Why Lane Kiffin played it safe, Jalen Hurts struggled against Washington

JustNeedMe81 · Dec 31, 2016

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I know I mentioned that in the other thread, but I thought it deserved it own thread.

[FONT=&quot]At the start of the week, Alabama coach Nick Saban praised the Huskies' secondary, comparing the defensive backfield to the Seattle Seahawks' Legion of Boom. Kiffin devised a strategy aimed at avoiding their cornerbacks. Hurts never targeted ArDarius Stewart -- his favorite receiver. And he only looked for Calvin Ridley once. After spending a majority of the previous 13 games attacking the perimeter, Kiffin dialed up plays in which the ball was channeled between the numbers. Hurts, in turn, took a backseat.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]"We're not asking him to win the game by himself or throw the ball 50 times or something like that," Kiffin said. "His numbers weren't very good. But that was part of the plan. Make sure every drive ends in a kick." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It was conservative football at its finest, and a style that is more linked to Saban than Kiffin, who is viewed as a bit of a renegade.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But Kiffin in his last days at Alabama seems willing to do what his boss wants. On Saturday, he called 50 runs and made good use of Scarbrough, who was featured on Alabama's two most impressive drives. Kiffin's only regret?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"You always look back and say, 'Give him the ball more,'" he said.[/FONT]

1. It does make sense to why they were calling the plays the way they were today because they didn't want to risk turnovers, especially with Hurt's history of turning ball over.
2. They were playing keep away from the Secondary and I get it now.

Another article that talks about the playcalling in the game today and it break down few points in details... Like I mentioned in the other thread, I don't think we should blame Kiffin 100 percent on this.
http://www.si.com/college-football/2016/12/31/alabama-crimson-tide-bo-scarbrough-peach-bowl

Bamabuzzard · Dec 31, 2016

As I posted in another thread. I have to assume that getting penetrated all night between the guards like our OL was getting penetrated all night wasn't apart of the game plan. Clemson's DL is a lot better than UW's.

Jessica4Bama · Dec 31, 2016

And that is strange because Florida had a great dl if I recall correctly, and jalen had all day to throw in that game.

JustNeedMe81 · Dec 31, 2016

Bamabuzzard said:
As I posted in another thread. I have to assume that getting penetrated all night between the guards like our OL was getting penetrated all night wasn't apart of the game plan. Clemson's DL is a lot better than UW's.

I know Clemson DL are good, but I can't see this happening to Bama OL two games in a row where they struggle to hold them at bay. I might be wrong, butwe'll see.

JustNeedMe81 · Dec 31, 2016

Jessica4Bama said:
And that is strange because Florida had a great dl if I recall correctly, and jalen had all day to throw in that game.

I agree. I think CNS said this:

Alabama coach Nick Saban said the Huskies made adjustments after Alabama’s first scoring drive to bottle up the Tide’s ground game. “We went into this game thinking that we really needed to run the ball. And I think early on, we ran it effectively, especially on our first scoring drive, and then we started to see a lot more inside backer plugs. We started to see a lot more corner fires, pressures from the edges, and that made it much more difficult for us to run.” Saban was quite diplomatic after the game, but this moment—captured after the Tide were called for delay of game—summed up his feelings on the offense during the game.

Bamabuzzard · Dec 31, 2016

JustNeedMe81 said:
I know Clemson DL are good, but I can't see this happening to Bama OL two games in a row where they struggle to hold them at bay. I might be wrong, butwe'll see.

Oh trust me, I hope you right. But this problem just didn't start tonight. The latter part of the season our OL has taken vacations during games. Can't have that happen January 9th.

day-day · Dec 31, 2016

Is Clemson's defensive line really better than Washington's? What is that based on? The UW fans seem to think all of the DL on their team are NFL players...

There were times when Hurts had plenty of time to throw and had receivers cutting across the middle with a defender dragging a little behind but he would not throw the ball. I figured he didn't feel comfortable throwing the ball in there when other QBs would but also thought the coaches may have emphasized to not take a big risk. Hurts seemed like he only wanted to throw the pass if the receiver was wide open. The article linked in the OP explains some of this.

CrimsonSEC · Dec 31, 2016

day-day said:
Is Clemson's defensive line really better than Washington's? What is that based on? The UW fans seem to think all of the DL on their team are NFL players...

There were times when Hurts had plenty of time to throw and had receivers cutting across the middle with a defender dragging a little behind but he would not throw the ball. I figured he didn't feel comfortable throwing the ball in there when other QBs would but also thought the coaches may have emphasized to not take a big risk. Hurts seemed like he only wanted to throw the pass if the receiver was wide open. The article linked in the OP explains some of this.

It's based on stats. I just looked them all up and Clemson does have an advantage over Washington on the defensive line. Total Defense however has Clemson 8th and Washington was 11th. So not that much of an overall disparity. BTW, rushing defense... Wash #20, Clemson #22. Clemson may rush the passer better but they don't defend the run better.

IMALOYAL1 · Jan 1, 2017

BTW, rushing defense...Wash #20, Clemson #22. Clemson may rush the passer better but they don't defend the run better.

