🏈 Bama defense

[BAMAneck]

Damn mizzou throwing it around . But you gotta be able to run to win , at least on the offensive side . And they can't and ain't !

 

[RTB X Bot]

 

[18Champs]

found this while reading. not my obs

1st Half

Drive 1. 3rd and 8. Defensive confusion. 10 and 54 are still talking when the ball is snapped. Engram is un24houringcovered. Harrison, realizing he is supposed to be over there, runs over there. He's still trying to get there when the ball is snapped. Once again, we aren't set when the other team goes fast.

Now we follow this with 3 straight 3 and outs.

Drive 5. 1st and 10. Malzahn-esque motion in the backfield, 15 bites, 26 is left one on one with Stringfellow. Even had 15 not bit, I don't know if he would have been able to help here. Maybe he would have encouraged Kelly to check down. Anyway, Kelly throws it up, 26 is in the WR's hip pocket, they both jump, both touch the ball, and the WR comes down with it. Player makin' a play.

Drive 6. 1st and 10 after a roughing call. Complete clowndemonium. We have 20 on Engram in the slot. Looks like a cover 2, where he'll bump and stay in the flat. Well, that doesn't work when Harrison's dumb ass runs straight at the line of scrimmage on a fake pitch. 20 sees that, tries to cover him, but he's never going to be able to cover Engram down field. Easy 6.

Now, it's halftime, and through some explosive plays of our own we're down a score.

We open the 2nd half with a sack/fumble/Defensive TD and a 3 and out. We kick a field goal, Ole Miss has completely blown the lead, and they have the ball back.

Drive 11. This is a long drive. A play or 2 before this, Minkah gets hurt. 1st and 10, 8th play of the drive, 32 yards to Stringfellow. CBS's replay really sucks, but it looks to me like this is a stop and go and that may have got him a single step on 26. It really is a perfect throw from Kelly off play action. Also looks, to me, like 4 got over late. He may have been affected by the play action as well. This is the only explosive passing play of the 3rd quarter. Leads to a field goal after eleventy billion replays.

Drive 12. 2nd and 7. 22 yards to Van Jefferson. Awful CBS camera. No replay. They got to close up of Vern and Gary and don't even comment on the play. They ran it out of that diamond bunch that gave us fits in 2014. No clue what happened here. They go on to do not much and get a field goal.

3 and out

Drive 14. 1st and 10, first play of the drive. Max protect wheel route. Shy Carter in coverage and does a damn good job. I don't see how he didn't knock the ball away. Hootie got over there, but just decided not to do anything for some reason. 2 plays later, 32 almost ends Kelly's life. 1 play after that, Kelly wishes he would have died on the previous play.

Drive 15, no explosive plays but they score a TD and that sucks. "Prevent coverage prevents success." At this point, we have Hootie and Shy Carter playing every down, plus Reuben is out. Deointe Thompson is out there, too, and he is absolutely lost.

Drive 16, they throw it up and catch it and that sucks.

 

[UAgrad93]

I understand the thinking behind the side to side screen plays to try and wear down the defense. But todays athletes are well conditioned and fast, defensive as well as offensive. But with way too many TV TIMEOUTS, the defensive players get a lot of extra time to catch their breath and rest a bit which made many of our sideways passes ineffective. I believe you can wear down DB's by running at least one or two deep routes on every passing play whether you throw it deep or not. And on running plays, instead of our receiver running up to the DB to block him or get in his way, hell, just run deep, some body has to chase you, If they don't, then it's time to play action.

Ole Pi$$ didn't have quite the depth they thought they had and Kiffin and Co. knew it. Even with TV TIMEOUTS, they were sucking wind in the 2nd half. TV TOs only happen during a change of possession. On BAMAs first drive, we went 16-17 plays. It was hot and humid and several guys had to get IVs.
Depending on the coverages, if it is zone, the DB is peeking in the backfield, so just running by him isn't going to do any good. The DB knows he has over the top help and if in zone, he has run support first.

 

[TUSKtimes]

The difference between the first half and second was night and day and it was simply getting back to our identity. Asking Hurt to literally do it all was startling and confusing and dam near got him killed. When we finally ran the football, there was nothing ole miss could do about it. If you want to exhaust your opponent make them tackle running backs, not wide receivers. We have 4 running backs and a QB that are a mismatch. Run the football, get ole miss out of their two-deep coverage and let Hurts run and throw off that. That first half offensive attack was terrible and it helped dig a hole that no mere mortal SEC team could come out of. When we play ole miss we lose our mind.

 

['65 Cobra]

Kelley is a very, very good QB, who also happens to play his best against us. They have big and talented receivers as they have been recruiting extremely well (looks like perhaps TOO well). Like The Barn, the show no fear in just throwing the ball up for grabs and hope for the best. Until we consistently stop those plays (and even get some INTs on those) opposing teams with those types of offenses (Aubbie, Ole Miss, TAMU, etc.) will keep doing it. It's up to us to defend those plays better and punish the teams that run them.

