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Tennessee at Alabama College Football Odds

Written October 22, 2009 by Kyle Hunter

The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers have had many tough battles down through the years, and though the Tide will be heavy favorites in this one, expect a hard hitting battle once again. Alabama is coming off two straight victories over very good opponents in Ole Miss and South Carolina, while Tennessee is coming off its best performance of the season in a 45-19 drubbing of the Georgia Bulldogs.

Alabama edged past Florida in the AP Top 25 poll this week, but the Crimson Tide know they haven’t accomplished anything yet. The Crimson Tide have been very impressive this season, with no letdown games and lots of positive surprises on the offensive side of the football. The single biggest and most important surprise is the play of Greg McElroy who has a 59.5% completion percentage and 9 touchdowns against just 3 interceptions. McElroy has shown a great amount of maturity and has guided the offense about as well as anyone could have expected. The Alabama rushing attack has been tremendous, with Mark Ingram already racking up 905 yards on the season and averaging 6.7 yards per carry. As good as the offense has been, the defense has been even better. The defense is allowing a meager 226 yards per game, and just 63 per game on the ground. In recent huge contests against Ole Miss and South Carolina they allowed just 3 and 6 points respectively. If you are looking for a great place to get started betting on college football, check out Bookmaker, where you can get a 20% bonus on your initial deposit of $300 or more!

Tennessee has had a bit of an up and down season, with the team still looking to find its identity under new head coach Lane Kiffin. The offense has been great at times, but bad at others, but the defense has been solid through the season. Jonathan Crompton has taken a lot of heat in Knoxville, but he has played much better of late. The Volunteers count on Montario Hardesty to carry the load quite often, and he averages 5.3 yards per carry. Hardesty already has 125 carries through 6 games. Bryce Brown, the highly touted freshman has begin to get some playing time in the backfield as well. The defense is led by super defensive back Eric Berry. Berry is expected to be a top five pick in the 2010 draft and after watching him play that comes as a surprise to almost no one. The defense is giving up just 19.5 points per game so far this season.

A quick look at this week’s NCAA football lines shows that the Crimson Tide are 14 point home favorites in this SEC showdown of annual powerhouses. The posted total is set at 43.5 points. The under is 6-1 in Alabama’s last 7 conference games and 5-0 in Tennessee’s last 5 road games. The road team is 6-1-1 against the spread in the last 8 meetings between these teams.

Tennessee looks like a team that is improving offensively, but the Crimson Tide defense is playing out of their minds right now. I expect them to hound Crompton all day long and force some turnovers. The Crimson Tide will likely get their rushing attack going some and try to control the football in what should be a low scoring affair. I think Crompton and the Tennessee offense will have enough trouble that the Crimson tide will cover the 14 point spread in this one.

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