Tennessee players do not see Alabama as championship team

Alabama may be ranked No. 1 in the country, but that does not mean the Tennessee Volunteers think the Tide is all that.

During ESPN’s coverage of the UCLA-Stanford game on Thursday night, the network’s team previewed Saturday’s game between Bama and Tennessee that will also be televised by ESPN. Molly McGrath shared a nugget of interest while previewing the game.

“I talked to a couple of Tennessee’s players. They’re very confident,” McGrath said. “They said this doesn’t look like an Alabama team that can win a national championship.”

I’m not sure I would run out to call this trash talk from Tennessee. One, they may have told these things to McGrath in confidence, believing she would not share it on national television. Two, shouldn’t this be Tennessee’s attitude entering the game? If they go into it thinking Bama is going to smash them, they’re already beaten. They should be confident ahead of the matchup.

Bama has won two of the last four national championships and beat Tennessee both years. They actually have made the championship game in the other two years, so even if they didn’t win it all. They were pretty close to being at that level. Bama has won 12 straight games against Tennessee.

H/T Stewart Mandel