****Bama Vs. OU Postgame Thread****

[Bluegrasstide]

Deficiencies in one area doesn't negate deficiencies in another. Yeah, we turned the ball over but let's not fool ourselves. Some of those were forced turnovers. Meaning we didn't "beat ourselves". But regardless of the turnovers or missed fg we are struggling to slow down these HUNH offenses. We had them 1st and 30. They converted. There were several occasions we had them second and third and at least 7 and almost with ease they converted. We have a deficiency on defense when it comes to these type offenses and for the second game in a row the opposing team has taken advantage of it. Now we can continue to point at other things such as TO's or missed fg's but it still doesn't take away the fact that we're struggling against HUNH offenses.

Exactly. Well put. We cannot get off the field against the HUNH. I know the secondary was beat up and we were playing some young pups. However, our inability to get pressure against a ragged OU line did nothing to help them out. I just think it is irresponsible and borderline delusional to sit here and refuse to admit that the HUNH is not our thorn in the side. Refusing to acknowledge it is not going to make it go away...

 

[KrAzY3]

We had them 1st and 30. They converted. There were several occasions we had them second and third and at least 7 and almost with ease they converted. We have a deficiency on defense when it comes to these type offenses and for the second game in a row the opposing team has taken advantage of it. Now we can continue to point at other things such as TO's or missed fg's but it still doesn't take away the fact that we're struggling against HUNH offenses.

A: We also had an injured cornerback, so Alabama was doing things like playing a freshman, and a former WR. It's not coincidence that bad things happen to Alabama against those sort of offenses right after an injury.
B: Yes, Alabama's defense isn't particularly well suited for that sort of offense, but if they're healthy, they've managed to keep them in check.

I don't get the logic that says sure, let's lose to LSU, let's weaken our defense, so that we can play better against up tempo teams, when in fact all it takes to beat those teams is executing what Alabama already has in place. There will ALWAYS be matchup issues! Always.

Who are we kidding? Does Alabama lose to Auburn with a healthy Vinny? Does A&M make a furious comeback without Belue (notice a trend) and Jarrick getting hurt? The defense is not the problem! We knew Alabama was thin and inexperienced in the defensive backfield coming in, and injuries/players struggling did nothing to help the issue. But, come on... you don't start auditioning WRs back there, and give one a starting job because things look great. I think expectations have just gotten all kinds of unrealistic.

 

[bamaslaw]

IMO - what we saw last night was primarily a personnel issue. I'm not sure what we saw against Auburn was just personnel, but last night I do think it was.

I think we get immediately better on defense with an offseason to get healthy and the addition of a true game changer at DE.

There are valid concerns to be had regarding scheme and I think we can (and will) tweak it to be better prepared for these sorts of teams. But I think primarily it is a personnel problem.

 

[tidegrandpa]

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out

Next year is a new season................ Roll Tide!!

 

[92tide]

If that's the case then we're now seeing a trend (as JessN pointed out) of our staff not being able to emotionally get our team up or prepared for games other than the NC game.

its hard to establish a trend from these data: bad (utah), good (mich. state), bad (ok).

 

[92tide]

Likely true. BUT... The Success Auburn and Oklahoma had against us will be copied by most teams
we face for the next couple of years.
Its time to slim down our big guys, and send our coaches on the road to see how other teams
are achieving success. I've never been too proud to copy a good idea.

i heard all through the spring and summers of 2009 and 2011 how utah and s. car/auburn have shown everyone how to beat bama. its not hard to figure out what to do, its hard to do it. that's why we have three bcsnc titles and only have 9 losses since 2008

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Next time drink something more manly than green tea.

I have bronchitis, the hot green tea helps. and that Dr Pepper 10 tastes like flat day old Dr. Pepper.

 

[rgw]

All-time great coaches stuck around in their time because they were adaptable. I think Saban's moment to show that he is adaptable is here. It's an opportunity to demonstrate his genius by taking cues from others. The secondary was bad this year, so it is hard to evaluate that aspect. In theory, his basic concepts should hold up well against spread passing. The real issue is that his front concepts are for a different type of football than being played right now in college. So many teams are using athletes at QB who can make plays outside the scheme. It has become more important than ever to be a defense that can put QBs on the ground and not simply press the pocket to force bad throws.

 

[Special K]

its hard to establish a trend from these data: bad (utah), good (mich. state), bad (ok).

Oh come on now, stop talking nonsense. 2 data points and a straight line is a trend, we all know that.