The competition has something to do with this also.

theballguy · Jan 1, 2017

IMALOYAL1 said:
The competition has something to do with this also.

A question within a question perhaps but is the ACC that much better than the PAC12? I tend to think they are but I also believe (as I did before the game) that UDub is a much better team than most give them credit for. I think the game yesterday made it evident.

B1GTide · Jan 1, 2017

theballguy said:
A question within a question perhaps but is the ACC that much better than the PAC12? I tend to think they are but I also believe (as I did before the game) that UDub is a much better team than most give them credit for. I think the game yesterday made it evident.

Defensively, I agree. Washington's defense is a lot better than I expected.

trenda · Jan 1, 2017

theballguy said:
A question within a question perhaps but is the ACC that much better than the PAC12? I tend to think they are but I also believe (as I did before the game) that UDub is a much better team than most give them credit for. I think the game yesterday made it evident.

Based on bowl records for each conference, it looks like the ACC is the top conference.

Loam · Jan 1, 2017

UW secondary is twice as good as Clemson's. So maybe we can do a few things against Clemson that we didn't do against UW.

92tide · Jan 1, 2017

Bamabuzzard said:
Oh trust me, I hope you right. But this problem just didn't start tonight. The latter part of the season our OL has taken vacations during games. Can't have that happen January 9th.

this year's team has shown that we can win in a lot of different ways. last night, uw took away the pass and jalen as a runner. but in "selling out" to do that, left bo a golden opportunity which he took.

i fully expect us to win fairly solidly against clemson. it may not be pretty, but this team, like last year's post-ole miss, will figure out a way to win.

Bamabuzzard · Jan 1, 2017

No way we run the same game plan against Clemson as we did against UW, offensively speaking. Clemson brings heavy pressure between the tackles to cause disruption. We will see "The Return of the Jet Sweep" and a lot of pre snap eye candy to slow down Clemson crashing down in side. Outside of our offensive line magically fixing their issues, we just about have no other choice.

bamanix · Jan 1, 2017

we have 8 days to figure this out. I am afraid the time has come for hurts to pick it up. the whole season he has been protected. we have receivers like ridley and stewart, and howard, but they have not been big in the offense. Jalen has been playing game manager quarter backing the whole season, he has done it well in the sec, but we have not stepped it up a notch, and if the offensive line don't get fired up and protect lalen and make some holes in the defense for harris as well as bo, and knowing our defense will keep our team in the game we will still be competitive, but, a very dangerous Clemson team when fired up.

92tide · Jan 1, 2017

Bamabuzzard said:
No way we run the same game plan against Clemson as we did against UW, offensively speaking. Clemson brings heavy pressure between the tackles to cause disruption. We will see "The Return of the Jet Sweep" and a lot of pre snap eye candy to slow down Clemson crashing down in side. Outside of our offensive line magically fixing their issues, we just about have no other choice.

i think that we could have (potentially) had more offensive production if we had used more of the jet sweeps, etc and forced them to run sideline to sideline. it also seemed that there were opportunities wide had we committed to doing that with ridley and stewart.

but we did very little of that. we were committed to a very vanilla game plan. even within that game plan, there were stretches where we didn't execute well. jalen should have realized that he wasn't going to get a lane on the zone read and handed the ball off. they had someone coming hard at jalen on every play. i remember a few plays where it seemed the rb would have had a huge gain (once with jacobs) had jalen not kept the ball. all it takes is one or two big plays on the zone read or jet sweep and it really loosens up a defense.

BamaBoySince89 · Jan 1, 2017

Bamabuzzard said:
No way we run the same game plan against Clemson as we did against UW, offensively speaking. Clemson brings heavy pressure between the tackles to cause disruption. We will see "The Return of the Jet Sweep" and a lot of pre snap eye candy to slow down Clemson crashing down in side. Outside of our offensive line magically fixing their issues, we just about have no other choice.

Also the screen game was notably missing, something I think we'll see Jan 9th. But it's gonna take more than jet sweeps and screens to beat Clemson. Last year Coker made some great throws in critical situations. Think about the pass he threw to Stewart in the 4th Qtr, I really belive Jalen will have to make 2 or 3 tough throws in this game if we're going to have any sucess, and that's something he hasn't had to do much all season

"Roll Tide"

cuda.1973 · Jan 1, 2017

Pretty sure everyone was expecting a very vanilla game plan. Especially the other team. Of course they were able to make adjustments, since they knew the deep threat was never going to materialize. It allowed them to zero in on what we were running.

And we still won.

Don't expect anything close to that against Aubrens with a lake. CNS didn't get where he is today by not making adjustments.

Now...............how that message gets through to the guy calling the plays, and will we execute................we'll find out.

Stay calm and Roll Tide.

Harmost · Jan 1, 2017

Loam said:
UW secondary is twice as good as Clemson's. So maybe we can do a few things against Clemson that we didn't do against UW.

Huh? That's certainly not borne out statistically, and secondary as an individual unit aside, Clemson's D has been a bit better overall.

Why Lane Kiffin played it safe, Jalen Hurts struggled against Washington

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