It used to be known simply as, “The Third Saturday in October.” For more than a half century Alabama and Tennessee would square off on that third Saturday in one of college football’s greatest and most colorful rivalries.

Tennessee would be adorned in orange and Alabama in crimson. The teams, and their colors, providing football contrast as vivid as the changing autumn season. Generations of Southeastern Conference football fans watched the colorful games expecting the clash of colors.

That all changed about 40 years ago as televised college football games began to take center stage on Saturday afternoons in the fall. Most families still had old black and white TV sets back then, and it was determined, and rightfully so, that it was difficult for fans watching at home to tell teams apart when dark colors or light colors were all very similar.

That was then and the day of the old black and white sets are long gone replaced by digital and high definition color sets that take you inside the huddle, but the rule, for the most part has remained in tact.

There was a minor change to the rule this year that states if the home team and governing conference agree to it, the visiting team can wear their home colors.

Tennessee and Alabama still play in October, but sometimes it’s the second Saturday, or as is the case this year, the fourth Saturday. It’s still a special game and I still long for days of contrasting orange and crimson.

Tennessee asked the Southeastern Conference and Alabama if the Volunteers could wear the orange jerseys this Saturday in Tuscaloosa. The SEC agreed, but Alabama officials declined.

The color of jerseys won’t determine who wins the game, but it would have been fun to see the orange of Tennessee and crimson of Alabama ablaze in Bryant-Denny Stadium in compliment to the fall colors in the hills of north Alabama.

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