 

[Destiny's Child]

I thought Lane should have run it more especially after the screen pass extravaganza we started with..which I called by the way..lol But he was trying to take advantage of the weakness they showed playing FSU. FSU just screened and QB run them to death with that 12 yard cushion they were giving. So Lane tried the same thing.. the difference was that Ole Siss was concerned about the FSU running backs and could commit safeties out on the outside to help their your corners.

Against us they didnt really respect our run, they were daring us to run it and trying to take away those screen and slants. We ran the ball effectively and would have been better served in my opinion after we showed the early screen game to just pound the rock and wear them out until they adjusted. I found myself yelling at the TV to just run the damn ball!! It all worked out and we survived but we need to get better.

The defense needs to communicate better and not get beat on those run pass options. That worries me but, the pass plays where they hit Stringfellow when Humphrey was on him was a perfect pass, the long one down the middle was thrown in the perfect spot and hump had a hand on it and the one at the end again was just thrown in the perfect spot into tight coverage and the receiver made the play. Engram being wide open as much as he was was more concerning to me.. knowing he was their first option.

The penalties have to stop! Several were mental mistakes, the wide receiver resetting his feet while in hurry up, Cam rocking in his stance and some where enticed like the linebacker walking up imitating the clapping that Hurts was doing in the silent count to get two or three false starts.. (ps is supposed to be a delay of game against the defense)

But we have to be more disciplined than our opponents and yet we continually put ourselves in 1 and 15 during the first half. That plus being lethargic and them being hyped is what got us in the whole to start the game.

 

[94 Grad]

Reality is that the score should have been 48 to 21 at most... the refs really screwed up some calls.

That being said, the 48 side of that score could have been much higher had we not shot our self in the foot with so many penalties. I think we wanted to run the ball more, but how many times were we behind the down/yards to go marker with a penalty? It seemed like 50% of the time we had a good run, it was called back for a hold or something stupid. We put ourselves in passing downs more than we'd want it to be and even though we overcame some of those penalties, the others stopped drives that seemed to be moving forward well with the run.

If we can clean up those metal mistakes on the Oline, I think we'll end up with much more balance in the play calling... and maybe Hurts won't get killed in the process.

 

[JoshB]

The difference between the first half and second was night and day and it was simply getting back to our identity. Asking Hurt to literally do it all was startling and confusing and dam near got him killed. When we finally ran the football, there was nothing ole miss could do about it. If you want to exhaust your opponent make them tackle running backs, not wide receivers. We have 4 running backs and a QB that are a mismatch. Run the football, get ole miss out of their two-deep coverage and let Hurts run and throw off that. That first half offensive attack was terrible and it helped dig a hole that no mere mortal SEC team could come out of. When we play ole miss we lose our mind.

While I'm with @TerryP on understanding why Kiffin does the screens and sweeps, but at the same time you are definitely doing a detriment to your team when completely ignoring glaring holes in a defense. Kiffin has a tendency to get far too cute for his own good, the reverse pass to the QB attempt for example may have been one of the more bonehead playcalls I've seen, and no matter what his game plan was it was not bright to continue down that path when Ole Miss was committed to keeping two safeties deep and daring Alabama to run. Not to mention when we did run we were literally gashing the defense, they did not have an answer whatsoever for the inside run. And yes the defense was tired in the second half and that made matters worse, but Harris and Jacobs were gashing them in the first half too.

IN MY OPINION (and yes I know that does not matter in the grand scheme of the things) after the first few drives when it was very apparent that A) Ole Miss could not stop the inside run and B) they were being hardheaded themselves and refusing to creep those safeties down to help run support Kiffin should have adjusted accordingly. They had no answer for any rushing plays up the middle, nor the read option.

 

[JoshB]

Engram being wide open as much as he was was more concerning to me.. knowing he was their first option.

That concerned me more than anything especially when I saw linebackers attempting to cover him at points. I would have much rather seen an extra corner in there guarding him man-to-man, Minkah preferably.

 

[PurlJam]

On an island? All the pressure?

You do realize we've hardly blitzed at all this year, and most of our pressure is with the front 4, right?

Our secondary got torched by a 1st round QB yesterday, plain and simple.

TGHT right there, my friends (The Gods Honest Truth).

 

[TerryP]

IN MY OPINION

Now you're yelling about shit?!?

and no matter what his game plan was it was not bright to continue down that path when Ole Miss was committed to keeping two safeties deep and daring Alabama to run

I know I'm getting into semantics when I point to things like "his game plan," but I don't know any other way to say this. I won't pretend to know what he's looking at during a game. I do know we've seen—countless times—an explosive play where we could point back several series and see where it was beginning to be set up. (If I'm not mistaken, we've seen three plays—in three separate games—where the receiver dropped the ball or Jalen just missed: routes to Dieter, Howard maybe, and this past week with Hentges.)

