Busted cigars littered the field at Neyland Stadium hours after Tennessee beat Alabama football Saturday. Cheap tobacco spilled out onto the natural grass playing surface near the walls fans had jumped over earlier in the evening.

The orange and white checkerboard end zone had entire square feet of grass ripped out, where the Volunteer faithful had tried to take souvenirs from their team’s second win in three years over the Crimson Tide. Just past the north end zone, a torn program page showing former Tennessee offensive lineman Darnell Wright in a Chicago Bears uniform sat next to a dirty and laceless Nike sneaker.

There was a party in Knoxville on Saturday. But it was one Alabama started itself.

“You can’t win a football game when you have mistakes like we had out there,” UA head coach Kalen DeBoer said afterward.

He’s right.

Beginning with the penalties. Alabama had 15 of them for 115 yards.

False starts. A snap infraction. Kendrick Law’s unsportsmanlike conduct for shoving a Tennessee defender that led to the Tide facing 4th-and-22, which it would go for and fail.

“If someone’s talking to us, we’ve got to learn to walk the other way, and be more emotionally disciplined in every facet,” DeBoer said.

With 3:36 left in the game, a Tennessee sideline VIP pulled a cigar out of his pocket and put it in his mouth, still unlit. Alabama was still in the game, but there was no reason to expect UA to take advantage of the opportunity.

It hadn’t done that all game. And the Crimson Tide defense gave it every chance in the world.

Alabama picked off two passes. It picked up a Sampson fumble in the first quarter, creating an early chance to take a lead.

Each time, the Crimson Tide punted on the ensuing offensive drive. None of the three possessions went more than 32 yards and one of them lost 23.

“I don’t want to say it’s always shooting yourself in the foot, but we weren’t executing,” DeBoer said Monday of the squandered chances. “Or something would happen, and a lot of times it was, right, false starts, or whatever it might be. We just wasted plays, and got ourselves behind the chains, not able to have our full offense available on every play.”

The Crimson Tide had a chance at the end. UA took over on its own 25 with 1:24 left in the game, plenty of time to drive down to win or take it to overtime.

Cue another problem. Protection.

Jalen Milroe certainly wasn’t at his best against Tennessee. Some of it was all his fault, but the Volunteers pressured him 26 times according to Pro Football Focus.

While under pressure, his accuracy suffered significantly, dropping from a 66.7% completion percentage to 31.3%. The final offensive play was no different, as Milroe looked to hit Germie Bernard quickly after Elijah Pritchett whiffed on the defensive end.

The throw was behind the Washington transfer and UT’s Will Brooks, a Mountain Brook native, intercepted it. Two kneel downs later and the Neyland Stadium public address announcer was pleading in vain for fans to “please stay off the playing surface.”

“We’ve won in two unique ways the last two times here in Neyland,” Volunteer head coach Josh Heupel said. “Our players, I’ll remember for a long time. There’s nothing better walking off the field with the crowd surrounding you and cigar in your mouth.”

Now Alabama is at a crossroads. The team that blasted Georgia in the first half on Sept. 28 is still around somewhere, but since halftime against the Bulldogs, it hasn’t been spotted on the field.

And the Crimson Tide is out of chances. Lose another game and it’s likely out of the College Football Playoff discussion altogether.

Missouri comes to town on Saturday for a game Alabama can win, so long as it doesn’t replicate its Vanderbilt and Tennessee problems.

“Two losses that we probably shouldn’t have had,” tight end CJ Dippre said. “I mean that’s… You can’t accept that in any way. You can’t understand in any way. You’ve got to understand, from inside, we lost those games. Bama lost those games. Nobody beat us. There were two good teams still, but we beat ourselves.”

How Alabama responds next will define the first year of the DeBoer era. The Crimson Tide can fix the execution and beat the Tigers to roll some momentum into the bye week.

The improvement has to be permanent though. After the open date comes a trip to LSU, where it’s no guarantee fans would even bother rushing the field after a win against the version of the Crimson Tide seen in Knoxville.