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

Can you fairly say that we "struggle" against any kind of offense? I mean, over the past 6 years we're 72-9 and usually lead the nation in defense and we've picked up 3 crystal footballs along the way,

I prefer to say that the rest of CFB "struggles" against us and our power running pro-style offense if they can only win one game out of nine and only when they're having a special season themselves.

We ain't broke and don't need to be fixed, only fine tuned.

TommyMac said:

Can you fairly say that we "struggle" against any kind of offense? I mean, over the past 6 years we're 72-9 and usually lead the nation in defense and we've picked up 3 crystal footballs along the way,

I prefer to say that the rest of CFB "struggles" against us and our power running pro-style offense if they can only win one game out of nine and only when they're having a special season themselves.

We ain't broke and don't need to be fixed, only fine tuned.

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Agree on the fine tuning part, but I can't ignore the trend. 6 of 9 losses. There are other contributing factors to SOME of those, but the HUNH is consistent. I'm not calling causation necessarily, but the correlation is troubling enough. Especially when the Barn is quite good at it, used it to beat us twice, and almost did it again to derail us in 2009. I don't like that one bit.

It is also important to note that it is very hard to win 'em all, even in a single season. For example, assume that you have a great team that has a 90% chance of winning each game running out of the tunnel. Simple probability theory gives that team only a 23% chance of running the table. It is indeed tough out there.

Deleted.

RTR91 said:

I tend to agree with you. Since I'm bored at work, I decided to look at the three points and their relation to each game.



2008, Florida: Tim Tebow had a 83.0 QBR.
2008, Utah: Brian Johnson had a 85.5 QBR.
2010, South Carolina: Steven Garcia had a 87.8 QBR.
2010, LSU: Jarrett Lee had a 24.5 QBR, and Jordan Jefferson had a 35.5 QBR.
2010, Auburn: Cam Newton had a 61.0 QBR.
2011, LSU: Jordan Jefferson had a 39.9 QBR, and Jarrett Lee had a 7.0 QBR.
2012, Texas A&M: Johnny Manziel had a 82.4 QBR.
2013, Auburn: Nick Marshall had a 80.9 QBR.
2013, Oklahoma: Trevor Knight had a 84.2 QBR.

Game	Fumbles	INTs	FGs
2008, Florida	0	1	2/2
2008, Utah	1	2	1/3
2010, South Carolina	1	0	2/3
2010, LSU	1	1	0
2010, Auburn	2	0	2/2
2011, LSU	0	2	2/6
2012, Texas A&M	1	2	1/1
2013, Auburn	0	0	0/4
2013, Oklahoma	3	2	1/2
Total	9	10	11/22

Bama only held the lead at halftime in three of those games.

A bigger factor, along with the missed FGs, is the failure to convert third and fourth downs.

Game	Third Down	Fourth Down
2008, Florida	5-12	0-1
2008, Utah	4-13	0-0
2010, South Carolina	5-13	2-3
2010, LSU	7-14	0-0
2010, Auburn	3-12	3-4
2011, LSU	5-13	0-0
2012, Texas A&M	7-15	1-2
2013, Auburn	4-13	1-2
2013, Oklahoma	6-12	0-0
Total	46-117	7-12

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You get 3 gold stars for this.

Rolltide_PA said:

doesn't hurt to run for 100+ yards either

142 = Florida 2008 Alabama = 136
13 = Utah 2009 Alabama = 36
110 = South Carolina 2010 Alabama = 36
225 = LSU 2010 Alabama = 102
108 = Auburn 2010 Alabama = 69
148 = LSU 2011 Alabama = 96
165 = Texas A&M 2012 Alabama = 122
296 = Auburn 2013 Alabama = 218
81 = Oklahoma 2014 Alabama = 129

so to beat Bama you should have a team capable of winning 11+ games, hopefully have a qb put up an 80+ rating, rush for 100 yards, and force 2 turnovers/game. easy enough

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And stuffing our run game. All of those teams with the exception of Utah & Oklahoma, out rushed us.

Lol. Find another program that can reflect on the last six seasons and only use two hands to count their losses.

To quote our current defensive coordinator, Kirby Smart...

Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart confirmed the obvious Sunday during his annual preseason press conference, singling out the containment of the hurry-up offense his top priority. "Our No. 1 goal this fall camp is to improve on that," Smart said. -

https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1665524#sthash.yuTns6dG.dpuf

RTR91 said:

I tend to agree with you. Since I'm bored at work, I decided to look at the three points and their relation to each game.

