Eight of Alabama's Nine Losses Have a Common Theme Based on Opponents

Bamabuzzard said:

No doubt. We've struggled with teams who have run the HUNH. But you can't ignore the fact that during these games we've miserably failed in areas that had nothing to do with the HUNH. Turnovers and overall just bad offensive execution. That has nothing to do with the HUNH. Look back at the Auburn game. We had at least two chances to put the game away with first downs and couldn't get one dadblasted yard. Get ONE YARD and the game is O.V.E.R, OVER!!! It's more than just the style of offense we're facing.

Click to expand...

Almost cost us the 2012 SECCG too.

BigBama76 said:

All in all, if you really want to point the finger, at least 7 of those 9 losses can be laid at the feet of our offensive line, who played poorly in all those games.

Click to expand...

You make some valid points, but I just can't agree with this statement.

In the losses (not counting the LSU 9-6 slugfest, since we're throwing out games), we allowed an average of 32.1 ppg.

In our wins during the same period:
2008 - 138 in 12 games - 11.5 ppg
2010 - 89 in 10 games - 8.9 ppg
2011 - 97 in 12 games - 8.1 ppg
2012 - 124 in 13 games - 9.5 ppg
2013 - 102 in 11 games - 9.3 ppg
Total - 550 in 58 games - 9.5 ppg

32.1 ppg vs. 9.5 ppg. And we can go back and forth with numbers all day, each making valid points in turn, but the truth of it is, these were "team" losses. The D was just as culpable as the O. And don't get me started on the special teams in some of these games, haha.

Bamabuzzard said:

No doubt. We've struggled with teams who have run the HUNH. But you can't ignore the fact that during these games we've miserably failed in areas that had nothing to do with the HUNH. Turnovers and overall just bad offensive execution. That has nothing to do with the HUNH. Look back at the Auburn game. We had at least two chances to put the game away with first downs and couldn't get one dadblasted yard. Get ONE YARD and the game is O.V.E.R, OVER!!! It's more than just the style of offense we're facing.

Click to expand...

I agree with you totally. The offense getting bogged down, turnovers, and special teams contributed to those losses greatly. But to say people are just pretending that we have struggled against the HUNH is whistling past the graveyard, IMO. It has been a very real thing. That's all I was saying.

TideFan in AU said:

I agree with you totally. The offense getting bogged down, turnovers, and special teams contributed to those losses greatly. But to say people are just pretending that we have struggled against the HUNH is whistling past the graveyard, IMO. It has been a very real thing. That's all I was saying.

Click to expand...

I'm no football guru, but I've been watching it as long as I can remember and it's pretty clear to me that saban's defenses are most vulnerable against mobile qb's and the hurry up.

RTR91 said:

Brad Edwards filled in for Finebaum a few days last week while he did his book tour. Brad started talking about how some think the Auburn and Oklahoma games are signs of Alabama's dynasty coming to an end. He disagreed and provided a few examples. One of which was the record of the teams that have beaten Alabama since 2008. Take a look:

2008 Florida: 13-1
2008 Utah: 13-0
2010 South Carolina: 9-5
2010 LSU: 11-2
2010 Auburn: 14-0
2011 LSU: 13-1
2012 Texas A&M: 11-2
2013 Auburn: 12-2
2013 Oklahoma: 11-2

All of the teams but 2010 South Carolina won at least 11 games. That South Carolina team did win the SEC East, though. We haven't had a game like the 2006 USC-UCLA game where we lose to a 6-5 team. Edwards pointed to those type games as "cracks" in the dynasty.

Click to expand...

That South Carolina team should have won at least 11 games. After their win against us, they went into full on drunk mode and were hungover for the next month. One of Steve Spurrier's biggest choke jobs this side of the 1996 Fiesta Bowl against Nebraska.

As good as we have been under Coach Saban, our Boys are still human beings & not "Super Men" the media has made some of players out to be, being that they're human, they're prone to making mistakes all us humans are proned to make eventually..And that will possibly cause us to lose a couple games here & there..Plus..The media has pumped us up soooo much, it's put a X on our Boys backs, it causes other teams to want to train a lil harder & player in a higher gear , when they play against us..We're the best college football program in the history of the game right now, but, at the end of the day, our Boys are still human beings & will make mistakes along the way..

We have the absolute best HC & coaching staff to help our team overcome those mistakes & losses..And hopefully lead us to another undefeated NC year once again..If not..We will have the type season any team would be proud of..Not winning the NC is the end all be all..It's how well our boys plays & fight when they wear our Crimson Jersey..If they leave all the have in the football field..Win or lose..We will be proud of our Boys..We always hav & always will despite what the media writes..

