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Tennessee's four-game gauntlet comes to a close on Saturday afternoon. After three straight thrillers, all one-possession games in consecutive weeks -- including back-to-back games on the road -- the Vols are four quarters (plus potential overtime, knowing this team) from a much-needed bye week to get healthy. But first, the biggest game of the season as rival Alabama comes to Neyland Stadium.

Given the preseason hype and midseason success, we'd like to see Tennessee at full strength against the top-ranked Tide but that's just not the case. Unfortunately for coach Butch Jones, taking advantage of depth issues is one of the things that Alabama does best.

"It's nothing new for Alabama. What separates them a bit is that they're one of the complete teams in college football year in and year out that can take advantage of whatever your weakness is," Gary Danielson said during his weekly chat on the SEC on CBS Podcast. "If you're down a right tackle, they have the ability to distort the game at one spot, if you're down one corner they can attack you with their elite receivers. If your linebackers can't step up they'll put you in trouble with your bootleg game. And on defense, you better be able to pick up in pass rush. If you look at the top 10 pass rushers in the whole conference, three of them play at Alabama with Ryan Anderson, Timmy Williams and Jonathan Allen."

As beat up as they are, Tennessee still has a shot in this game, according to Danielson. The gut check came last week, and the Vols appeared to power through. Alabama is a much more intimidating opponent than Texas A&M, but remember that this game was close -- down the six-minute mark even -- a year ago in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. On the podcast, Gary broke down a gameplan to stress Alabama's secondary.

"Tennessee still feels good about themselves. Yes, they played a lot of plays last week, but they still feel that they're on the verge of greatness and can get to Atlanta," Danielson said. "They've improved, their offense is almost unstoppable if they don't stop themselves right now. And with Alvin Kamara bursting on the scene, and in my mind being the top back in the league right now, I think they believe that their offense can stress the Alabama defensive secondary.

"Now the reason they might be able to do it better than Arkansas is that they have a mobile quarterback that can't get that target point for the pass rush. That's their whole game plan if you ask me."