News Article: Nick Saban needs to evaluate staff after bad play-calling dooms Tide in blowout loss

Ledsteplin

Hall of Fame
Nov 20, 2013
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It's not like Tua wasn't completing passes. He was. He completed 64.7%. 22 of 34. I can see why they called pass plays in the red zone. In hindsight, it's easy to second guess those calls. I'm not sure what to make of it.
 

B1GTide

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Apr 13, 2012
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I will never watch the game again, but I put my thoughts on the reasons for the loss in Jess's post-game analysis thread. You lost because you got out coached. It was not poor execution of a good game plan - it was a poor game plan on Alabama's part combined with a perfect game plan by Dabo.

Saban sits in every meeting. He knew the game plans on offense and defense. He knew what you were going to do. Somehow no one on your staff was able to predict what Clemson would do. Your game plans assumed that they would just keep doing what they had been doing all season. When that proved to be incorrect, it took you too long to adjust.

Out prepared, out coached during the game. What will Saban do to ensure that this never happens again? I have no idea. Better analysts to self-scout? Better coordinators to turn analyst data into a game plan? Better coaches to implement the game plan? Better players at certain positions to perform on the field? A mixture of all of this?

I expect that Alabama will be in the hunt next year. You will play with a chip on your shoulder. You will get a little meaner. Heck, you might even act a little hungry for the first time in a while. But if you can't correct these problems, you will struggle with Dabo. He knows what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it that way.

Saban needs to adjust, and he will. I am interested to see how.
 

BAMAVILLE

Moderator (FB,BB,REC)
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Jan 9, 2014
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I will never watch the game again, but I put my thoughts on the reasons for the loss in Jess's post-game analysis thread. You lost because you got out coached. It was not poor execution of a good game plan - it was a poor game plan on Alabama's part combined with a perfect game plan by Dabo.

Saban sits in every meeting. He knew the game plans on offense and defense. He knew what you were going to do. Somehow no one on your staff was able to predict what Clemson would do. Your game plans assumed that they would just keep doing what they had been doing all season. When that proved to be incorrect, it took you too long to adjust.

Out prepared, out coached during the game. What will Saban do to ensure that this never happens again? I have no idea. Better analysts to self-scout? Better coordinators to turn analyst data into a game plan? Better coaches to implement the game plan? Better players at certain positions to perform on the field? A mixture of all of this?

I expect that Alabama will be in the hunt next year. You will play with a chip on your shoulder. You will get a little meaner. Heck, you might even act a little hungry for the first time in a while. But if you can't correct these problems, you will struggle with Dabo. He knows what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it that way.

Saban needs to adjust, and he will. I am interested to see how.
its unfortunately a different monster that he nor the team counted on ... Clemson developed a plan over the whole season to beat Alabama. Dabo realized who the main threat was and was in that boat sink or swim. They felt like they could plan for everyone else accordingly. its starting to look more and more we didnt have the staff and missing key players to make the necessary changes we normally have in the past. Like you said, it will be interesting to see how he adjusts.
 

cubzwin

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Reasons for loss:
1) Tua gave up 2 ugly interceptions. Lawrence didn't.
2) Defensive weaknesses and lack of depth were exposed.
Far be it for me to criticize the GOAT (and I think Saban is the greatest college football coach of all time) but how is that a team with perennial top three recruiting class doesn't have someone who can pressure off the edge when the starter gets hurt? How did that whole "spy" thing work out against OU? No one fast enough to catch the little guy but we had a big enough lead to hold on. Big guys are great but Alabama needs to have more speed in the defensive depth chart.
 