 

[rgw]

The data points of interest are:

2008 Florida (31 points allowed, L)
2008 Utah (31 points allowed, L)
2009 Auburn (21 points allowed, W)
2009 Florida (13 points allowed, W)
2009 Texas (21 points allowed, W)
2010 Auburn (28 points allowed, L)
2011 Auburn (14 points allowed, W)
2012 TAMU (29 points allowed, L)
2013 TAMU (42 points allowed, W)
2013 Auburn (34 points allowed, L)
2013 Oklahoma (45 points allowed, L)


We're .500 against teams of decent to high quality talent that run a spread offense with varying degrees of tempo implemented. One of the wins is against a Colt-less Texas that came back with their true freshmen backup in the second half before a clutch defensive play likely caused by that QB's inexperience in setting pass pro caused the game clinching turnover. The other was a mediocre, rebuilding year Auburn in 2011.

The only real "to the standard" defensive performance we've had against a quality spread offense is the 2009 Florida game. Even then, we let Tebow pass all over us and the offense controlling possession really just shortened the game on Florida and one big play by Arenas stopped their chance at winning. Yes, we're spoiled by how well we stop other offenses but those offenses are getting pushed to the margins while most schools with real talent are taking to the spread approach with at least a bit of tempo. Florida is going back to the spread option offense. Only Arkansas, Georgia, LSU, and Alabama remain as true pro-style offenses. The other 10 SEC opponents we could face are running some brand of the spread and will likely see our last two games as a cause to install tempo concepts.

Additionally, Georgia ran tempo from a pro-style attack in the 2012 SECCG and gave us some defensive issues too. LSU usually gets one score each year off some tempo set they install for our game. Gotta wonder if they look to add even more tempo in the future.

 

[RWBTide]

For all the talk of the need to adapt to these types of schemes, the game thread was filled with comments questioning why weren't playing our normal game, on both sides of the ball.

We abandoned the run on 1st down before we established it, then found ourselves chasing a deficit thanks to the turn overs.

The defense didn't have a good 1st half, but proved at the start of the 2nd that they could stop that style of play, if they execute, in the 1st 3 possessions for OU in the 2nd half. Unless you believe that OU weren't really trying to put the lid on the game in those drives .

I know I'll be the most ignorant of the nuances of the game here, but what struck me last night was that we fell into the trap of adjusting our normal game plan to suit their style and as a result ended up playing the game more their way than ours. If you do that then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

 

[rgw]

Another issue Saban needs to confront is being a quality defense without an elite secondary group. Our two best units were 2009 and 2011.

2009 had a first round and third round corner starting in base; a third nickel corner who made an NFL roster for a moment.

2011 had two first round corners starting in base; a third corner drafted in the fifth round.


This is why I think going simple is a big part of the equation. Michigan State is principled in a lot of our concepts on the back end. Rip-liz, pattern match but they focus on being great on two or three principle coverages and c4 in particular as their go-to. We are doing so much that we have young guys getting burned by double moves with 7-yard cushions.

 

[B1GTide]

I know I'll be the most ignorant of the nuances of the game here, but what struck me last night was that we fell into the trap of adjusting our normal game plan to suit their style and as a result ended up playing the game more their way than ours. If you do that then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

What Saban did yesterday is something that he has not done much of this year - he took what the defense was giving him. In the first half, when OU loaded the box, you passed. Unfortunately you hit big passes with long runs and the defense did not get much chance to rest. When they dropped their safeties, you ran the ball with great success. Penalties hurt a couple of drives, and 4 turnovers killed 4 drives, but the offensive game plan was solid. Without those turnovers, Alabama wins in a rout.

 

[trenda]

I don't get the logic that says sure, let's lose to LSU, let's weaken our defense, so that we can play better against up tempo teams, when in fact all it takes to beat those teams is executing what Alabama already has in place. There will ALWAYS be matchup issues! Always.

In 2013, our D gave up an avg of 286 yds per game, 13.9 pts per game and held opponents to 35% conversion on third down. Below is what teams that went up-tempo on us did:

aTm (2013) - 628 yds, 42 pts, 5/8 on third down (63%)
Ole Miss (2013) - 205 yds, 0 pts, 4/14 on third down (29%)
LSU (2013) - 284 yds, 17 pts, 7/12 on third down (58%)
Auburn (2013) - 393 yds, 34 pts, 8/15 on third down (53%)
Oklahoma (2013) - 429 yds, 45 pts, 6/12 on third down (50%)

The season averages include these games; so the discrepancy is even higher than it looks here. Ole Miss just doesn't have the talent to hang with Bama. LSU didn't go up tempo the entire game; and we played probably our best game of the season against them as well. But the other three did some serious damage to our D.

