If We Had Played FSU For The National Title--Would We Have Won?

B1GTide said:

I don't think so, because the only teams that game Alabama trouble at the LOS last season were the teams with powerful D-Linemen/ Auburn is a great example of this. FSU played finesse defense, using speed and changing defenses (like Alabama) to create confusion and an advantage. FSU had a very good defense, but not the type to stop your running game. IMO, you would have run all over them.

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I agree with this.

RTR91 said:

No one wants to mention Anthony Steen not playing in the Sugar Bowl? Leon did a fine job in his place, but I believe FSU's DL would have a good time with Bama's OL.



Other than actually making the field goals, what was different with Bama's special teams in NOLA?

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Maze energized the whole team with a great punt return that might've been a TD if he didn't get hurt during the play and run out of bounds by his own decision. Christian Jones did great in his absence. Matthieu, one of the best punt returners in the nation, was held to nil. All year long they relied on Matthieu and their punter to win the field position battle and make things easy for their offense. We made an outstanding ST unit look pedestrian and that was the one area of our team that was lacking, prior to that game. It wasn't just what we did, it was what kept them from doing.

TouchThatThang said:

Maze energized the whole team with a great punt return that might've been a TD if he didn't get hurt during the play and run out of bounds by his own decision. Christian Jones did great in his absence. Matthieu, one of the best punt returners in the nation, was held to nil. All year long they relied on Matthieu and their punter to win the field position battle and make things easy for their offense. We made an outstanding ST unit look pedestrian and that was the one area of our team that was lacking, prior to that game. It wasn't just what we did, it was what kept them from doing.

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This got me wondering, so I looked at the stats from both games. They actually aren't all that different.

LSU's stats:


Alabama's stats:

FSU ran the table and won the whole thing. Alabama was headed in a very different direction at the end of the season. The "with weeks to prepare" argument doesn't work for me in this one. CNS had three weeks to prepare for Auburn and that didn't work out well. While still a good team, Alabama wasn't NC caliber late in the season.

In Eli Gold Voice...

"Bama Wins! BAMA WINS!!"

crimsonaudio said:

LOL, with Nuss calling the plays?

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Good point.

Hindsight is always 20/20 (or 50/50 as Pat Dye would say), but I have a hard time seeing us winning the game. We peaked against LSU and never ever got close to that level again. We would have squeaked by the barn, probably beat Missouri by 10 or so, and would have entered the game with everything to lose, while FSU was coming in on the flip side of that coin.

It would have been a good, hard fought game. But it would not have been like the previous 3 NC games that Alabama won going away.

RTR91 said:

This got me wondering, so I looked at the stats from both games. They actually aren't all that different.

LSU's stats:

	Game 1	Game 2
Kick Returns	3 for 49 yards (16.3 average)	6 for 125 yards (20.8 average)
Punt Returns	1 for 0 yards	1 for 1 yard
Kicking	3 for 3	none
Punting	6 for 229 (38.2 average)	9 for 411 (45.7 average)

Alabama's stats:

	Game 1	Game 2
Kick Returns	2 for 49 yards (24.5 average)	1 for 32
Punt Returns	none	3 for 67 yards (22.3 average)
Kicking	2 for 6	5 for 7
Punting	2 for 78 yards (39.5 average)	3 for 133 yards (44.3 average)

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I would say the 5 for 7 instead of 2 for 6 and the 67 yards gained vs 1 yard in the punt return game do make these two performances a good bit different. In two games where yardage was at an obvious premium picking up 67 on punt returns can't be overlooked. I believe that was even more impressive because as I recall LSU had given up something like 2 punt return yards all season.

honestly i think FSU would have won. I think it would have been a close game but i dont see us stopping Winston with the game on the line.

RollTide1224 said:

I would say the 5 for 7 instead of 2 for 6 and the 67 yards gained vs 1 yard in the punt return game do make these two performances a good bit different. In two games where yardage was at an obvious premium picking up 67 on punt returns can't be overlooked. I believe that was even more impressive because as I recall LSU had given up something like 2 punt return yards all season.

