JessN: Clemson wrap-up: How Bama recovers – or doesn’t – will determine much of program’s fu

JessN

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Clemson wrap-up: How Bama recovers – or doesn’t – will determine much of program’s future
by Jess Nicholas
TideFans Editor-In-Chief
January 8th, 2019 12:24 AM

Whether you’re an optimist (“We still have Nick Saban!”) or a pessimist (“This was the beginning of the end!”) about Alabama football probably hinges on how many total points you thought swung about on two poor decisions and throws from QB Tua Tagovailoa, and Alabama’s response to it.

Clemson got 14 points off those two turnovers, so the easy answer is that. Then you have to figure out how many points Alabama lost the opportunity to score by not having the ball. It’s a number somewhere between zero and 14, meaning the full damage was as much as 28 points.

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B1GTide

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Thanks for the write-up. That had to suck to write.

You cut Dabo slack for his loss last year because he had Bryant at QB. Meanwhile Alabama's offense was just as hampered with Jalen at QB. Saban dominated Clemson last year just as effectively as Dabo dominated Alabama this year. In both cases I think that it came down to play in the trenches. Last year Alabama destroyed Clemson in the trenches, and this year the roles were reversed. That, IMO, is a coaching push, but you think that it pushes the edge to Dabo. We will have to agree to disagree on that point.

The same things win that have always won in this game.
 

USCBAMA

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Thanks for the write-up. That had to suck to write.

You cut Dabo slack for his loss last year because he had Bryant at QB. Meanwhile Alabama's offense was just as hampered with Jalen at QB. Saban dominated Clemson last year just as effectively as Dabo dominated Alabama this year. In both cases I think that it came down to play in the trenches. Last year Alabama destroyed Clemson in the trenches, and this year the roles were reversed. That, IMO, is a coaching push, but you think that it pushes the edge to Dabo. We will have to agree to disagree on that point.

The same things win that have always won in this game.
This is how I saw it too.
 

PA Tide Fan

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Excellent write-up. I too felt that Clemson probably spent more time in December getting ready for Bama than Notre Dame. Probably like 3 weeks on Bama and only 1 week for Notre Dame. Interesting comments wondering if Saban will be able to bounce back. Losing that badly was certainly a huge psychological shock for him and the team. Strangely it makes me think for a moment of Tiger Woods. What do Tiger Woods and Nick Saban have in common? Not much I guess, except that they both are considered among the greats if not the greatest in their profession. Back in 2009 Tiger Woods had his usual lead in a major golf tournament and I'm sure he felt he was cruising to another championship. Suddenly the unthinkable happened and he lost a major on a Sunday. It was a huge psychological shock for Woods and turned out to be what many in the golf world feel started the decline of Woods. Can Saban recover from a similar shock? Personally I think so, but we have to wait a year to find out.
 

ReturnToGlory

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A little bit too gloomy in this write up for me. Need to improve the defense tremendously. Not real worried about the offense unless we don't learn from this game.
 

JessN

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Thanks for the write-up. That had to suck to write.

You cut Dabo slack for his loss last year because he had Bryant at QB. Meanwhile Alabama's offense was just as hampered with Jalen at QB. Saban dominated Clemson last year just as effectively as Dabo dominated Alabama this year. In both cases I think that it came down to play in the trenches. Last year Alabama destroyed Clemson in the trenches, and this year the roles were reversed. That, IMO, is a coaching push, but you think that it pushes the edge to Dabo. We will have to agree to disagree on that point.

The same things win that have always won in this game.
I don't think we were ever hampered as much with Jalen as Dabo was with Bryant. Hurts basically had two bad games coming into 2018, the 2017 Auburn game and the 2017 Georgia game. He was better against Clemson in 2017 than anyone wants to give him credit for being. For that matter, I probably didn't give Dabo enough credit last year in the post-New Orleans analysis for having to work around Bryant, but the reason for that blind spot is we hadn't seen what a QB like Lawrence was capable of doing in that offense. We saw immediately what the change from Bryant to Lawrence did for that team this year.

In Hurts' case, if Tua didn't exist and Alabama had to have played its 2018 schedule with Hurts at QB, Bama still makes the CFP. May have still gone undefeated, at that, and maybe even beaten Oklahoma -- and just as badly. Why? The change in schemes, the OC change, the presence of Enos as a dedicated QB coach and a change in systems to focus on his talents. Alabama wouldn't have won games by as much, because that's just not who Hurts is, but aside from the Texas A&M game I don't see a single game on the schedule that gets dangerously close to a loss. I'll remind folks that the primary reason Locksley was hired wasn't his recruiting, but rather to teach spread concepts to the rest of the offensive staff, in preparation for the signing of more athletic quarterbacks.