B1GTide

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Reasons for loss:
1) Tua gave up 2 ugly interceptions. Lawrence didn't.
2) Defensive weaknesses and lack of depth were exposed.
Far be it for me to criticize the GOAT (and I think Saban is the greatest college football coach of all time) but how is that a team with perennial top three recruiting class doesn't have someone who can pressure off the edge when the starter gets hurt? How did that whole "spy" thing work out against OU? No one fast enough to catch the little guy but we had a big enough lead to hold on. Big guys are great but Alabama needs to have more speed in the defensive depth chart.
You realize that 3 of your 4 best OLBs were out in the Clemson game, right? You only had Jennings left. He had to adjust for the loss of 3 players at one position. No team could do that.
 

rgw

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You realize that 3 of your 4 best OLBs were out in the Clemson game, right? You only had Jennings left. He had to adjust for the loss of 3 players at one position. No team could do that.
The only argument would be to play more of the depth that is Not Ready according to the staff in the 8-10 games a season we win coming off the bus and see if anyone is a gamer that can be trusted in the games of consequences. We effectively wasted a year with Anoma due to his game participation for what amounted to garbage time. Saban need to loosen the hell up and start playing these guys who are 3 year players. Figure it out, find a role, find a way. Got too much talent to have folks only playing in garbage time and losing a year of eligibility in the process.
 

NationalTitles18

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Offensive play-calling has been atrocious at times all year and last night was the worst there was. Tried too much to force plays.

Defense looked dazed and confused, though multiple injuries did play some part in that.

Special teams. Nothing more needs to be said.
 
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twofbyc

Hall of Fame
Oct 14, 2009
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I will never watch the game again, but I put my thoughts on the reasons for the loss in Jess's post-game analysis thread. You lost because you got out coached. It was not poor execution of a good game plan - it was a poor game plan on Alabama's part combined with a perfect game plan by Dabo.

Saban sits in every meeting. He knew the game plans on offense and defense. He knew what you were going to do. Somehow no one on your staff was able to predict what Clemson would do. Your game plans assumed that they would just keep doing what they had been doing all season. When that proved to be incorrect, it took you too long to adjust.

Out prepared, out coached during the game. What will Saban do to ensure that this never happens again? I have no idea. Better analysts to self-scout? Better coordinators to turn analyst data into a game plan? Better coaches to implement the game plan? Better players at certain positions to perform on the field? A mixture of all of this?

I expect that Alabama will be in the hunt next year. You will play with a chip on your shoulder. You will get a little meaner. Heck, you might even act a little hungry for the first time in a while. But if you can't correct these problems, you will struggle with Dabo. He knows what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it that way.

Saban needs to adjust, and he will. I am interested to see how.
Dabo simply watched what worked for other teams against Bama and did it - Bama didn’t fix those deficiencies either because they couldn’t or didn’t think it was necessary. The latter was just proven false, the former is where the future resides.



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CoolBreeze

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All of this hand wrenching about what went wrong with us is not the point. Clemson had our number last night much in the way our '92 team had on Miami. They are a really, really good team with good players and coaches. They have been building up for this all season. We, on the other hand, played uninspired and got clocked. Yes, Saban will do his due diligence on introspection and correction and we will be stronger because of it. In a way, this is the best thing that could have happened because now he has to fix things - which he loves to do. We will make it back to the playoff and maybe next year. We may actually play Clemson again in one of the two games and will get our revenge. But we were not the best team (coaches and players) on the field last night and all the credit goes to Dabo. We won't soon see that again.
 

92tide

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My question is:
Did anyone on defense have even a decent game?
If I’m a pro scout, I wanna see what juniors thinking of turning pro do against equal talent.
I know you can’t base it off of one game, but I don’t think any junior playing defense last night improved his draft stock at all.


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jennings had a pretty solid night.
 

