Wind whipping the trash though the empty Neyland Stadium behind him, Tua Tagovailoa gave his honest assessment of the day.

Smudged eye black still on his cheeks, the quarterback spoke with confidence.

"I think we had two or three drives where we just didn't give the defense the time to regroup and whatnot," he said. "This is where we go back to the drawing board and work on what we missed."

Alabama had just won 58-21 over Tennessee.

Tagovailoa had another 300-yard passing game and four more touchdowns.

It was 28-0 after 12 minutes.

And the 58 Alabama points were the most Tennessee's allowed in Neyland Stadium. They did go three-and-out on consecutive drives and only scored touchdowns on six of the eight first-half possessions.

Still, he has the never-satisfied Saban mentality entering Alabama's only weekend off. The Heisman candidate went 19 of 29 for 306 yards in his eighth game without an interception.

There were cartoonish touchdowns to Jerry Jeudy (11 yards), Jaylen Waddle (77 yards) and Henry Ruggs III (41 yards) as the 12th straight Alabama win over Tennessee turned into a rout.

Even so, it felt like there were yards left on the field.

"It was really windy out there today," Nick Saban said. "I mean, really windy. And a few of his passes that he would normally probably make were affected a little bit. They were affected a little bit throwing into it and there was a little bit of a cross wind too. I thought he played really well in the game."

Tagovailoa cited another factor.

"No, the slope on the field is different out here," Tagovailoa said. "It kinda goes up. It kinda goes down so we kinda had to adjust to that."

There were a few over throws and a couple drops as he finished with a completion percentage of 67 -- his second lowest after completing 54.5 percent last week.

Overall, Tagovailoa said his knee felt much better this week compared to last. Saban said he could have returned to the game after taking a big hit on his final throw -- the 41-yard touchdown pass to Ruggs in the third quarter. They had already planned on using Jalen Hurts at about that time anyway.

Before then, Tagovailoa had his moments.

The first touchdown, that scramble-drill throw to the corner of the end zone, is just part of the chemistry built between quarterback and receiver.

"Things like that, sometimes they happen and whatnot," Tagovailoa said. "Jerry was on top of his guy and I just thought I'd throw it to the open space. Jeudy made a good adjustment on that, turned back outside and made the catch."

And the 77-yarder to Waddle? The play was originally designed to go to Jeudy but when the safety dictated the throw into a tight window.

Alabama hit the 500-yard mark for the eighth straight game without one its three star receivers in DeVonta Smith. Sidelined with a hamstring injury, Ruggs moved to his position for the Tennessee game.

"We didn't have the best week of practice because of all of us moving around and things like that," Ruggs said.

Both Jeudy and tight end Irv Smith had five catches each with Waddle's 117 yards on four receptions leading the way. Ruggs had three catches for 65 yards and all four had scores.

And with those four touchdown passes, Tagovailoa moves within five of the school's season record. He has 25 in eight games chasing AJ McCarron's mark of 30 set in 2012.

"Things are much more fun when you don't always have on person to throw to," Tagovailoa said. "When you have guys at running back who can make plays for you as well. I mean, this is just fun out here."

Michael Casagrande is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.