Yahoo Sports' Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz react to the Crimson Tide's 24-17 loss to the Tennessee Volunteers and discuss whether Alabama is still among the upper echelon of college football. Subscribe to the “College Football Power Hour” podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

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Video Transcript

Well, there was a whole lot of penalties and a whole lot of turnovers in the third Saturday in October, but it was two back to back touchdown drive for Tennessee that proved to be all the difference.

The balls take down the tide of Jason Fitz with its second loss on the season.

Both being in the state of Tennessee is Alabama still a college football playoff contender?

Look as chaotic as the playoffs are gonna be this year.

Maybe anybody could say that they're a contender.

Here's the real question to me is Alabama actually a good football team.

You talk about turnovers, you talk about watching an inconsistent team bad penalties at bad times, even all the way late in the game when you absolutely needed a first time conversion.

Instead you get just a ST penalty from emotion in the moment that creates a nearly impossible fourth down.

You saw Jalen Miller with some inaccurate throws.

I'm looking at Alabama and I'm saying, isn't it ok at this point to admit that Alabama is just ok. We're used to them being great, Caroline.

They are not great.

They do things that bad football teams do and that's why they have two losses.

I don't know what fixes that and it's not even just a matter of the brand and the name of that, of Alabama that I think is still stuck in people's minds.

To me it's, it's also the first half against Georgia.

Then the number two team in the country when Alabama was just dominant for the entire first half.

So, where did that team go?

A Jalen Mro that seemed to be able to do anything with his, not just his arm but with his legs as well.

And Alabama defense that was stifling.

We have seen an incredibly hesitant Jalen Mro, a Jalen Mro that overthrew far more receivers than he hit receivers in an Alabama Brown game that just feels very lifeless.

I'm with you.

I think it's now fair to ask not just as Alabama college football playoff contender, but where is Alabama realistically right now in the hierarchy of the Southeastern Conference?

It's all so reasonable to say, hey, at halftime, neither offense was getting on track.

So what did he do with Tennessee?

He took the ball out of Nico's hands, right, started running, the football was beautiful to watch.

Alabama tried to do the same thing.

The difference is when Alabama tried to get back on course, by using a different road map, they didn't have a way to do it.

That again speaks to being a different quality of football team than we're used to.

Tennessee was able to make adjustments that Alabama simply wasn't.

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