Tennessee Players Say Alabama Can't Win a National Title, Which Seems Like a Bad Idea

Tennessee will walk into Bryant-Denny Stadium as five-touchdown underdogs to Alabama. Things could get very, very ugly in the latest renewal of a series that used to be a pretty decent rivalry and is now incredibly one-sided.

Some Volunteers appear to have -- in their limited wisdom -- poked the bear by opining on Alabama's national championship chances to ESPN's Molly McGrath.

The most interesting moment of UCLA-Stanford: @MollyAMcGrath just now, plugging the Tennessee-Alabama game, says she talked to a couple of Vols players who said, "This doesn't look like an Alabama team that can win a national championship."
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) October 18, 2019

Why? Who knows?

I guess when is 2-4 and preparing for another savage beatdown, there's a tendency to lash out. Above the obvious motivational elements that make this type of chatter a bad idea, it's also confusing.

While the Crimson Tide's defense has looked more pedestrian than in recent years, its offense has catapulted to a whole other world and is putting up 51 points/game. Tua Tagovailoa has 27 touchdown passes against a single interception. No road team has managed to stay within 28 in Tuscaloosa.

If this is what a down season looks like, every other program in the country will sign up for a down season.

Jeremy Pruitt, who is just trying to keep the train in contact with the tracks at this point, can't like hearing that his team is creating bulletin-board material out of whole cloth with no discernible upside.

Definitely an unusual strategy.