George Schroeder

USA TODAY Sports

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — They call it the “Six Club,” and if you’re somehow not a member yet — well, you’re getting some version of this question: Hey Dalvin Tomlinson, when are you going to score a touchdown?

Alabama’s senior defensive lineman just laughed and shook his head.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I’ll just keep affecting the quarterback — and when my time comes, I’m gonna be ready.”

As Alabama’s Desolation Tour rolls on — the latest victim, by a score of 49-10, was Tennessee — a nutty statistical nugget is growing into something that isn’t an anomaly. Ronnie Harrison’s 58-yard interception return for a touchdown Saturday afternoon was top-ranked Alabama’s 10th “non-offensive” touchdown of the season, and the eighth defensive score. Seven different Tide defenders have taken the football into the end zone, gaining membership in that club.

“It’s one of the things we’re great at, I can see,” Crimson Tide safety Eddie Jackson said.

No. 1 Alabama shuts down No. 11 Tennessee in dominant form

It’s just one of several things they’re great at, we can all see. Most were on display in a historic beatdown of a fierce rival. Afterward, the Tide players fired up cigars — really; smoke basically billowed from the visitors’ locker room beneath the Neyland Stadium stands — and Nick Saban talked about how proud he was that they’d played something close to “a complete game.”

The 39-point margin against No. 11 Tennessee was the largest in the series in 110 years, since Bama won 51-0 in 1906. That’s shortly before the current 10-game winning streak in the series began, and a while before Saban arrived to build a modern-day dynasty.

Or as it appears, to rebuild it, even better, to adapt to the changing reality of college football.

That’s what has happened with Alabama. Watch the Crimson Tide play football in 2016, you see a roster bristling with talent, just like always. You see the results, as usual (19 consecutive victories, and counting). But on both sides of the ball, the method is decidedly different.

And the Tide defense’s sudden change into a scoring unit is just an outgrowth of a significant transformation.

College football's Week 7 winners and losers

There’s a newfangled fastball offense, lots of hurry-up and very few huddles and players spread all over the field, just like all those other teams have been playing for a few years now. This, apparently, is what Saban wants Alabama football to be. And with Jalen Hurts at quarterback, the move has explosive potential. The true freshman’s performance has been inconsistent, especially in passing. But with Hurts running it (and we mean running; he had 132 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries), the offense is fun — and it might be headed very quickly toward formidable.

But the fullest evidence of Saban’s adaptation to the revolution that has swept college football is on the other side, where a defense has finally been built to counter those fast-paced threats.

Bama’s defensive line was once populated by huge, hulking mountainous men, the linebacking corps only slightly smaller. And it was perfect for stopping, say, Les Miles’ or Bret Bielema’s powerball offenses — but not so great against the teams that spread them out and played fast, especially with a mobile quarterback.

No more. Now the Tide is built lighter, and leaner — and it is considerably faster.

Bama held Tennessee to 163 total yards, just 32 rushing. The Vols are a banged-up bunch. They played with a patchwork offensive line and had little chance. But the Vols’ perimeter runs got run down. Joshua Dobbs was routinely swarmed in the backfield.

Tennessee’s first three possessions ended with third-down sacks — twice when the Tide rushed only three. The fourth possession ended with something much more damaging.

On third-and-7, Dobbs tried to throw a screen pass to running back Jalen Hurd, who was all tangled up with linebacker Reuben Foster. The ball sailed. Harrison picked it off and sailed untouched into the end zone. It was suddenly 14-0, and it sent a powerful statement.

This version of the Tide’s defense is apparently not simply content with suffocating opponents.

“If we’re able to score, it’s just more leverage for us and the team,” Jackson said.

Harrison’s TD late in the first quarter was the fourth interception return for a touchdown. The Tide also has four fumble returns for touchdowns. It’s faster to name the starters who haven’t scored than those who have. Improbably, defensive scores have become something less a bonus than a staple — yet another reason it’s just fine to let the offense hit or miss.

“I think when players start to get ‘em, they all just feel like, ‘I’m gonna get me one,’” said Saban of the defensive TDs.

Lane Kiffin flips his visor to a Tennessee fan, as Alabama basks in blowout win

And don’t look now, but at 7-0, Alabama might just be on its way to getting another one. Saban would tell you — in fact, he made a point of telling everyone right after the game —that there are more games to play, beginning this week against Texas A&M, another Top 10 battle in Tuscaloosa. But the Tide have won four national championships in the last seven years. With this defense, there’s ample reason to believe they might win another.

“They’re the No. 1 team in the country and rightfully so,” Tennessee coach Butch Jones said. “Sometimes, they just line up and say, ‘We’re better than you.’ ”

A week earlier, an unhappy Saban bemoaned giving up 400 yards passing to Arkansas, including several big plays. He was unhappy after a 49-30 victory. That’s some serious nitpicking. Especially because watching Alabama, even against a stretch of schedule that was supposed to be brutal, it’s hard to escape the idea that most games might as well be scrimmages, low-risk opportunities to play and win and then see what flaws need correcting.

“We played pretty good,” Bama linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton said, “but we still gave up 10 points as a team. … Other than that, we played pretty good.”

Yeah, nitpicking. But when the defense is scoring, it’s even less important that they play to perfection. When Jackson scored on a 79-yard punt return early in the fourth quarter, it meant Bama’s defense and special teams outscored Tennessee 14-10. Inflated to “non-offensive” touchdowns, Bama has scored 11 in seven games.

“It’s really something special for our team,” Saban said. “Hopefully, we can keep ‘em coming.”

If they can, it’s hard to see how the Tide will stop rolling.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM WEEK 7