The problem is more than execution. There's no reason to abandon the philosophy that's gotten him to where he is; but there HAS to be some adjustments to the scheme against the up tempo teams.

 

[KrAzY3]

What Saban did yesterday is something that he has not done much of this year - he took what the defense was giving him. In the first half, when OU loaded the box, you passed. Unfortunately you hit big passes with long runs and the defense did not get much chance to rest. When they dropped their safeties, you ran the ball with great success. Penalties hurt a couple of drives, and 4 turnovers killed 4 drives, but the offensive game plan was solid. Without those turnovers, Alabama wins in a rout.

I really don't get what's so hard to understand. Alabama out-gained Oklahoma, and that was with all the turnovers! You take those away, and it is likely a blowout. I mean look at the first interception, that doesn't happen and there's a decent chance Alabama drives and scores. The Yeldon fumble? That likely ends in a touchdown. There's just not many teams out there, that are any good at all, that you can end up -4 in turnovers and win. It's just nuts that some people somehow overlook the turnovers and point fingers all over the place.

Without those turnovers, Oklahoma gets a lot less chances to score, Alabama's defense gets more rest and time to prepare, and Alabama grinds down Oklahoma's defense more. No team can really scheme well enough to compensate for all those turnovers.

The data points of interest are:

The data points are lacking, for instance you didn't include Ole Miss.

 

[glasscutter256]

For all the talk of the need to adapt to these types of schemes, the game thread was filled with comments questioning why weren't playing our normal game, on both sides of the ball.

We abandoned the run on 1st down before we established it, then found ourselves chasing a deficit thanks to the turn overs.

The defense didn't have a good 1st half, but proved at the start of the 2nd that they could stop that style of play, if they execute, in the 1st 3 possessions for OU in the 2nd half. Unless you believe that OU weren't really trying to put the lid on the game in those drives .

I know I'll be the most ignorant of the nuances of the game here, but what struck me last night was that we fell into the trap of adjusting our normal game plan to suit their style and as a result ended up playing the game more their way than ours. If you do that then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

I agree with what you are saying.
I haven't read all of the pages to this thread, but here is my opinion. The first 2 TO's were legitimate. The last 2 was Bama stressing and forcing plays. In the beginning of the second half, our defense was playing better or OU was finally out of sync. That was our opportunity to score twice and go ahead again. We came out flat too and couldn't sustain a drive. A costly false start penalty brought Bama from a 2nd and 2 to a 2nd and 7. We ended up not getting a first down and stopped what could have been a big momentum shift had we scored.
The problem isn't that they paced us. The problem is that they executed well the whole first half and we didn't make any break-ups on passes. Other teams pace us, but don't execute as well (Ole Miss).
The solution to stopping running QB's is to have smaller, quicker DL. The problem with that is that teams can run up the middle on you. Our DL this year just wasn't as good as our teams in the past and that is the simple difference to me. Hubbard is the worst edge setter I have ever seen. He plays straigt up every time and plays sniffer defense on just about every play. Sniffer defense - chases the ball carrier from behind sniffing their behind.

 

[glasscutter256]

I really don't get what's so hard to understand. Alabama out-gained Oklahoma, and that was with all the turnovers! You take those away, and it is likely a blowout. I mean look at the first interception, that doesn't happen and there's a decent chance Alabama drives and scores. The Yeldon fumble? That likely ends in a touchdown. There's just not many teams out there, that are any good at all, that you can end up -4 in turnovers and win. It's just nuts that some people somehow overlook the turnovers and point fingers all over the place.

Without those turnovers, Oklahoma gets a lot less chances to score, Alabama's defense gets more rest and time to prepare, and Alabama grinds down Oklahoma's defense more. No team can really scheme well enough to compensate for all those turnovers.


The data points are lacking, for instance you didn't include Ole Miss.

Yes, turnovers were the difference. Obviously, but you can't tell your team, "don't turn the ball over." The last 2 turnovers (McCaron's late throw and fumble) came because Bama put ourselves in a situation where a turnover is likely. Down by 2 scores and behind the chains. That is what you have to eliminate. The first 2 TO's (INT and TJ's fumble) were just mistakes.
Bama outgained OU because they had the short field most of the drives.
OU did the same thing AU did to us. They played man on the edges and crashed their safeties to stop our run. We beat them on a few long passes in the 1st half, but didn't throw long in the 2nd half because of their pass rush and AJ got shook. He couldn't focus.

