Iron Bowl Halftime Adjustments

Man, We just saw those boys growing up a lot tonight. Brown, Evans, Williams.. wow.

WMack4Bama said:

+1 to the staff for making the following adjustments at halftime:

1. Replacing Eddie Jackson with Tony Brown and subsequently Bradley Sylve. Sylve actually played a whale of a game.
2. Sammie Coates didn't see a target in the 3rd quarter I don't think. Not sure it was double coverage or what, but we took him away for most of the 2nd half.
3. Putting in Tim Williams and Rashan Evans. The two of them kept Marshall incredibly uncomfortable, and ran like the wind for the entire second half.

We normally don't make halftime adjustments that are noticed by the untrained eye, but I applaud the coaching staff for making these changes and not being stubborn.

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I was thinking about the Coates/Sylve thing on the ride home. I told my wife on the way home Sylve is my unsung hero of the game. Eddie Jackson didnt have the wheels to stay with him. As much as Sylve has been burned this year (i.e., WVU) he was the difference in the second half. He had an INT taken away from him (it was at least an incomplete pass). Mike Peierra tweeted out that the refs got that one wrong. One hand on the ball does not equal simultaneous possession. Thankfully it didnt matter.

On the Evans point, we recruited him for a game like tonight. Glad he came up big. I loved seeing him fly around the field.

Nice eye.

I think we figured out their playbook a bit to.

This is the first time that I have seen Saban make substantial adjustments at halftime. He was willing to admit that they needed to make a few changes to win, and I am glad that the changes worked. But the biggest change was Sims - he is a great player in the 4th quarter of games. Great player.

IMO I think we were as close as we have ever been to seeing Coker tonight. But the switch came on for simms . I wonder what adjustments were made for him to play so well the second half.

B1GTide said:

This is the first time that I have seen Saban make substantial adjustments at halftime. He was willing to admit that they needed to make a few changes to win, and I am glad that the changes worked. But the biggest change was Sims - he is a great player in the 4th quarter of games. Great player.

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Someone on ESPN said that Saban got Coker to warm up to motivate Sims. IMO, probably a little far fetched, but you know how they like to build up the Saban legend. I think coach actually thought about replacing Sims and his response was purely coincidental.

braggtd said:

I think we figured out their playbook a bit to.

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Those are the plays from Tecmo Bowl, right?

CrimsonSEC said:

Someone on ESPN said that Saban got Coker to warm up to motivate Sims. IMO, probably a little far fetched, but you know how they like to build up the Saban legend. I think coach actually thought about replacing Sims and his response was purely coincidental.

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Just saw that Sims said that he did not know that Coker was warming up, so it sounds like they were unrelated. Sims just rose up.

If I had to point to one thing, the extra pressure we got on Marshall without having to blitz might have won the game for us. Well that, and stopping the INTs.

Not sure of all our half time changes, but they made a big difference.
Not sure if Blake saw Jake warming up, and it motivated him or not, but after that Blake played a great game.

Marshell is a good QB if no one rushes him. Lots of guys are like that.
If it were up to me, no QB would have the luxury of waiting for a receiver to come open. A man in their backfield would also dictate which direction teams like Auburn would run. Would work on Mizzou too.

I'll have to watch the game again but I think one key halftime adjustment we made was on the DL. In the first half, the Barn was running the ball successfully right up the gut and when we brought our safeties up or kept them in the middle of the field to play run, the Barn through deep outside into single coverage. That didn't happen much if at all in the second half.

I'm not sure if it was a personnel and/or scheme adjustment on the DL but the Barn did not run the ball successfully in the second half and certainly not up the gut- everything in the run game seemed to get forced to the perimeter. I'm wondering if we went with gap pressure in the first half and switched to the DL strategy we used last year in the second half.

Can rgw or some of the others here who really know their Xs and 0s offer any insights?

I'd say the most important adjustment is I changed clothes at halftime. The adjustment worked! :biggrin:

Heck, Evans was the type that was brought in specifically for this type of team. If you watched him on the sideline he was like a angry dog. He was chomping at the bit to be unleashed. We are going to need that mindset going forward. Great to see him growing up.

BamaMoon said:

I'd say the most important adjustment is I changed clothes at halftime. The adjustment worked! :biggrin:

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So did I. Not kidding. Sent my kids upstairs also. Wouldn't let them come back down until the game was over. You shoulda heard them howlin'.....

TDBama78 said:

IMO I think we were as close as we have ever been to seeing Coker tonight. But the switch came on for simms . I wonder what adjustments were made for him to play so well the second half.

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CrimsonSEC said:

Someone on ESPN said that Saban got Coker to warm up to motivate Sims. IMO, probably a little far fetched, but you know how they like to build up the Saban legend. I think coach actually thought about replacing Sims and his response was purely coincidental.

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CNS said post game that after the 3 interceptions they were about to give "the other guy a chance." One more mistake by Blake and he would have been pulled. Thankfully it didn't come to that..

I'd say the biggest adjustment on offense was going to the deep passing game. Auburn was jumping our shorter routes. Once we started getting behind them, both the shorter passing and run game opened up.

I loved seeing Evans' speed. He clearly made NM rush a few throws. Throwing deep was great too - as well as feeding TJ the ball. Dude was running SO hard. Great game all around. The "want to" in this year's team is something to be reckoned with.

I put my favorite mug in the sink. Most of the time it is the opposite. Most of the time when I am not drinking out of that mug the Tide struggles, but last night when I had it Bama played poorly. It was weird. The mug came out when we were up 14-3. It went in the sink after the third INT.