| FTBL Looking like Shula-time again on offense

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imported_porkchop

I've been thinking about making this post for a couple of weeks now and have not. Before you jump on me just read this. It's not all bad. :)

For all the talk about Shula's offense the last couple of years, if you notice, some of the plays we run, in the formations we run them in, are pretty much identical to Shula's old "Pro attack". Have you guys also caught that as well?

Case in point. Look at some of our staple plays this year.

(1) Grant, "handsweep" around the end with pulling linemen. Typical Shula play call there. Or it was, before he fell in love with 22 dive. :lol:

(2) Fourth and 1 misfire was a typical Shula play call in the past. The only difference is we would have lined up a FB at the extra TE position. Still the same play though.

(3) First play against Ark (if I remember correctly) is the patented Shula bomb with max-protect on the QB's strong-side. Load up the right, fake the inside give, drop back 7 and launch it deep. Same play we've run for the last several years.

(4) HB swing. How many of those did KD catch under Shula? It was a staple play run about 4-6 times a game.

The things that bother me though are these;

(1) Does anyone else feel like BAMA came in offensively a little ultra-conservative? Or should I say....Shula-conservative? We looked early on like we were scared to death of UGA's speed. I saw this too many times under the old regime and I can spot the behavior a mile away.

(2) 4th and 1 trickeration. Don't like it. Sends a bad message to me, and this was very Shulaesq IMHO.

(3) WR's are catching passes well short of the marker on 3rd downs. Shula's offense was notorious for this. Hopefully we'll get it corrected in the second half though.

Anyway, has anyone else noticed some of this stuff? Like I said, it's not all bad. On the play-calling though I definately see some of that whole "Pro-style offensive attack" that Shula ran in the past. Thus far the only difference is that Applewhite and Pendry have run it better than Shula did. Hopefully we'll get back to business in the second because we did not do a good job in the first of capitalizing on some field position when we had the chance.
 
I've noticed some of this too. Right now I'm more concerend with JPW's play. Everything seems to be off target. The OL is not protecting like they are capable of.
 
Things wrong with alabama right now

1. Not enough depth on Defense

2. No consistancy on offense

3. We dont have the type of athletes to run the 3-4 defense yet.

4. JPW overthrows to many passes

I am still very impressed with our success tho
 
good God Chop, that is extremely paranoid. look bro, this is a different team and staff. it will take a little while to get things right. i am as cynical as anyone, but damn buddy, you sound rediculous.
 
bamafan850 said:
Hopefullt the 4th quarter conditioning program will kick in. We just need to keep the D off the field a lot more!

It is already, we were down twice by 10 and never gave up. All we lacked in the 4th quarter was a polished QB and a small amount of luck. We did well to come back, that wouldn't have happened last year. Roll Tide!
 
I was woundering if Shula, some how was able to overide Applewhite's headseat and call in the plays cause, the playcalling did remind me of Shula. Something has got to be done with JPW passing, last week he was on, this week he struggled, alot of people say he can't read a zone. Arky played alot of zone last week, seem to me something in his mechanics is wrong, feet still moving or something he is either overthrowing recievers or underthrowing when the reciever has a yard or two on the DB and they have to come back to make the catch, if he hits a WR in stride big play TD.
 
ACL11190 said:
Things wrong with alabama right now

1. Not enough depth on Defense

2. No consistancy on offense

3. We dont have the type of athletes to run the 3-4 defense yet.

4. JPW overthrows to many passes

I am still very impressed with our success tho
I think your about 95% correct. Plus i dont think we have enough depth on offense yet either.
 
You know, no team is perfect. We even had weak spots in the 92 National Championship Team. However, we were so good on Defense that year we could have punted on 1st down most of the games and still won. All I am saying is, its not about having a perfect team, just knowing your strengths and learn how to use them to your advantage and win. I was very impressed with the amount of points we put up against Arkansas. I have been mostly impressed with special teams. How do you think we would have played against Georgia this time last year? I see a team thats only going to get better each week. Auburn had better watch out cause we have them at the end of the season and we are going to be playing our best ball at that time.
 
bamabarney said:
Something has got to be done with JPW passing

Good Lord Gents, JP is 4 games into a new system. Maybe he should just issue an apology and promise to make every throw a perfect one from now on.

