So lets assume this Alabama exposed us theory is true and look at it. Now we are talking about Alabama. The defense that is loaded with Sunday starters at just about every level. 5* talent everywhere on the field. Right? Ok They exposed us. They stacked the box and dared Dobbs to beat them. He didnt. As a matter of fact, Alabama completely dominated. Thats established.
TAMU has a decent defense but they didnt expose anything. And let me see, there was another team we played and beat that had a pretty good defense, maybe second best in the SEC behind Bama, oh yeah Florida. Now, shouldnt we assume that most teams who watch film on Tennessee know their weakness? The passing game right? Well what did Dobbs do to a very good UF defense? He lit them up. We had a much healthier team then as well.
No offense to you but you are severely underestimating the significance of our injuries. Its borderline historic. As a matter of fact, a thread was made about just how bad the injuries are. The OP talked about the 2002 UT team which had a ton of injuries but compared to this team? Not really close. So at a minimum, team 120 is the most injury riddled team for UT in the past 14 years and possibly longer. Now if the injury situation were a little better, then no, you couldnt blame the loss on them. But given the facts of the injuries we had, yes you can say the majority of the blame for the loss can be put on injuries.
Now Bama played a terrific game. But lets get back to your exposed point. So what if they did, in reality, expose us? Does that really mean anything in the context of our next 5 games? Nope. Why? Because name me a team that remains on our schedule that even has a 1/4 of the defensive talent Alabama has. As a mayter of fact, I can really only think of 1 player that actually warrants mentioning and thats Charles Harris of Mizzou. Other than that, there are no Tabors, Fitzpatricks, Jacksons, Fosters, Williams or anyone close to those guys.
Yes Alabama beat us up. But if we get healthy again, there is no team on the rest of our schedule that can accomplish anything close to what Bama did. Simply because that kind of talent only exists at Alabama.