This Saturday, when the Volunteers of Tennessee vist the Alabama Crimson Tide it will be without their preferred orange jerseys.

Alabama denied a request by Tennessee to wear its home orange jerseys on the road against the Tide, Volunteers coach Lane Kiffin said Monday evening.

Under a new NCAA rule for 2009, both teams may wear their colored home jerseys if the home team and the home team’s conference agree.

Kiffin admitted that he’s not willing to take the 15 yard penalty on their opening kickoff for disobeying Alabam’s wishes, calling his team “not good enough,” (interesting motivational tactic, by the way), but his players are ready to go no matter what color jersey.

“We could wear pink, and I’d still be down there ready to go,” defensive tackle, Wes Brown, said. “This game is special to me, regardless, but wearing that orange jersey is special. Getting to do it in a great rivalry like this, that would have been really special.”

If the NCAA followed the NFL’s footsteps, maybe they would be wearing pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. They’d also be following the NFL’s strategy of wasting money on pink attire that could’ve gone to breast cancer research, but I digress…

The Tide, who are currently ranked #1 in the AP and #2 in the BCS, will probably defeat the mediocre Volunteers, regardless of jersey color. I’d love to see Kiffin try and use this jersey denial by the Tide as a motivational technique, much like when an opposing players talks trash and the coach puts the quote on their players’ lockers.

Pretty in orange, the slogan could read on their lockers. I’m sure that’ll pump them up more than any heinous, heavy metal song.

[via SI]