up-tempo offenses impacted Alabama DBs, why Nick Saban thinks it's being fixed

JustNeedMe81

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CLick here

Tucker isn't alone working with the defensive backs. Saban has traditionally called himself the graduate assistant working with the secondary.
He touched on his role and what it means Tuesday night.
"Everybody knows that I dabble back there too, but I'm not the secondary coach," Saban said. "I just help whoever is the secondary coach. Mel has a lot of experience. He understands the front and the back end, run fits for DBs and I think he's kinda re-established the standard for expectation in terms of how we play back there in terms of effort."
You know, playing against all this no-huddle stuff, really sort of changes the dynamic of the defensive backs ," Saban said. "They do their jobs, but they don't run to the ball as well. They don't play with as much energy and enthusiasm because they're worried about the next play all the time. I think we've got to get them to the ball and they have the call from the ball and go get lined up and go from there."And I think Mel's done a really good job of emphasizing turnovers, emphasizing finishing, emphasizing leverage, some of the things that become areas that we needed to improve."
 

B1GTide

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Interesting - I wonder if the players actually told them that they were worried about the next play or if that is just an assumption. I haven't played football in decades, but the #1 principle was a complete focus on playing the game one play at a time. The next play, or the last play, simply don't exist. You literally lived in THAT moment or you got beat.
 

Tideflyer

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I`d almost be willing to bet the mortgage that Wisconsin`s first offensive play from scrimmage will be some form of " Everybody go long !! ".
 

4Q Basket Case

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I`d almost be willing to bet the mortgage that Wisconsin`s first offensive play from scrimmage will be some form of " Everybody go long !! ".
or a smoke draw out of a formation that implies the above
Agreed. If the situation were reversed, I'd sure do it.

The book's out on us. We will see long passes until we prove we can stop them.
 

Bama Lee

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If you watch games over the Saban era and specifically focus on the MLB and FS, many times you will see them looking to the sidelines for a call/ play/ alignment. Especially when we are playing HUNH teams, you will see the players still looking at the side line when the ball is snapped. I think Coach Mel is bringing a different way of calling those plays to our defense. I can only hope that our guys can line up more quickly, because I can't tell you how many times I got anxious because the Defense is looking for the call from the sideline instead of paying attention to what the offense is doing when the ball is snapped.
 

Bama Czar

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If you watch games over the Saban era and specifically focus on the MLB and FS, many times you will see them looking to the sidelines for a call/ play/ alignment. Especially when we are playing HUNH teams, you will see the players still looking at the side line when the ball is snapped. I think Coach Mel is bringing a different way of calling those plays to our defense. I can only hope that our guys can line up more quickly, because I can't tell you how many times I got anxious because the Defense is looking for the call from the sideline instead of paying attention to what the offense is doing when the ball is snapped.
& that's why I completely hate this quick-snap gimmick. Teams run that because they can't compete otherwise...
 

JustNeedMe81

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Current QB roster: Stave (RS SR), McEvoy (RS SR), Bart Houston (RS JR), D.J. Gillins (RS FR), Thad Armstrong (RS JR)

Right now, It looks like Joel Stave is the leading candidate to win the job. His 2014 stats were 53 percent, 1350 yard passing, 9 touchdown and 10 interceptions.

Rumor is that Tanner McEvoy is moving to WR. If it's not true, then Tanner can be viewed as a Running QB. He could be used as a threat in a special package somewhere on the offense.

SO With Chryst back at W, and he runs pro-style offense, I would think We shouldn't be struggling against them. I can't see their offense lighting us up on deep passes. Their running game will suffer because of our nasty DL and Ragland will be all over the field, with Hamilton/Foster.... Probably wouldn’t have time to get passes off .
 

tusks_n_raider

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Honestly this still really isn't what was so concerning. We've beaten the topic to death but there were tons of times our DB's were on a WR's hip pocket step for step but were trousered because they were flailing there arms blindly hoping to get a knockdown/tipped pass instead of finding the football and playing it.

I know our guys can cover. It wasn't an ongoing problem to have busted coverages with people wide open. It's an eyeball to football in the air problem. I'm hoping we have a couple guys that instinctively can time their looks and swat that jumpball mess down.
 

gtgilbert

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Honestly this still really isn't what was so concerning. We've beaten the topic to death but there were tons of times our DB's were on a WR's hip pocket step for step but were trousered because they were flailing there arms blindly hoping to get a knockdown/tipped pass instead of finding the football and playing it.

I know our guys can cover. It wasn't an ongoing problem to have busted coverages with people wide open. It's an eyeball to football in the air problem. I'm hoping we have a couple guys that instinctively can time their looks and swat that jumpball mess down.
Google - "in phase pass coverage". if they are in the hip-pocket, they are likely out of phase, and thus are not looking back at the ball, but are trying to play the WR eyes and hands. when out of phase they shouldn't look back for the ball.

now, if they are in-phase, yes they should look back for the ball.

We need to have more in-phase coverage this year and much less out-of-phase coverage.

some of our out of phase actually did happen because of missed/slow reads in handing off coverage between the coverage zones.

Based on the play in the spring game, I think some of that has been fixed, but that's also against guys they know a ton about, and also with a somewhat simple route tree deployed against them which was really designed to stress their coverage handoffs.
 

Alasippi

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We will stop the long passes when we actually put pressure on the QB. All-Pro DB's can't cover good receivers for six seconds, much less college DB's.
This year I think our pass rush will be extremely better. In conjunction with that, I think our DB's will suddenly become much better.
 

Padreruf

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We will stop the long passes when we actually put pressure on the QB. All-Pro DB's can't cover good receivers for six seconds, much less college DB's.
This year I think our pass rush will be extremely better. In conjunction with that, I think our DB's will suddenly become much better.
Nailed it...enough said.
 

Gr8hope

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I'm with 'Sip on this too. We have been begging for more pass rush for several years.
C'mon Reuben and co.
 

IMALOYAL1

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We will stop the long passes when we actually put pressure on the QB. All-Pro DB's can't cover good receivers for six seconds, much less college DB's.
This year I think our pass rush will be extremely better. In conjunction with that, I think our DB's will suddenly become much better.
I hope we bring pressure rather than build a contain pocket. We have the athletes to dominate on defense. Some teams with much lesser players held a few of our opponents to lower scores than we did.

As far as in-phase or not, some of the long balls hung in the air and were off target enough that our DB could have made a better play regardless of how in phase with the receiver they were had they turned their head and kept running like they were the receiver. I'll take a pass interference if our guy is looking for the ball, as that's really not pass interference. It's two guys going after a ball in flight.
 

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