Something was off with the Alabama football team Saturday afternoon. Nick Saban could see it and linebacker Will Anderson identified what he saw as the cause.

Before ultimately falling 52-49 to Tennessee, the Crimson Tide dug an 18-point first half hole in a packed Neyland Stadium. Nick Saban on Monday said he noticed the players looked “tight” to begin the game.

“Coming out of the locker room, our players always chant,” Saban said Monday. “They weren’t chanting. I said, ‘Why aren’t you guys chanting? What’s up with that?’ It’s not that they don’t wanna do it, it’s not that they’re not trying. I just think we’ve got to place our focus in the right place and our psychological disposition in the right place so that we can – look, when you compete, it’s fun to compete when you play the next play.”

Anderson, the All-American linebacker, nodded in agreement when Saban’s assessment of the pregame mentality.

“Most definitely. I think we probably just had a lot of anxiety,” Anderson said. “We didn’t have the same intensity that we had a couple of weeks ago. We definitely needed that to carry over to this game but the intensity just wasn’t where it needed to be.”

Why was the intensity missing?

“Probably, just like I said, just having a little bit of anxiety for the game — a big road game,” Anderson said.

Combating that anxiety starts at the top, he explained.

“I think it starts with leadership,” Anderson said. “I think we have to do a better job of making sure our intensity is good and we don’t have any anxiety and we’re not wearing off on other guys when they’re looking at us so I think we have to take it upon ourselves as a leaders to do a better job of making sure that we get ourselves going but we also have to get the team going as well.”

Alabama (6-1, 3-1 SEC) returns home at 7 p.m. CT Saturday against Mississippi State but still has road games at hostile environments like LSU on Nov. 5 and top-10 Ole Miss the following Saturday on Nov. 12.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.