2008, Florida: Tim Tebow had a 83.0 QBR.
2008, Utah: Brian Johnson had a 85.5 QBR.
2010, South Carolina: Steven Garcia had a 87.8 QBR.
2010, LSU: Jarrett Lee had a 24.5 QBR, and Jordan Jefferson had a 35.5 QBR.
2010, Auburn: Cam Newton had a 61.0 QBR.
2011, LSU: Jordan Jefferson had a 39.9 QBR, and Jarrett Lee had a 7.0 QBR.
2012, Texas A&M: Johnny Manziel had a 82.4 QBR.
2013, Auburn: Nick Marshall had a 80.9 QBR.
2013, Oklahoma: Trevor Knight had a 84.2 QBR.

Game	Fumbles	INTs	FGs
2008, Florida	0	1	2/2
2008, Utah	1	2	1/3
2010, South Carolina	1	0	2/3
2010, LSU	1	1	0
2010, Auburn	2	0	2/2
2011, LSU	0	2	2/6
2012, Texas A&M	1	2	1/1
2013, Auburn	0	0	0/4
2013, Oklahoma	3	2	1/2
Total	9	10	11/22

Bama only held the lead at halftime in three of those games.

A bigger factor, along with the missed FGs, is the failure to convert third and fourth downs.

Game	Third Down	Fourth Down
2008, Florida	5-12	0-1
2008, Utah	4-13	0-0
2010, South Carolina	5-13	2-3
2010, LSU	7-14	0-0
2010, Auburn	3-12	3-4
2011, LSU	5-13	0-0
2012, Texas A&M	7-15	1-2
2013, Auburn	4-13	1-2
2013, Oklahoma	6-12	0-0
Total	46-117	7-12

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Those are good stats but you also have to look a little deeper. First of all I doubt many of us would have thought Bama would go undefeated during the regular season in 2008. That team played over their heads.

You can throw 2008 vs FLA out in my mind because they were in all respects the better team anyway. When the 2008 team's bubble burst that led to the Utah fiasco.

In the 2010 LSU and AU losses, 2011 and 2012 LSU and TAMU losses where the turnovers happened affected the outcome as much as anything. We also had easy TD drops in the end zone in both the LSU and AU 2010 games, both by TR.

In the 2012 AU and 2013 OK losses you can say our offense, at times, shot themselves in the foot and left too many points on the field.

To me the common thread in all those losses is poor offensive play for whatever reason. When it comes to HUNH offenses your offense has to be part of your defense because they are harder to stop.

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.

GreatDanish said:

Lol. Find another program that can reflect on the last six seasons and only use two hands to count their losses.

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Preach man!

cuda.1973 said:

So, which one is it? Either we have problems with HUNH, or the reason we lost is on the offensive side.? I say the latter. Add the first aTm game to that list, and for the same reason.

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agreed. even thou uga doesn't run hunh, they were moving the ball on us easily in the seccg. but our offense kicked the crap out of them and we had a big d stand at the end to win. i still haven't watched the 2008 seccg v fl, but have seen all of the other games mentioned here. but a running theme in all of those games seemed to be our offense crawling into a hole and being uncharacteristically ineffective (just for the second half v au in 2010) and letting our d stay on the field.

Point taken. Guess what? We face some teams that could win 11 games this year.

selmaborntidefan said:

I want to wring the necks of the pundits who want to pretend, yes I said PRETEND, that we "have a problem with the HUNH." Go back and look at those games. In most of those we lost the turnover battle, in all of them we made some stupid penalties, and ABSOLUTELY in all of them we failed to capitalize at critical junctures (the second half of 2010 IB and fourth quarter of 2013 IB are frighteningly similar as far as failing to capitalize).

They dynasty will be over (and yes folks, it will end one day) when we lose to a 41-point underdog (2007 USC-Stanford).

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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.

Turnovers, missed field goals, and a poor job on 3rd down defense have been the common themes in losses...at least from my perspective. Not exactly an earth shattering revelation either because any of those three things can get a team beat. At least we're talented enough that it usually takes the combination of all three to do us in...so that's the positive

Question for someone with too much time on their hands - what is our record against all teams that ultimately won at least 10 games, since 2008?

rgw said:

Turnovers, missed field goals, and a poor job on 3rd down offense have been the common themes in losses...at least from my perspective. Not exactly an earth shattering revelation either because any of those three things can get a team beat. At least we're talented enough that it usually takes the combination of all three to do us in...so that's the positive

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FIFY!

Put any defense on the field too soon, or too often, and it will wear down. Happens more quickly if the opposing offense speeds things up.

The fix is simple: keep the other team's offense off the field, as much as possible. Wear out their defense.

The fix entails the OL, more than the DL. Something we should not have problems doing.