Question: Why did Riley defer on kickoff?

VirginiaTide57 · Dec 31, 2018

Oklahoma wins the toss, and analysts are thinking Oklahoma will receive to put their strength on the field to open the game. Instead, they defer to second half, Bama grabs the momentum and before you know, it is 28-0. A strategic mistake by Riley? You assume this decision was made well before the game.

CajunCrimson · Dec 31, 2018

I think he wanted the ball to start the 3rd.....

OU is used to playing from behind.

crimsonaudio · Dec 31, 2018

https://princetonsportsanalytics.com/2017/01/28/to-defer-or-not-to-defer/

CrimsonForce · Dec 31, 2018

I think Riley thought if they could somehow get a stop or if we stopped ourselves then OU would be +1 on possessions since they would get the ball to start the 3rd quarter. Now, why on earth he thought OU could stop our offense is another question but I think he was trying to "steal" a possession..

B1GTide · Dec 31, 2018

I agree - he wanted the ball after making halftime adjustments. It was a mistake and I said it at the time. The one thing that he could not afford to do was let Alabama get a lead and play from in front. He really needed to get Alabama playing from behind.

As it turns out, it would not have mattered. Their scripted plays to start the game were blown up. They didn't start playing well on offense until they got away from the script and let Murray improvise.

TIDE-HSV · Dec 31, 2018

B1GTide said:
I agree - he wanted the ball after making halftime adjustments. It was a mistake and I said it at the time. The one thing that he could not afford to do was let Alabama get a lead and play from in front. He really needed to get Alabama playing from behind.

As it turns out, it would not have mattered. Their scripted plays to start the game were blown up. They didn't start playing well on offense until they got away from the script and let Murray improvise.

That's funny. At the end of the game, when they were playing keepaway and we had everyone back, that thought ran through my mind. After all, he won the Heisman over Tua on theatrics. Terrell Owen's statement that, between the two, Tua was his QB drove the OU boards into a frenzy...

PA Tide Fan · Dec 31, 2018

It was a bad decision considering we score on almost all opening possessions. With an offense like OU has they should look to score first and put pressure on the opponent. Teams have deferred against us almost every game and I still can't figure out why.

JBama_in_PCOLA · Dec 31, 2018

Exactly!

PA Tide Fan said:
It was a bad decision considering we score on almost all opening possessions. With an offense like OU has they should look to score first and put pressure on the opponent. Teams have deferred against us almost every game and I still can't figure out why.

Still, I guess he picked his poison to be honest. We had to that point played even better in the second half of game recently so... They were doomed wither way.

rgw · Dec 31, 2018

I thought his strategy was oddly sound because he was thinking that dictating the terms to start the 2nd half would be more important than the start of the game. He assumed Alabama would score no matter what so trying to play for a 2-for-1 was sound. Alabama didn't let him get that opportunity though because despite penalties derailing a 35-10 lead, that was our longest drive of the night and it basically prevented the opportunity for OU to get two scores without a response from us. They just didn't have enough time at the end of the half. Then we made them bleed 5 minutes on their first drive of the 3rd quarter for just 3 points. Low key, that was probably the most important section of the game and it was mostly about game control.

TideEngineer08 · Dec 31, 2018

well he’s such a great coach so I’m sure it was the right thing to do

selmaborntidefan · Dec 31, 2018

While I was a tiny bit surprised, I think I know what his 'logic' was (in addition to the alleged extra possession).

I think he likely thought we were prepped to stop them on the first drive anyway......and that they were MORE PREPPED to stop us early than on, say, the 2nd offensive possession of the first quarter. I think he thought that even if he was wrong, they've been down by 14 before and after getting a feel for our D, he'd adjust.

I also think he was gambling that he was likely to be behind at halftime and wanted first possession for two reasons in the 2nd half:
1) offense adjusts and has new surprises for us
2) his defense adjusts and he gambles on a stop

Where I think this went wrong is - go look at our second half numbers even with the second string playing, esp the last 3 games prior to OU. We punched in 42, 35, and 21 points and won each game, 2 of them blowouts.

I thought he'd take the supposedly easy points while we adjusted to their speed (in his mind).

I think if they'd scored earlier, they would have actually lost by much more than they did - because we kind of let our foot off and let them have underneath plays much of the game to kill time.

uafan4life · Dec 31, 2018

I honestly think he was drinking the Kool-Aid all the OU fans seemed to have been drinking with regard to how good their defense really was and banking on either us starting slow - as we had in a few games against top-shelf defenses - or them being able to get a stop.