Special K

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All of this hand wrenching about what went wrong with us is not the point. Clemson had our number last night much in the way our '92 team had on Miami. They are a really, really good team with good players and coaches. They have been building up for this all season. We, on the other hand, played uninspired and got clocked. Yes, Saban will do his due diligence on introspection and correction and we will be stronger because of it. In a way, this is the best thing that could have happened because now he has to fix things - which he loves to do. We will make it back to the playoff and maybe next year. We may actually play Clemson again in one of the two games and will get our revenge. But we were not the best team (coaches and players) on the field last night and all the credit goes to Dabo. We won't soon see that again.
Well, other than playing really well and winning the game. But I get what you're saying. I'd qualify it this way: If we had to lose, getting smoked might have been better than losing a close one. If we lose a close one, everyone goes on thinking everything's OK, we just came up a little short. But getting skulldragged like we did? You can't hide from that or stick your head in the sand. I have full confidence that we will see a team in the fall that will play - and coach - like their rectums are on fire. We may or may not make it back to the mountaintop, but it won't be from lack of effort or preparation - I'd put money on it if I was a betting man.
 

westide

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Jan 22, 2011
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If you listen to his postgame interview after the game last night, It sounded like he was confused to what was going on with the offense.. and he felt like we got away from what was working for us in the game.

Also, he mentioned copycat stuff Clemson took from other's team and used it against them. (MSU, Georgia).... and they didn't practice against that. Sounds like lack of preparations all around.
Well, they should have anticipated that. Maybe the coaches should have to run wind sprints until they barf.
 

JDCrimson

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Feb 12, 2006
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This was maddening:

"throwing the ball three consecutive times on Clemson’s 26-yard line -- after the Tide already had three runs of nine-yards or more on that drive -- wasn’t much better."

We'd run between the 20s at will and then start throwing or playing cute in the red zone. I firmly believe if we just run the ball every play in the second half we might have won. Definitely would not have lost by 28..
I got 2 words for you as the likely culprit for getting away from the run in these situations and the randomness of some of the play calls... Touch Chart.

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WylieTexasTider

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I don't know if it's coaching changes or we need better recruiting but our LB play was bad last year and got even worse this year. Linebacker's playing well is essential to Saban's defensive schemes. Without it we're not as good at stopping the run or the pass no matter how good or bad our secondary is.
I’d start with a hard look at Lupoi and Golding. Are they the right 2 to be DC and co-DC? Are they the right guys to coach the LB?

If we promote Enos to OC and he stays as QB coach, maybe we then do add another D position coach that allows the DC to scheme/plan and not have to coach a position group too. Only issue with this is if Enos goes in the Box as Locksley did and most OC prefer, who is on the sideline for Tua and Jalen?
 

gtgilbert

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Aug 12, 2011
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The only argument would be to play more of the depth that is Not Ready according to the staff in the 8-10 games a season we win coming off the bus and see if anyone is a gamer that can be trusted in the games of consequences. We effectively wasted a year with Anoma due to his game participation for what amounted to garbage time. Saban need to loosen the hell up and start playing these guys who are 3 year players. Figure it out, find a role, find a way. Got too much talent to have folks only playing in garbage time and losing a year of eligibility in the process.
This is my biggest issue with the 'lack of depth' challenge we had. We lost Lewis and Allen before the season. We had Anoma, Latu and Parks, all very highly rated recruits, who should have been getting more reps throughout the year to prepare just in case, especially when we had games they could have played at least package specific roles in and we still win comfortably. I get the thought that they are 'not ready' to be every down edge guys in the SEC (although I thought parks looked the part) but let them have a package role like we did for Tim Williams as an underclassman, or even Rashaan Evans his first two years before moving him to ILB.
 

rolltd

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I thought we might see Hurts at qb for the second half. Might have been the spark we needed and a change-up to CU defence. JUst wondering how much consideration was given
 

editder

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I thought we might see Hurts at qb for the second half. Might have been the spark we needed and a change-up to CU defence. JUst wondering how much consideration was given
We did see him in the second half. Bad results.
 

Evil Crimson Dragon

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I’d start with a hard look at Lupoi and Golding. Are they the right 2 to be DC and co-DC? Are they the right guys to coach the LB?

If we promote Enos to OC and he stays as QB coach, maybe we then do add another D position coach that allows the DC to scheme/plan and not have to coach a position group too. Only issue with this is if Enos goes in the Box as Locksley did and most OC prefer, who is on the sideline for Tua and Jalen?
I think Enos has already been promoted, unless I am wrong
 

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