Strange: One of a Kines ... er ... maybe it's two

"Yeah, Peyton got us on the roll-out. Nice call, but you were lucky. Your tight end jumped and they didn't throw the flag. Your move."

If there's a retirement home for old SEC football coaches, David Cutcliffe and Joe Kines can spend afternoons reminiscing over a checkerboard.

Two of the league's distinguished coordinators will add a chapter to their considerable history Saturday when Alabama visits Neyland Stadium.

Kines was born on a train -- no kidding -- in 1944, an appropriate entry for a man who has served as defensive coordinator at no fewer than four SEC schools. This is his second term at Alabama.

Cutcliffe is also a two-timer as offensive coordinator at Tennessee, with a head-coaching turn at Ole Miss in the interim.

Two old dogs aren't averse to learning some new tricks.

"When you stay in the business as long as we have,'' said Cutcliffe, "you have to adjust and change with the game.

"I think he's done that extremely well.''

Kines has been in the business so long he matched wits with the Vols way back in 1984 as defensive coordinator at Florida.

A year later, he was at Alabama, hired when the Tide put the legendary Ken Donahue out to pasture.

(Only Donahue didn't stay out to pasture. He came to UT and orchestrated the defense that helped the Vols win an SEC title.)

At any rate, Kines was coordinating the Alabama defense that ended Tony Robinson's career during Tennessee's memorable win in Birmingham in 1985.

Kines later appeared on UT's radar in 1992, as interim head coach at Arkansas. As such, he played a role in ending Johnny Majors' Tennessee career.

Kines won just three games in his only season as head coach. But one of them was an upset of fourth-ranked Tennessee that started the dominoes tumbling toward the ouster of Majors a month later.

Kines wouldn't get a win against the Vols again for a long time, no matter whose headset he wore. Nine consecutive losses followed: two at Arkansas, five at Georgia and two back at Alabama.

In the first six of those losses, Cutcliffe was running UT's offense -- and dealing from a deck that included Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning and then the 1998 national championship team. Not many people beat UT in those days.

When Cutcliffe took over at Ole Miss, Kines was on the winning side two out of three matchups.

And coming into Saturday's game, Kines has the last laugh on the Vols. His defense stood tall in Alabama's 6-3 win over the Vols last season.

Erik Ainge, benched at that point behind Rick Clausen, played one snap, a last-second Hail-Mary heave that was intercepted -- Alabama's fourth takeaway of the day.

Ainge plays every snap now. And this Tennessee offense looks a lot more like those from the '90s than from 2005.

"They are in sync and playing sharp,'' Kines said.

"The way they're running their plays is a reflection back to when he (Cutcliffe) was there before.''

And ...

"They're doing some stuff with their formations that's new that is giving people some problems.''

This new formation stuff goes both ways.

"They've gone to a lot more man-to-man (pass coverage), a lot less zone,'' Cutcliffe said.

"Much more versatile, a lot of pressure, secondary blitz. That's not what he had done a lot in the past.''

It's working. Alabama's defense has been among the nation's best the past couple of years.

This fall, the Tide's defense is not quite as impregnable but still gives ground grudgingly. It's a rebuilding, or at least a reloading year.

Of course, this is a rebuilding season for Vols' offense as well. The rebuilding started at the coordinator's position.

"This is one of the best offensive football teams we have seen on tape in a lot of years,'' Kines said.

Maybe he was thinking of those tapes from Cutcliffe's first go-round at Tennessee.

Old dogs learn new tricks, but they haven't forgotten the old ones.