You are correct Alabama dominated Clemson in the trenches last year; the 2017 Clemson OL had some growing up to do, and they did. Having said that -- and I hate being a stats guy in losses like this -- Alabama outrushed Clemson tonight even though Clemson spent the entire fourth quarter killing clock, and total yardage between the two teams was close. Where Alabama functionally lost the game was (a) Miller being out and Moses not being able to do anything with the snaps he was given at OLB to affect Lawrence, (b) Bama's ILBs being a weak point all year (see my next response in this thread), and (c) if anything, Bama not leaning on its OL enough in the early going and committing to pushing Clemson's own, newfound depth issue at DL enough. When you add in whatever was going through Tua's head (or Locksley's, too) after the second interception, it's a complete loss.
 

JessN

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Excellent commentary, Jess. Does it seem to you that our ILB's are a step too slow and never really seemed to completely mentally grasp their assignments this year? If so, what is to be done?
I wasn't particularly enthused with the LB coaching this year, especially the ILB coaching. On top of that, Saban's defense has always struggled when the ILBs couldn't cover the short and intermediate middle of the field, and/or play in space. That has been the big weakness for this group all year.

Whether that's talent or coaching or both, it's hard to say.
 

imaloyalone

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Two things were on display tonight - and they both resulted in UA looking totally gassed defensively.

The first is player conditioning. Coaches say it’s harder for the bigs to get back into game shape after the month layoff. Last week, our front 7 got after it against OU... same last year in the first round vs. Clemson. Our guys were taxed greatly last week and the turnaround didn’t allow them time to recover. If Clemson plays OU last week, they look differently tonight on defense IMO.

The second is the meat grinder of our SEC schedule. We played twice as many hard games as Clemson this season - and it took a toll on us. Again, look at last season as an indicator. We had an easier schedule than this year - and we were fresh against CU and did well defensively against UGA (who played an extra game and had to play OU). IMO, It’s better to go into the CFP having been tested in 2-3 games than to have played 5-6 heavyweights - and if you can skip the conference title game, all the better.

With these two factors, it comes down to the luck of the draw. How strong is your conference and who do you draw in the CFP?
 

CrimsonEyeshade

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Not Jess, of course, but yes. The most confounding inside linebacker play of the Saban era.


Excellent commentary, Jess. Does it seem to you that our ILB's are a step too slow and never really seemed to completely mentally grasp their assignments this year? If so, what is to be done?
 

CajunCrimson

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One team had several juniors come back specifically to beat the other. The other had several juniors leave to beat a path to the NFL.

A lot of tonight was about on field leadership and experience

Our defense just didn’t develop enough leadership to be ready to control the game.

Mack and Moses aren’t Alpha Dogs. We’ve always had at least one going back to McLain.
 

TideEngineer08

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This game felt like the fight between the Hulk and Thanos in Avengers Infinity War. As soon as they showed they were going to fight back after we punched them, it was like we folded.
 

Probius

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Thanks, Jess. There were two things that stood out to me in the game. Our secondary really struggled and I think the lack of experience finally caught up with us. We really struggled in the red zone on offense and I think this was because their front 7 was beating our offensive line. When we had a full field in front of us, we did well. When we were in the red zone, and they didn't have a big field to defend, we couldn't punch the ball in.
 

B1GTide

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I will say this - Dabo knew that Alabama would stop the run, and you did. They had something like 25 yards rushing at halftime, but were leading 31-16. Part of the lead was the pick 6, but they still scored another 24 points in a half against your defense by taking what you were giving them. They planned for it. The eliminated their run game and ran a Mike Leach offense. They sold out on their o-line and RBs in pass protection, never even trying to establish a run game that they knew wouldn't work.

They knew Alabama. They had a plan. Alabama adjusted at half time and you held them in the second half, but then let's talk about their plan for your offense.

They knew that your offense's success was based on Tua. For the first time, Saban let a single player determine the success/failure of the team, and Clemson had a plan for that. They dropped everyone back in coverage, and switched coverages on almost every down, but post-snap. Whatever Tua's pre-snap read was, it was wrong, because they changed.

They gave Alabama the run game and decided to let your RBs beat them, not Tua. This would not have been a problem, except that Tua made two bad reads that led to picks, and he lost his confidence. Alo, when you got into the red zone, they played their typical defense. You had so much success running the ball between the 20's that you kept running the ball down there, and they were forcing you to throw. Not sure why you didn't adjust to that. 3 trips inside the 20 in the second half produced zero points - with Tua at QB.

