From what I heard, defense played a vanilla nickel with no stunts, twists or blitzes and stayed that way regardless of the O formation. Makes it pretty easy to run.
i dont think theres much point in dwelling on team performance. individual performances? maybe. under deboer the offense will always look better at this point of the year, hell probably the whole year. but it doesn't matter. you win by scoring more points than the other team, as long as we can do that more often than not with whatever collection of talent we have then we'll be ok.
Yeah I'm with you. The jury is definitely out on Wommack. I do like our DB coaches a lot and think they are an upgrade from a coaching perspective.
offense also went for every 4th down all day. It was unrealistic. They did have a few busts against the run but they tightened up and did a good job defending a pretty potent offense in the 2nd half. Think both sides were pretty vanilla though.
I don’t read too much into the comments if they are real. I honestly would expect Saban to respond that way to a coach who has a defensive system which essentially says Saban’s system is overly complex on the backend and is unnecessary.
I'm still mad we lost that playoff game. Storybook ending was right there and we just pissed it away. Had multiple chances to put it away, didn't, then gave up a quick drive out of nowhere where we just got gashed, then get to OT and just folded. Such a terrible ending to the Saban years.
A few years back the game shifted to where offense and scoring points was winning you the natty. Then Georgia came along and the emphasis was once again more on playing good defense (they also could score points and were efficient on offense but the 2021 and 2022 Georgia teams cornerstone was defense). The ability to play elite defense is what separated Georgia from other teams in the playoffs. Then last year Michigan was more of a defensive team than offensive oriented team. I think the pendulum has swung back to needing to play good defense and run the ball. But college football is not strategically static. It is constantly shifting and evolving. You can do it either way. However there is one constant truth: You can't win natties with just a completely shitty defense. The last natty team with a god awful defense was Auburn in 2010 which had an all timer on offense. National championship teams with god awful defense are statistical outliers.
the tipped pass by Lawson would have been picked off by Malachai if it wasn't tipped. i will take that to my grave.
The fact we couldn't snap the fucking ball the entire 2nd half of the season will forever piss me the fuck off. How on earth did we let that happen? Idc if the backup isn't as good of a blocker, the entire offense starts with a snap. That bullshit put us in bad spot after bad spot and it finally bit us in the biggest of spots. Beating AU like we did, then beating UGA... man we had to convert that into a chip and we just pissed down our leg when we had it right there.
I don't think you can look at Saban's end in a vacuum of just that one game. You can spin it however you want to. You can also say he did a masterful job of molding this team even against their own will into something that mirrored Saban's vision of a team. Even in the era of NIL etc he was able to get a bunch of primadonnas to play together , play physical and suffocating defense, run the ball, etc. And they beat the supposed unbeatable Georgia dynasty in their house in the SECCG and knocked them out of the playoffs. As for the Rose Bowl, in the end the shit with Seth was just too much. You can't have a center shooting you in the foot over and over again. The defense was probably too complicated and it bit us at the absolute worst time. Their OC outcoached us and confused our defense. Finally, Milroe can't fumble and give them the ball in great field position and suck all the momentum out of the game. Ultimately it was a team that Saban almost single handedly pushed to their greatest potential but was always fundamentally flawed and not destined for a national championship.
i think what we've seen is there is more than one way to win a title as long as the talent thresholds are hit. offensive focus with competent defense, defensive focus with competent offense, or a nice balance. personally, i think the most reliable formula until now has been a high powered offense with a defense that forces a lot of turnovers and that's what i hope to see from deboer teams. the run game definitely looked much better than anything else on the field saturday and that's really not tremendously surprising considering the talent we've had waiting behind roydell and co along with the 50% roster overhaul and defensive playcalling in that game. there's undoubtedly going to be an adjustment period but this is still bama with a coach who does have a national title game appearance. on top of all of that, the playoff expansion is going to change a lot of things. 3 losses and we probably still get in. so the new deadline for getting everything together is much later in the year than it has been until now.
Yea I wasn't blaming him, just saying a collapse like that was a terrible end to his time at Bama. I'd prefer he went out with a chip.
Honestly most really good offensive coaches will try to mold the scheme to highlight and utilize the best offensive talent they have. Right now runningback is one of the most talented and deep positions on the team. So even if CDB likes to sling it around, if his roster is chalk full of stud RBs, then you would expect him to find a way to get them the ball and utilize that talent.
Georgia and Michigan have benefitted more than any teams in recent history with favorable schedules that don't have a lot of high powered offenses. It's true they've had very good defenses but they also haven't been challenged regularly in that department. Hell, we've beaten Georgia multiple times during this run and put up plenty of points. I still believe that if Jamo/Metchie don't get hurt we win the natty. The days of shutdown defense against truly elite offenses are over.
I’m not sure it was as much shit talking, but apparently Saban threw a lot of different scenarios/offensive sets at him, and wanted to see how he planned to stop it, and it didn’t go great.
Nice, maybe he’ll get some specific feedback that makes him think about coming back, otherwise best of luck and go make us proud
yeah i'd say that initial feedback is inconsistent and not promising enough to declare outright so he wants to see if any team wants to make promises or tell him how to improve to get that promise next year
i mean, he's not that short. listed at 6'1. there's some top 100 scorers listed at that height or below. listed 6'1 is fine but really he's a 6'1 off guard. definitely doesn't have nba pg ball handling, burst, passing, etc.
making him 6'2 wouldnt change much. it would check one more box but thats not enough to get him into the 1st. ultimately he has to be a top 60 ball handler in the world to get actual nba play time and he's far from that. great shooter with a lot of lower body strength but an nba pg has to be able to do a lot more than that. he can't and i'm not sure a 5th year in college is going to do anything but make him a year older.
I think some of yall are underestimating the shit out of Sears game. He’s definitely not 6’1 but his burst, passing, handles are fine. And his ability to create and score is top notch. He’s not going to make it more than likely simply because he’s short. He has the rest. It sucks, but this isn’t new. It happens to a lot of really good college guards every single year.