He was in over his head in this game from the get-go and still doesn't seem to realize it because of the respectable score.

This was a respectable game but not a competitive one. A competitive game insinuates both teams having at least a moderate chance to win the game; Oklahoma never really had a chance to win this game.

They scored as many points as they scored because we let them - once the paradigm had shifted to where it was immaterial how many points they scored. We could have played six more quarters and if Oklahoma had scored 180 points, Bama would have had at least 190.

Texas_tide · Dec 31, 2018

He had me scratching my head a few times.

You know your defense sucks. He let Bama set the tempo.

rgw · Dec 31, 2018

The only reason they ever ate into the 28 point lead as significantly as the final score indicates is due:

1) The awful series that started with Brian Robinson calling a fair catch for ??? when we ought to have been starting near midfield or better with what was obviously going to be a big return by Jacobs. Heck knowing how Jacobs is with a head of steam, he may have just ran the dang thing back.

2) 2 mental errors and refs falling for some OU sideline chirp to negate the Irv Smith touchdown near the end of the half.

3) A pedantic, marginal overturn of a catch called on the field on 3rd and 10 for our first drive.

4) The decision to kneel instead of piling on some sugar on the scoreboard.

You take those first two out by cleaning up preventable mental mistakes. You can take the middle two out if it wasn't for that Dang Activist Officiating. The last one was the classy and game control thing to do.

deliveryman35 · Dec 31, 2018

Their defensive captain, Curtis Bolton, said at their post game press conference that they thought we were going to come out and try to establish the run on our opening drive and that instead going immediately to the passing game caught them completely by surprise.

B1GTide · Dec 31, 2018

deliveryman35 said:
Their defensive captain, Curtis Bolton, said at their post game press conference that they thought we were going to come out and try to establish the run on our opening drive and that instead going immediately to the passing game caught them completely by surprise.

Did not hear that. Many Alabama fans were calling for that. In the end, you did what you do, and they had no answer.

CullmanTide · Dec 31, 2018

rgw said:
I thought his strategy was oddly sound because he was thinking that dictating the terms to start the 2nd half would be more important than the start of the game. He assumed Alabama would score no matter what so trying to play for a 2-for-1 was sound. Alabama didn't let him get that opportunity though because despite penalties derailing a 35-10 lead, that was our longest drive of the night and it basically prevented the opportunity for OU to get two scores without a response from us. They just didn't have enough time at the end of the half. Then we made them bleed 5 minutes on their first drive of the 3rd quarter for just 3 points. Low key, that was probably the most important section of the game and it was mostly about game control.

I knew at that point the game was over.

rgw · Dec 31, 2018

I mean he was basically saying the best opportunity for me to get a stop on Alabama is the halftime whistle. I think this was an off-kilter but sound strategy. Alabama - despite a FGM and punt - controlled that segment of the game well and prevented OU from getting 14 points without us touching the ball once. We used 7 minutes to get a FGM, they didn't have enough time to score before half, they used nearly 5 minutes to get 3 points, and we 4:30 to rack up under 30 yards before a punt (that is some real slowball there). In the most important part of the game, a ton of comeback time got melted away for effectively a 3-3 exchange.

RTR91 · Dec 31, 2018

deliveryman35 said:
Their defensive captain, Curtis Bolton, said at their post game press conference that they thought we were going to come out and try to establish the run on our opening drive and that instead going immediately to the passing game caught them completely by surprise.

Thus, the RPO killed them on the first play.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

rolltide7854 · Dec 31, 2018

I think he was thinking we had got off to a slow start the last few games played a part. I thinkhe thought he could keep it close for a half and if he had the lead make it a 2 score game and the last thing he wanted was for us to have the lead and the ball to start the 2nd half.

Question: Why did Riley defer on kickoff?

All-American

Moderator (FB,BB) and Vinyl Enthusiast

Administrator

Hall of Fame

TideFans Legend

Senior Administrator

All-American

TideFans Legend

Suspended

TideFans Legend

TideFans Legend

Hall of Fame

Scout Team

Suspended

Hall of Fame

TideFans Legend

Hall of Fame

Suspended

Super Moderator

All-American

TideFans.shop - NEW Stuff!