They had a better game plan, and the game plan beat you. They played better in the trenches - not because they had better players, but because they had a better plan. Time to turn the page, but also time for Saban to reconsider the offense that he ran this year. Forget points scored. Control the ball. You scored in bunches this year, but when you needed to control the ball and score, you couldn't. That, IMO, is the most important lesson to be learned. You might still have lost this year running a ball control offense with Tua at QB, but you would have been in the game.
 

SkullDuckery

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I will say this - Dabo knew that Alabama would stop the run, and you did. They had something like 25 yards rushing at halftime, but were leading 31-16. Part of the lead was the pick 6, but they still scored another 24 points in a half against your defense by taking what you were giving them. They planned for it. The eliminated their run game and ran a Mike Leach offense. They sold out on their o-line and RBs in pass protection, never even trying to establish a run game that they knew wouldn't work.

They knew Alabama. They had a plan. Alabama adjusted at half time and you held them in the second half, but then let's talk about their plan for your offense.

They knew that your offense's success was based on Tua. For the first time, Saban let a single player determine the success/failure of the team, and Clemson had a plan for that. They dropped everyone back in coverage, and switched coverages on almost every down, but post-snap. Whatever Tua's pre-snap read was, it was wrong, because they changed.

They gave Alabama the run game and decided to let your RBs beat them, not Tua. This would not have been a problem, except that Tua made two bad reads that led to picks, and he lost his confidence. Alo, when you got into the red zone, they played their typical defense. You had so much success running the ball between the 20's that you kept running the ball down there, and they were forcing you to throw. Not sure why you didn't adjust to that. 3 trips inside the 20 in the second half produced zero points - with Tua at QB.

They had a better game plan, and the game plan beat you. They played better in the trenches - not because they had better players, but because they had a better plan. Time to turn the page, but also time for Saban to reconsider the offense that he ran this year. Forget points scored. Control the ball. You scored in bunches this year, but when you needed to control the ball and score, you couldn't. That, IMO, is the most important lesson to be learned. You might still have lost this year running a ball control offense with Tua at QB, but you would have been in the game.
Spot on. We just were out coached pre game and during the game.
 

bamakeeb

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It’s just that I didn’t recognize this team. An offense that sputtered out in the red zone how many times? A defense that went waaay too long without getting a stop? Got no calls either. Hey. When was our last takeaway? Because I can’t remember. I don’t know. This was kind of like playing blackjack in Vegas when the dealer is hot. Nothing seemed to work.
 

DrollTide

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Thanks Jess - tough to write and read.

I'll stand by the old chestnut that teams aren't as good as they look when they win big, and not as bad as they look when they lose big. There some immediate changes already in progress. There will be a new OL coach, and of course a new OC, where it might be possible to get an upgrade.

We've cheered Saban for hiring coaches with perhaps more recruiting chops than on-field ability. This might also explain the growth of "analysts" who might have taken some game prep load off the field coaches. But game day, last night, reminded us how good Venables and the Clemson co-OCs are. Maybe Swinney will spawn a coaching tree of his own, and have to start dealing with yearly coach rotation.

Overall, I agree strongly that Clemson has now reached the same stratosphere as Alabama, which means that everything matters. While beating, say, a cyclically strong LSU or Auburn can be done even in a "down" year, beating Clemson in an "up" cycle can't be done with a down Alabama. A bit too much player attrition, some coaching differential, a difference in playoff opponent, a difference in turnovers, a difference in composure - small things add up.

Do these things require major surgery to correct? Or is it just not possible to win it all every year? I think these two teams will be back next year, and Alabama wins it.
 

bamacon

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What’s so frustrating is that the things that were working were totally abandoned at the wrong time and things that weren’t were used at the wrong time. The 2nd interception should not have happened. Bama could’ve been in this game and go toe to toe as far as scoring goes. It’s just one of those nights. The defense was the much bigger concern. The lack of depth hurt at DL and the LB play was just stunning. One thing is also clear, when Saban doesn’t have a reliable Jack the defense isn’t the same. Wonder what he defense would have looked like if we had Juniors return like Wilkins and then did last year?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

davefrat

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Dabo has assembled a team basically equal in talent and which has no fear of Alabama.

We were simply out coached and out played in about every way possible last night.

At halftime Saban looked frustrated and confused.

I never thought I'd see a Saban coached team overmatched like that.

Saban is still the greatest coach ever, but Swinney has figured out how to beat Saban...and from the looks of last night...he's on the path to knowing how to dominate Saban.
 

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