One of college football's top quarterbacks, Tua Tagovailoa, was out of the game. Tennessee was within eight points of no. 1 Alabama on the road in the third quarter and the Tide and redshirt sophomore QB Mac Jones were facing a third-and-ten at the Alabama 24-yard line.
The Vols had just kicked a field goal to make it 21-13. Tennessee's defense forced its first three-and-out of the night on Alabama's previous drive and it was about to force another.
Tennessee dialed up an overload blitz, sending three rushers at Alabama left tackle Alex Leatherwood. Darrell Taylor came screaming in unblocked off the edge and drilled Jones just as he released the ball. The pass fell incomplete and Jones hit the ground after a clean hit from Taylor. As Taylor got up off of Jones, perhaps he leaned on him just a little harder than necessary. Out came the yellow flags. Unnecessary roughness.
"I didn't see it and there's no replay on it so I have no idea," Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt said after the game. "Here's the way I look at it, we got a sack there, it's a big part in the game, it's a one-score game, we've stopped them two times in a row. I don't know what happened, but I know this, they hit our quarterback and he got a concussion and there wasn't no flag, so I don't know."
Alabama took advantage of the extended drive and scored on a 6-yard pass from wide receiver Slade Bolden to tight end Miller Forristall to make it 28-13.
Fast forward to the fourth quarter. Tennessee begins the quarter by marching down inside the Alabama five-yard line. The Vols couldn't punch it in on three runs from inside the Alabama three-yard line and Jeremy Pruitt sent the offense back onto the field to go for it on fourth-and-goal from inside the one-yard line with a chance to make it a one-score game again with more than seven minutes left.
Tennessee lined up in a jumbo I-formation with two tight ends, Austin Pope lined up at fullback and freshman linebacker/short-yardage back Quavaris Crouch behind him.
Jarrett Guarantano attempted to jump over the top of the line on a QB sneak but the ball hit the helmet of Alabama linebacker Shane Lee and popped into the endzone where Tide defensive back Trevon Diggs scooped it up and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown to break the game open.
Pruitt was irate with Guarantano after the play and screamed at him while pulling his facemask.
If you watch the play again, you'll notice left guard Trey Smith pulling to the outside of the formation. You don't pull a guard on a quarterback sneak. In fact, the blocking on that play looks very similar to the blocking on the previous play on third down when the Vols handed off to Crouch. I think Tennessee had an outside handoff to Crouch called and Guarantano decided to try to sneak it in himself.
However, Pruitt didn't blame his quarterback in his postgame comments on the play.
"We're close down there on the goal line. You have the opportunity to run the sneak or give the ball there to Q(uavaris Crouch) again. There was some miscommunication out there and that's our fault. It's nobody's fault, it's the coaches' fault, starting with me," Pruitt said.
"We ran two quarterback sneaks earlier in the game by pushing the pile and our guys dented the front a little bit. Talking about it on the sideline, we could either go back with it or run a sneak and we elected to run a sneak and shouldn't have jumped over the top, should've pushed it there in the middle."
The play resulted in a 14-point swing that put the game away, giving Alabama its 13th straight win in the series.
These two plays were critical but by no means were they the only plays that made a difference in the game. Tennessee scored one touchdown on four red zone trips and committed a season-high 13 penalties for 93 yards and five first downs.
The Vols host South Carolina next week at 4 p.m. and must win four of their final five games to become bowl eligible.