A raspy-voiced Josh Heupel paused at the 40-yard line at Neyland Stadium and took a moment to watch his Tennessee football players celebrate. It was quite a scene, and he had seen it before.
Fans who stormed the field flashed selfie photos with the UT coach. The goalpost swayed as the celebration revved up. The song “Dixieland Delight” played over the stadium speakers, just as it had at UT’s practices all week. And players puffed victory cigars and shouted into the smoky air.
No. 14 Tennessee (6-1, 3-1 SEC) had just pulled off a 26-10 win over No. 7 Alabama (5-2, 3-2) on Oct. 17 in this latest chapter of the Third Saturday in October rivalry, and he didn’t want the moment to pass too quickly.
Heupel grinned widely, then turned to sports information Bill Martin and asked if he could linger a little longer. He had experienced this twice before – beating rival Alabama in Neyland Stadium in 2022 and 2024 – but this one felt just as sweet.
“They’re gonna remember this forever,” Heupel said as he looked at his players enjoying a well-earned celebration.
How Tennessee players celebrated beating Alabama
It was a familiar scene, but it never gets old for the Vols.
Running back DeSean Bishop was carried on the shoulders of field-storming fans in a cloud of victory cigar smoke. The Knoxville native said he relished the joy on the fans’ faces.
“This probably means even more to them than us,” Bishop said.
Senior linebacker Jeremiah Telander celebrated the same way he had twice before. As a recruit in 2022, he stormed the field with fans after a UT win in this rivalry. In 2024, he did it as a player. While wearing his pads in the postgame press confernece an hour after the game ended, he said this feeling somehow exceeded the previous two.
Quarterback George MacIntyre, a native of Franklin, Tennessee, said he thought about the UT fans he knew growing up. They had unopened cigar boxes for years during the Vols’ losing streak in this rivalry. Now they've smoked them three times in the past five years, marking UT’s best stretch in the series since winning three of four games in 2003-06.
“I’m glad they’ve gotten to buy new cigars and get them burnt,” MacIntyre said.
Linebacker Amare Campbell, a Penn State transfer, was new to the whole scene. Moments before students flooded the field from the southeast corner of the stadium, Campbell savored the final stop of a dominant defensive performance with a tight huddle of his teammates in that same area.
Each UT player celebrated the win in their own way, and they deserved every moment. But once the cigar smoke clears, the Vols must make sense of what this means to their season. Wins over Alabama in 2022 and 2024 led to top-10 finishes UT, and it could happen again.
The possibilities are exciting if the Vols can play like this every Saturday, but the slate is also fraught with potential pitfalls.
Tennessee is a playoff contender if it doesn't trip up
Tennessee is now a legitimate College Football Playoff contender – that is, in this 12-team bracket and not the watered-down 24-team version perhaps coming next season.
Midseason SEC favorites Georgia and Texas lost their games on the same day that Tennessee knocked off Alabama.
That puts the Vols right in the middle of the conference’s supposed heavyweights, if there is such a thing in this era of parity. But notably, Georgia lost to a lowly Auburn team, and Texas fell to an up-and-down Florida squad.
That should put Tennessee on upset alert when it plays South Carolina (3-3, 1-3) on Oct. 24 (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN or SEC Network) at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina. The Vols' playoff hopes were dashed in their last trip there with an upset loss to Gamecocks in 2022.
“Every week in this league is a new season,” Heupel said. “We understand where we’re going (and) who we’re playing.”
Vols defense can beat any opponent left on the schedule
If there were any doubts about Tennessee’s defense after a strong first half of the season, they were left on the grass, where Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell spent much of the game.
Led by defensive wizard Jim Knowles, UT’s first-year coordinator, the Vols have held four SEC opponents to 20 points or fewer. This masterful job allowed Alabama’s offense, which averaged 44.2 points per game, to score only 10. And that was aided by a turnover inside the 20-yard line.
“The defense was suffocating. Just an elite performance,” Heupel said. “It was an elite job by Jim in game planning with our defensive staff. And it was an elite job by our players executing it and playing hard for 60 minutes.”
As Heupel said, every game presents new challenges. But no team on UT’s remaining schedule has scored at a clip as high as Alabama. It suggests that the Vols could survive tough SEC games by leaning on that stingy defense and putting together solid offensive outputs.
George MacIntyre showed he can be UT's winning quarterback
The topic that had dominated the UT football program for the past few weeks was suddenly pushed to the background amid the jubilation of this win. The quarterbacks were not the hottest topic after MacIntyre quietly had a controlled performance in the biggest game of his life.
MacIntyre passed for 197 yards and operated the offense efficiently enough to stave off the Crimson Tide in his second start since replacing injured freshman Faizon Brandon. And he was helped greatly by Bishop, who has exploded for 517 yards rushing and six touchdowns in the past three games.
That should put to rest the quarterback competition for a while. MacIntyre has earned the right to keep the job at least as long as the Vols can play to this level.
“I had gratitude in being out there in the first place,” MacIntyre said. “I was thankful that God put us in this position to go out there and play in front of our home fans and our home state.”
The inevitable comedown from this victory is next. When Heupel paused on the field to watch his players celebrate the win, fans tried to tear down the goalpost.
Stadium security quickly pulled the fans back to the ground. The goalpost swayed but didn’t fall. It was a raucous but brief celebration that didn’t reach its full conclusion.
And that’s the way the Vols like it. This win put them into the mix among college football’s best teams this season. But the games ahead will determine if they stay there.
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing atknoxnews.com/subscribe.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Once cigar smoke clears, Tennessee football faces a season where sky is the limit