TideMan09 said:

As good as we have been under Coach Saban, our Boys are still human beings & not "Super Men" the media has made some of players out to be, being that they're human, they're prone to making mistakes all us humans are proned to make eventually..And that will possibly cause us to lose a couple games here & there..Plus..The media has pumped us up soooo much, it's put a X on our Boys backs, it causes other teams to want to train a lil harder & player in a higher gear , when they play against us..We're the best college football program in the history of the game right now, but, at the end of the day, our Boys are still human beings & will make mistakes along the way..

We have the absolute best HC & coaching staff to help our team overcome those mistakes & losses..And hopefully lead us to another undefeated NC year once again..If not..We will have the type season any team would be proud of..Not winning the NC is the end all be all..It's how well our boys plays & fight when they wear our Crimson Jersey..If they leave all the have in the football field..Win or lose..We will be proud of our Boys..We always hav & always will despite what the media writes..

Click to expand...

The problem with the media and people in general, they do not want to see the same team win every time. People want to talk about Dynasty teams but they also want to see them lose. Let's face it. Bama is the New York Yankees of College Football. I live in Fort Walton, we have every college represented in our area even Boise State if you can believe that. They asked me every year, is Alabama going to be in the hunt. And my answer is always, as long as Alabama have CNS as a coach, Bama will have a chance.

Like I always say, when they quit talking about Alabama, that is the time to start worrying. Your right on with your post. RTR!

davefrat said:

I'm no football guru, but I've been watching it as long as I can remember and it's pretty clear to me that saban's defenses are most vulnerable against mobile qb's and the hurry up.

Click to expand...

This line of thinking cracks me up. ALL teams are more vulnerable against mobile QBs, hurry up or not. Think about it, ever heard anyone say that ANY team is LESS vulnerable against mobile QBs?

Take away a bunch of costly turnovers, untimely penalties and offensive failures at critical times and we're not having this debate.

For example....take away a couple of false start penalties in the 2013 IB and we win. FALSE STARTS!! Just putting the ball in play properly, nothing more. Just think of it. We had more to do with that loss than the HUNH. We were up 21-7 at one point and would have won easily if not for shooting ourselves in the foot again and again.

Bamabuzzard said:

No doubt. We've struggled with teams who have run the HUNH. But you can't ignore the fact that during these games we've miserably failed in areas that had nothing to do with the HUNH. Turnovers and overall just bad offensive execution. That has nothing to do with the HUNH. Look back at the Auburn game. We had at least two chances to put the game away with first downs and couldn't get one dadblasted yard. Get ONE YARD and the game is O.V.E.R, OVER!!! It's more than just the style of offense we're facing.

Click to expand...

and to add, in many of those instances (barn 2010, a+m, barn 2013) the opposing defenses were horrible, but we would just go into a shell

Bamabuzzard said:

Yeah, that makes me even madder about the entire thing. Auburn's defense and aTm's were atrocious and for whatever reason we executed like we had sandbags tied around our feet.

Click to expand...

i went into each of those games thinking we wouldn't have a problem because we would outscore them, no problem.

TommyMac said:

This line of thinking cracks me up. ALL teams are more vulnerable against mobile QBs, hurry up or not. Think about it, ever heard anyone say that ANY team is LESS vulnerable against mobile QBs?

Take away a bunch of costly turnovers, untimely penalties and offensive failures at critical times and we're not having this debate.

For example....take away a couple of false start penalties in the 2013 IB and we win. FALSE STARTS!! Just putting the ball in play properly, nothing more. Just think of it. We had more to do with that loss than the HUNH. We were up 21-7 at one point and would have won easily if not for shooting ourselves in the foot again and again.

Click to expand...

Usually I would agree with you 100% as I greatly respect your knowledge of the game, but I would take slight issue with just the first part of your post. LSU and John Chavous DO seem to have the hunh figured out. TAMU with Johnny Football never beat them and on top of that the tigers made their O look very pedestrian both in 2012 and 2013, with 2013 being especially ugly and probably the worst perfomance of Manziell's career. Same could be said about the barn--LSU pretty much handled their O and was able to keep contain on Marshall while we struggled against both teams and gave up gobs of points.

bamahippie said:

You make some valid points, but I just can't agree with this statement.

In the losses (not counting the LSU 9-6 slugfest, since we're throwing out games), we allowed an average of 32.1 ppg.

In our wins during the same period:
2008 - 138 in 12 games - 11.5 ppg
2010 - 89 in 10 games - 8.9 ppg
2011 - 97 in 12 games - 8.1 ppg
2012 - 124 in 13 games - 9.5 ppg
2013 - 102 in 11 games - 9.3 ppg
Total - 550 in 58 games - 9.5 ppg

32.1 ppg vs. 9.5 ppg. And we can go back and forth with numbers all day, each making valid points in turn, but the truth of it is, these were "team" losses. The D was just as culpable as the O. And don't get me started on the special teams in some of these games, haha.

