Assistant coach Maurice Linguist deserves some credit for Zabien Brown’s 99-yard heroics, too.

Of course, Brown is worthy of the majority of the praise for his pick six against Tennessee, but at least a sliver belongs to the Alabama secondary coach.

Tennessee had the ball on Alabama’s 1-yard line. Eight seconds remained before halftime. Both Alabama and Tennessee called back-to-back timeouts. So, Linguist took advantage and relayed a message.

“Right before, we had put a different package on the field,” Brown said. “(Linguist) was like, ‘oh alert, alert the pop pass. Alert the pop pass.”

That might not mean much to the average football fan, but it registered with Brown. A few seconds later ...

“The ball fell right in my hand,” he said.

Brown had picked off Tennessee quarterback Joey

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