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I said earlier in this thread the only real difference was Alabama making field goals. That's an obvious given when a team misses 4 in one game makes 5 in the next.

LSU's season average per punt was 44.1, and the season net punt average was 41.2. That means they averaged 2.9 yards a return.

BamaMoon said:

If we put our selective memory aside, we'd realize that although we were 11-0 coming into the Barn game, we had played poorly early in the season against some weaker teams, we peaked for LSU (really played a great 2nd half), and then we seemed to play poorly again -- seemingly worse and worse each week until it ended with the loss to the Sooners.

So I think your summation is correct, we were just not a title team last year.

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This. Had the return not happened and we got by Mizzou I think we would've come in even more full of ourselves than we were most of the season. And FSU....they would have been out of their minds pumped for that game.

Alasippi said:

I am so sick of seeing the criticism of Nussmeiher. We averaged nearly 40 points a game, which is probably one of the highest averages in our history. Nuss wasn't the defensive co-ordinator, nor head coach, who basically coaches the secondary, who couldn't even slow down an opposing offense in our last two games of the season. I mean, seriously, our OFFENSE, lost our last two games??? Are we truly considering this to be an option?
I'll ask you guys this--What if we had held our opponents to two touchdowns higher than what we gave up as our season average? Guess what? We'd have won both games.
Nuss wasn't the problem. I'm really just sick of hearing that.
sip

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I'll ask you this - are you on the it was CNS's fault crusade again. If so, get off it. We could not control the LOS against hardly anyone and that my friend is the difference in winning and losing. The TEAM lost the last two games because we were no where near as good across the board as the previous 2-years. Sure the missed kicks killed us, but that's the problem. Why were we having to rely on FG's? Because we couldn't make first downs and knock people off the ball all the way to the end-zone like we did the years we won the BCSCG. To answer your question - YES the offense was the problem and I couldn't care less how many points a game Nuss averaged a game. Enough blaming for me.

Alasippi said:

I am so sick of seeing the criticism of Nussmeiher. We averaged nearly 40 points a game, which is probably one of the highest averages in our history. Nuss wasn't the defensive co-ordinator, nor head coach, who basically coaches the secondary, who couldn't even slow down an opposing offense in our last two games of the season. I mean, seriously, our OFFENSE, lost our last two games??? Are we truly considering this to be an option?
I'll ask you guys this--What if we had held our opponents to two touchdowns higher than what we gave up as our season average? Guess what? We'd have won both games.
Nuss wasn't the problem. I'm really just sick of hearing that.
sip

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There wasn't one problem. There were several. Look at the coaching changes made this offseason. It's evident Nick Saban wanted to address the problems.


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RTR91 said:

There wasn't one problem. There were several. Look at the coaching changes made this offseason. It's evident Nick Saban wanted to address the problems.


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Well when you look at all the rival boards you think CNS has "lost his way" and has "forgotten how to coach". Truth be told him cleaning the house only shows he recognizes then problems from last year and is making an attempt to fix them this offseason.


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I wasn't impressed with FSU's offense against AU's defense so I think we could have handled them much better than AU did. Winston seemed slow to me and not very accurate as well.

I think if we played to our potential it could have been similar to the LSU game with a similar score.

crimsonaudio said:

LOL, who knows what Bama might have averaged if the play calling was better. Nuss had some great play calls in his time at Bama - I'd be the first to say that - but to suggest the play calling wasn't predictable the second half of the season, or that not continuing to run the ball when the opposing team can't stop it, or not calling passing plays to Howard after the LSU game is somehow great play calling, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

And obviously CNS agrees - people don't make lateral moves from Alabama (anymore) unless CNS decides their time at the Capstone has ended.

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I watched the 2013 Bama-LSU game last night and Danielson said that in the second halves of the previous three games, Alabama was 2-17 on third down. Several of those were 3rd and short. Bama's O was very predictable (Danielson was talking with Chavez before the game and Chavez says that Bama shows tells when they are running a play-action pass). How much of that was CNS and how much was CDN? I don't know but, I think Nuss' departure says a lot.