Click to expand...

They're all team losses in one way or another but I think of offense, at least traditional Bama and CNS offenses, kind of like the 4 corners offense in basketball. It's an offense but one of its top functions is to keep the ball moving and away from the other teams offense.

Defensive players will tire quicker than offensive players because of the differences in player function so it's critical for your teams offense to have extended drives even if they don't score on every one. That's what our offense failed to do in the games we lost and when you don't make critical 3rd and 1's you can pretty much point to the offensive line as the culprit for most of that.

TideFan in AU said:

.
I'm sorry, but I disagree that we haven't struggled with HUNH teams. Excuses aside, we gave up 128 points to TAMU, AU, and OU last year, and gave up 60 points to the other 10 opponents combined. You can't call that anything but a problem. Giving up 40.3 PPG is not, and never will be, winning football. CNS realizes we have a problem, and adjusting accordingly. I think he knows what to do, and I believe we will be significantly better against the HUNH this year. If CNS were saying what you are, I'd be worried about the Dynasty being over, honestly.

Click to expand...

This. You can spin it anyway you want but it happened just the same.

I don't think we really struggled against HUNH offense, because we beat Ole Miss 35-0 and we made too many mistakes in Auburn game. I think Saban had a good point, and I think we'll be fine this year.

This year will be interesting since it does seem that we don't beat Auburn unless they are an average or below average team. I know we could have won 2010 and last year...but fact is we didn't.

If Auburn lives up to their expectation this year...I hope we can get over that hump we have against them.

bamaslammer said:

I think we have had a problem with the HUNH teams and we are going to be force fed it until we defeat it but most of that problem in my opinion had more to do with personnel than schematic. We adjusted recruiting two years ago to address it but it just takes time to get in and coach em up. I think you start seeing the benefit this season.

The press wants to phrase it like Gus is some mad genius and Saban is a dumb ape who can't adjust. There is nothing new or hard to figure out about this variation, you just have to have the type of players who can counter it.

I still say our reason for losing to Auburn and Oklahoma were on the offensive side of the ball. We couldn't buy a first down in the second half of either game. If you convert 3rd downs we win, period, as in ALWAYS.

Click to expand...

You've got a point, but your first sentence loses me. The term "HUNH" is widely overused and overrated. No team goes the entire game without huddling, and they also don't use the "hurry up" for the entire game. Most just have several series throughout the game where they do it, and they end up getting the label. We've done it plenty of times, yet you'll never see the media calling Alabama a "HUNH" team. It's just football, people. But for some reason our country is obsessed with labeling things with flashy names.

TideFan in AU said:

If CNS were saying what you are, I'd be worried about the Dynasty being over, honestly.

Click to expand...

This bozo thinks it is over (Fox Sports alert):

http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...sty-obannon-week-1-upsets-ncaa-mailbag-081314

cuda.1973 said:

This bozo thinks it is over (Fox Sports alert):

http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...sty-obannon-week-1-upsets-ncaa-mailbag-081314

Click to expand...

best part was him pointing out that football begins in 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just Win said:

You've got a point, but your first sentence loses me. The term "HUNH" is widely overused and overrated. No team goes the entire game without huddling, and they also don't use the "hurry up" for the entire game. Most just have several series throughout the game where they do it, and they end up getting the label. We've done it plenty of times, yet you'll never see the media calling Alabama a "HUNH" team. It's just football, people. But for some reason our country is obsessed with labeling things with flashy names.

Click to expand...

Ok, you win. AU, TAMU, and OU only scored drives where they running the HUNH. The outcome is the same with or without the flashy name.

Again, I do agree that the offense, turnovers and special teams issues contributed to our 2 losses, but defenses that "aren't struggling with the HUNH" aren't giving up 128 points and 1450 yards (483 YPG!) in 3 games. Especially when our offense gained 1579 yards in those 3 games. Good defenses have to be able to overcome adversity, turnovers, and missed opportunities at times. To just put a blanketed blame on our offense for our performance in those games says that we have to be near perfect on offense to win. That's not all always going to happen, and historically, it has very rarely happened here. In fact, we've won many a championship with below average offenses. Tons have people have said "If we just could have gained 1 yard against AU, we win the game!" or "If TJ hadn't fumbled on the goal line, we would have put the game away against TAMU", but you can just as easily say if our defense doesn't give up 4+ TD's in each of those games, we would have won all 3 easily.

I think the type of players CNS has recruited this year (especially the D linemen) will make a big difference against the HUNH. I just don't understand why so many continue to ignore the fact that we have struggled against it, when even our HC has talked so much about it, reshuffled the defensive coaching staff, and recruited players to combat it.