 

[rgw]

The data points are lacking, for instance you didn't include Ole Miss.

Totally airmailed that...the big point is still there:

quality opponents that run a huddle pro style, we usually handle pretty close to our norms.

quality opponents that run a no-huddle spread, they are typically among some of the worst defensive performances in those seasons and overall for the Saban era.

 

[B1GTide]

In 2013, our D gave up an avg of 286 yds per game, 13.9 pts per game and held opponents to 35% conversion on third down. Below is what teams that went up-tempo on us did:

aTm (2013) - 628 yds, 42 pts, 5/8 on third down (63%)
Ole Miss (2013) - 205 yds, 0 pts, 4/14 on third down (29%)
LSU (2013) - 284 yds, 17 pts, 7/12 on third down (58%)
Auburn (2013) - 393 yds, 34 pts, 8/15 on third down (53%)
Oklahoma (2013) - 429 yds, 45 pts, 6/12 on third down (50%)

The season averages include these games; so the discrepancy is even higher than it looks here. Ole Miss just doesn't have the talent to hang with Bama. LSU didn't go up tempo the entire game; and we played probably our best game of the season against them as well. But the other three did some serious damage to our D.

The problem is more than execution. There's no reason to abandon the philosophy that's gotten him to where he is; but there HAS to be some adjustments to the scheme against the up tempo teams.

The three big scores allowed:

aTm - Alabama crushed aTm, and would not have given up nearly as many points if Yeldon did not have that fumble early in the 4th to give them hope. Still, most of those points came from Manziel/Evans on plays that had nothing to do with good offensive or bad defensive schemes. You throw the aTm game out, as it is a Manziel aberation.

Auburn - your defense held them to 21 point until the bad play by Jones at the 39 yard line with 30 seconds to go. The last TD was on your special teams unit, as were all the missed FGs. Again, your defense was pretty good in that game considering the level of talent on their offense - good enough to win. ST cost you that game, not defense.

Sooners - Your defense played very well except on 3rd and long. The defense only gave up 31 points. Again, a missed FG hurt you, but the 4 turnovers cost you the game - again, not the defense.

My only concern in these games is the poor performance on 3rd down. That has to be fixed, as it was a problem all season - not just against HUNH teams. Every team with an offensive pulse caused you problems in this area except Miss.

 

[KrAzY3]

aTm (2013) - 628 yds, 42 pts, 5/8 on third down (63%)
Ole Miss (2013) - 205 yds, 0 pts, 4/14 on third down (29%)
LSU (2013) - 284 yds, 17 pts, 7/12 on third down (58%)
Auburn (2013) - 393 yds, 34 pts, 8/15 on third down (53%)
Oklahoma (2013) - 429 yds, 45 pts, 6/12 on third down (50%)

Alabama had key injuries to the secondary in (I think) all but the Ole Miss game. The secondary was thin to begin with. I think we all can agree those sort of offenses put great stress on Alabama's secondary, and despite Auburns ability to run the ball, I think Nick Marshall going 11/16 with 2 TDs passing was the difference.

I do think uptempo creates some issues, but all they did was put pressure on flaws created by inexperience/depth issues. The defensive backs were a concern coming into the season, and for instance when two got hurt in the A&M game, it led to a flurry of offense. My point remains that sure, you can do some minor adjustments, but all we're really doing here is talking about a problem that depth/experience at defensive back addresses.

Yes, turnovers were the difference. Obviously, but you can't tell your team, "don't turn the ball over."

Yeah, that's exactly what you do. Nick Saban said that he considers any drive the ends in a kick to be a success. If Alabama is built around anything, it's around not making mistakes. That's why, when Alabama misses field goals, or turns the ball over, things can get so bad. The entire structure is built on that not happening. That's why, for instance, the first two turnovers ended up creating a situation that lead to the next two. Every team has their weaknesses, and Alabama's "weakness" (if you can call it that), is to rely on good fundamentals.

Here's my general outlook. Every team will have matchup issues. Some teams have matchup issues so big, that they can not fix them. Some teams just simply can't stop the triple option, or they can't stop the power running game, etc... I don't think that's Alabama's problem. Yes, up tempo is a weakness, but they've proven they can stop it, they just have a smaller margin for error. If Saban tries major changes (aside from real minor tweaks), the risk is they create huge matchup problems elsewhere, to deal a little better with up tempo.