”

On responding from the Purdue loss

“It was big. We needed to play against a high-major team, a good one, a top-25 team and be able to get a win. And I didn’t even think we played great in a lot of areas. I mean, you look at the offensive rebounds we gave up. We didn’t shoot it particularly well from some of our better shooters, and we were still able to score 100 points. We did take care of the ball a lot better, and I thought our defense improved.

“So I think we need to continue to see little things improve and do well and just keep building on it because Houston’s obviously really tough, really good. Giving up 14 O boards – and Illinois’ very good. They’ve got length everywhere. They go to the O boards. They’re one of the better rebounding teams in the country. But they’re not at the same level as Houston’s going to be on the offensive glass. So we’re going to really pick up on our defensive rebounding. Purdue kind of got to us there, Illinois got to us. So we’re going to have to make a huge point of emphasis on that going forward.”

On if he’s surprised at Labaron Philos’s progress

“From what I thought when you go back to last spring when he opened his recruitment up and we took him, yes, I’m surprised from then. But if you ask me after the summer, after watching what he did in June, July, August, he came in and established himself as one of the best guards in the program right out of the gate in the month of June. So I think he came in competing. I mean, he had the right mindset coming in, though.

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“Like when he opened his recruitment up, he kind of made the point, I think one of the statements might have been, if I’m not going to play much – because Kansas took a lot of transfer guards when he signed – if I’m not going to play much, I’d rather be home in Alabama at Alabama if I’m not going to play much. I said, ‘Look, just come in and work hard. We’ll see what you can earn.’ So he kind of just came in expecting nothing, had to earn everything, and when you feel like you gotta earn everything, that’s when I think you start playing your best.

“It’s why we don’t ever promise anybody minutes, starting spots, anything around here. I think you make everybody come in and earn it. And also, you get guys like Labaron that blossom. And he’s kind of earned from summer, fall practice. He’s one of our hardest competitors in practice every day. He’s winning the blue-collar in practice. He won the Hard Hat tonight. He just makes a bunch of tough plays and just loses himself in the game. I don’t think he’s worried about how many points he scores, about how many times he touches it, how many minutes he’s played. Just if he’s in, he’s playing hard, playing the right way, and it shows.”

On Aden Holloway’s contributions

“We didn’t play fast enough against Purdue. One of the clips that we did play fast enough was him. He got downhill, scored a layup. We just said we want to keep the pace going. I think it’s easier to play fast when you got three of those four guards in. I thought he pushed the pace tonight. He’s super skilled. I mean, he’s as good a shooter as I’ve ever coached. So the fact that he went 3-of-4 from three is not really that shocking. I’d venture to say he’s gonna have plenty other games where he goes 3-of-4, 4-of-5, 5-of-6. Who knows. He can shoot it, and his pace is good. His skill level is high. He’s got a good finishing package in the lane. He’s good. I don’t know that I would say I envisioned this because – we knew he was really good coming out of high school. I think maybe sometimes it takes a little bit to adjust in college or whatever. He definitely had some good games at Auburn, but we thought he could be more like what he was coming out of high school, and I think that’s what you saw tonight.”

On responding to Illinois’ runs

“I think they cut it to eight at one point, if I remember right. I think maybe we had a 14-point lead. I couldn’t remember. Did they cut it lower than that? I think maybe eight was where we got. We were up 18 at one point in the first half. I think we were up maybe 17 in the second half, if I remember right, at some point. They cut it to eight, and I think that’s when I called the timeout. I thought we came out of that timeout, played pretty well. I think we went on a 7-0 run after the timeout, and it started with some defense. We got some transition buckets off our defense, and then they made some tough shots. I thought we did a better job keeping them off – they ended up with 14 O boards. They had 13 with about 12 minutes to go in the game. We kept talking about making sure they didn’t get any O boards. They got the one there late, I think when Riley got it, if I remember right. But other than that, I thought we did a better job keeping them off the glass. And they’re gonna make some tough shots.

“Sometimes basketball is a little bit of a game of runs, but you gotta make them keep taking tough shots, don’t give up O boards, nothing easy. And then we just had to make sure we had some better shots on our end. We got to do a better job getting to the offensive boards and getting some easy looks, too.”

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On Aiden Sherrell’s performance

“I thought he was good. I mean, we want him to shoot the ball with confidence. We finally got him to drop a three. We’ve seen him shoot well in practice, I thought he had a nice lob he caught. He played pretty physical and got some rebounds. A lot more like what we thought we’d have got, and I got him more minutes. So I thought he deserved more minutes. I thought I should have played him more at Purdue, to be honest with you. But he played a lot better for us tonight. For him to get plus-eight in his nine minutes was pretty good.”



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13-year-old killed, 3 other teens injured in north Alabama after car hits tree stump, sign, fence

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13-year-old killed, 3 other teens injured in north Alabama after car hits tree stump, sign, fence


A 13-year-old passenger was killed and three other teenagers were injured in a single-vehicle wreck Wednesday morning in north Alabama, authorities said.

The teen, who was not wearing a seat belt, was a passenger in a 2015 Nissan Altima that left the road and struck a tree stump, a sign post and then a fence around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday on Blessing Road near Arley Lacey Road, approximately two miles north of Boaz, in Marshall County, said Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Senior Trooper Brandon Bailey.

The driver of the Altima, only identified as an 18-year-old, was injured and taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Two other teenage passengers — a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old — were also injured and taken to a hospital. They were not wearing seat belts, Bailey said.

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Further information on the wreck was unavailable as state troopers continued to investigate the incident.



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