I do find it interesting that it was the plan to run their defense sideline to sideline because they felt it would open up the middle. In the end, going sideline to sideline opened up the middle.

I'm left thinking there's a hell of a lot of attention being paid to a really weird ball game.

 

[TUSKtimes]

TGHT right there, my friends (The Gods Honest Truth).

Here's another TGHT moment. Our secondary has a few 1st round picks as well. Some of those critical passes were to receivers who looked like they were out to practice early. We need to be able to keep their pass catchers in front of us and this bump and run, man on man isn't a fair fight. Unless you want to chalk up a career-high 421 yards passing as just one of those things. That's career high. That's like, no one has ever given up more passing yards to Chad Kelly, in his entire college career, than the university of Alabama this Saturday. There's another TGHT moment.

 

[JoshB]

Now you're yelling about ****?!?

I know I'm getting into semantics when I point to things like "his game plan," but I don't know any other way to say this. I won't pretend to know what he's looking at during a game. I do know we've seen—countless times—an explosive play where we could point back several series and see where it was beginning to be set up. (If I'm not mistaken, we've seen three plays—in three separate games—where the receiver dropped the ball or Jalen just missed: routes to Dieter, Howard maybe, and this past week with Hentges.)

I do find it interesting that it was the plan to run their defense sideline to sideline because they felt it would open up the middle. In the end, going sideline to sideline opened up the middle.

I'm left thinking there's a hell of a lot of attention being paid to a really weird ball game.

See the thing is, they may have been doing that "open up the middle" but there was no need to open up the middle. You can count on one hand how many times they stopped a run up the middle for less than 5 yards, from the first quarter on. They were hella soft up the middle. You're kind of hurting yourself to say "hey, we're okay with losing 5 yards here and 8 yards here so we can open up the inside game that's already open." Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

[TerryP]

"hey, we're okay with losing 5 yards here and 8 yards here so we can open up the inside game that's already open."

No. I'm not going to bitch about play calling if a CB/S/LB reads and blows up that play once, twice, or maybe three times a game ... when we're seeing the same receiving corps being productive on the same calls.

 

[18Champs]

Saban just said this

A lot of the stuff we did in the first half (jet sweeps, bubble screens) were to set up things we did in the second half. We thought we could have success running those plays. But we didn’t always have the best execution and attention to detail. We wanted to wear them down, and get them tired.

 

[ComeOnSon]

Saban just said this

A lot of the stuff we did in the first half (jet sweeps, bubble screens) were to set up things we did in the second half. We thought we could have success running those plays. But we didn’t always have the best execution and attention to detail. We wanted to wear them down, and get them tired.

I didn't like the play calling but this was the big issue in my opinion.

 

[TUSKtimes]

I think Lane Kiffin would like to turn Bama into wide receiver U.

 

[94 Grad]

Here's another TGHT moment. Our secondary has a few 1st round picks as well. Some of those critical passes were to receivers who looked like they were out to practice early. We need to be able to keep their pass catchers in front of us and this bump and run, man on man isn't a fair fight. Unless you want to chalk up a career-high 421 yards passing as just one of those things. That's career high. That's like, no one has ever given up more passing yards to Chad Kelly, in his entire college career, than the university of Alabama this Saturday. There's another TGHT moment.

The majority of the time your WR/QB will not be making plays that consistently on deep balls. The DB for the most part were in very good position on all the deep ball and it just so happened that the WR came away with almost all of those passes. Ole Miss had ZERO running game and were not going to be able to dink and dunk their way down the field with the press coverage man tight we were playing. Their only real option was to throw it deep and let their kid go up after it. I'll take those odds on those types of passes every time. This game it worked out for them, but if they played again it might not. I have no issues in how our secondary played sans the one or two broken coverage plays. Kelly made some spot on throws and his WR made some spot on catches.

What killed us in this game is penalties and poor calls/non calls by the refs. It cost us at least 14 and more likely 21 points given to Ole Miss. It was one of the worst officiated games I've seen in a long time. Even the instant replay ref turned over a ton of calls, which isn't that common either.

 

[JoshB]

No. I'm not going to bitch about play calling if a CB/S/LB reads and blows up that play once, twice, or maybe three times a game ... when we're seeing the same receiving corps being productive on the same calls.

Stewart: 4 catches, 2 yards (all screens), Harris: 2 catches, 1 yards, Calvin Ridley: 8 catches, 81 yards (45 of those on the one deep pass to him down the field, all but probably 2 more of his catches were those screens)... where's the success? There wasn't any success with the screens Saturday, Terry. None.

Again, I get trying to set up for something else but there wasnt a single screen that I can remember working until later in the game when we actually started running inside. In fact, the inside runs might have softened the defense up more for the screens and sweeps.