Or better yet, lets just pull him and put Mac in.

I'll call Saban tomorrow and tell him about JP and all of our great ideas. I'm sure he's not aware of the problems we're seeing and I'm equally sure he is doing absolutely nothing to fix it.
 
seriously, chop this is the 2nd straight week u have jumped the gun during a game. i mean those plays u said very "shula like" are pretty damn basic plays. u gotta stop panicking man. that damn team played its heart out tonight and it will continue to do so under Nick Saban. and because of that (along with talent) we'll be in every single game this year and for years to come.
 
Rolling Tide said:
I am glad you posted this. I was thinking the same thing. I also sick of JPW floating the damn ball on every throw....

Sometimes he needs to rilfe the ball in the window instead floating the ball. Most of the time our wideouts have a 1 step lead on the defender. This is a small window for a QB to hit, but is made by most div 1 QB's. Unless it's airball Wilson as I have come to call him. :lol:

I agree with chop, since when do we pass, when it's 4th and 1? If you can't get 1 yrd what the hell you doing playing football?

Plus a few times twice, I can remember the slot wideout wasn't covered. JPW should made a quick snap and popped it out to that player. Instead we let the defense see the error and they got the man covered.

The wideout in the slot has to be able to see the zoneblitz by the corner back and break off and become the hot receiver. A quick slant would be a great call to if you see the corner back sneaking up or the outside LB blow inside.

Also the WR's have got to do a much better job of finding the open spots in the zone. I will promise you FSU will be playing ZONE you can bet on that.

We need to open it up instead this west coast 3 yrds out stuff. If it works great, if it don't your hurting how many times did we face 3rd down and 7 plus yards... With the west coast we got to make the plays or face 3rd and long which we did all night. I understand you want to get 1 on 1 and let our guys work in space. UGA was sitting back 4 yrds playing zone letting us have the little stuff we needed to open things up I thought, with all that being said none of it can happen unless the QB makes the throw... :D
 
It was a great debate on the play calling during Shula's regime. However, I never ragged on the calls he was making, I complained about what was needed to make those plays successful. Case in point, OL production. We didn't have it last night, especially in the OT.

I know this is a case of what if's, but if we had Mustin last night this game would have been a different matter. I mentioned when I penned that article earlier in the week that it may make a difference, and it did. I realize we have a lot of Prince Hall fans, but, the combination of Hall and RM isn't close to the combination of Mustin and RM.

Was I disappointed we lost last night? Sure. But, I'm far from being despondent about it. I've seen HUGE improvements over last year. HUGE!

On another note, the same plays you mentioned here Keith work for other teams, with more mature talent. The last few words being the key element. Face it, we still have offensive lineman that used to play for UAB. Patience.
 
I think part of the reason that we were off offensively to begin with was the way that Georgia was blitzing. They were using corner and safety blitzes, and concealing them very well. That's something that they had not been doing, so I'm not sure we were quite ready for it. I also think that is the reason they closed their practices to the public.

I also think the guys had a little case of "we're #16 in the country" syndrome. I hated to see the loss, but I think that it will do them some good. Had we made it to 4-0, I'm not sure that even Saban could have controlled the egos. Now, it's back down to earth. He said in his press conference that he didn't have them ready and that would be corrected. I think there will be a lot attentive players in practice this week.

All in all this is where I see things:

The offense will improve.

Mustin and Motley should be back soon, and that will help out tremendously on defense.

Out of the eight games that are left, four of them we should be able to win. If we manage to win one of the other four (and IMO we will) then we finish the season with 7 wins. If we go 2-2 in those games (IMO very possible) we end the season with 8 wins.

That being said, we could lose the rest of the games this season. Anything is possible, but one thing I know because I've seen it already: We will be in every game, and will not quit until there are no more seconds left on the clock.
 
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