Alabama QB competition article

Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

Cole Cubelic was apoplectic yesterday on the point that "no one" talked to Jalen. Basically said the guy has been in the program for three springs and two seasons and he can't get with his OC or position coach? Come on.

I don't think he meant brand in the literal sense, only "brand" talk I've heard was from his father. More likely just poor choice of words.

Can't link it, too much language, but it's titled 'Jalen Hurts Vs Tua Tagovailoa (Season 2) Game Over' on youtube.

That is brutal.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

IMO that was for one reason - Tua. You ran an aggressive offense when he came into the game every time, no matter the score. You did not try to shorten games or run out the clock - you attacked. Add Tua's amazing talent and you produce a ton of points that you would not have produced in previous seasons.
Fine, so remove everything but JH and this is the scoring by year:
2016: 31.2
2017: 30.6

That works out to one less touchdown, offensively, over the course of the season - against defenses that ALL know how to stop JH in 2017.

And of course the 2016 numbers include JH's numbers from the CFPCG, in which Kiffin didn't coach - if you remove that game, only including the 14 games each OC coached, here's your scoring breakdown of Alabama's offense with JH at QB:

2016: 29.1
2017: 30.6

I stand by my assertion that Daboll did at least as good of a job as Kiffin.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

Look at your offense in 2016 for the answers. You have to keep 8 players out of the box. When they are not afraid of the vertical passing game, you have to spread them out horizontally. You did that with great effect in 2017, even against the best defenses in the country. You did not even try to do that in 2017.

Remember those bubble screens and jet sweeps that Jalen ran to perfection? They had a purpose.

What I remember about the Jet sweeps is that they had stopped working about midway through the year to the point I was screaming at the TV every time we ran one because it was almost certainly going to get stopped for very little or no gain. They stopped being effective at keeping players out of the box because they could defend it just like an outside zone read option. As long as the edge defender stays wide and doesn't crash in, they can still stack the box and also bring a FS or SS up in support since there was no legitimate threat to pass.

Bubble screens also got less and less effective because without a more legitimate passing threat, DBs started stacking up closer and took the bubble away. Couple that with Jalen's long(ish) release and they got much less effective.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

I'm not sure I agree with this as Bama's offense was more effective in 2017 than 2016.
2016 (minus NOTs): 32.6 PPG
2017 (minus NOTs): 36.1 PPG

Hurts overall passing numbers were down, but his overall efficiency was essentially unchanged from 2016 to 2017:

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I think you're giving Daboll a bad rap here - the 2016 Bama offense wasn't as effective as it was in 2017. It just could have been SO MUCH BETTER in 2017 if Bama had played the QB that could throw the ball effectively.

And that's not even mentioning that Kiffin had the advantage of playing Hurts against teams that hadn't diagnosed his weaknesses yet.


When Arranda stacked the box in 2016 then the cat was out of the bag on Hurts.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

Fine, so remove everything but JH and this is the scoring by year:
2016: 31.2
2017: 30.6

That works out to one less touchdown, offensively, over the course of the season - against defenses that ALL know how to stop JH in 2017.

And of course the 2016 numbers include JH's numbers from the CFPCG, in which Kiffin didn't coach - if you remove that game, only including the 14 games each OC coached, here's your scoring breakdown of Alabama's offense with JH at QB:

2016: 29.1
2017: 30.6

I stand by my assertion that Daboll did at least as good of a job as Kiffin.

Ah no. Daboll tried to basically make Jalen Hurts Into Tom Brady. At least kiffin played Jalen more to his strengths. A lot of Jalen’s success in 2017 were against crappy teams compared to 2016.
 
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Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

What I remember about the Jet sweeps is that they had stopped working about midway through the year to the point I was screaming at the TV every time we ran one because it was almost certainly going to get stopped for very little or no gain. They stopped being effective at keeping players out of the box because they could defend it just like an outside zone read option. As long as the edge defender stays wide and doesn't crash in, they can still stack the box and also bring a FS or SS up in support since there was no legitimate threat to pass.

Bubble screens also got less and less effective because without a more legitimate passing threat, DBs started stacking up closer and took the bubble away. Couple that with Jalen's long(ish) release and they got much less effective.
They didn't have to "work", they had to spread out the defense so the other plays worked. Alabama scored 31 points against Clemson's defense with Sark calling Kiffin's plays. You scored 24 points with the help of a pick 6 and a horrible Clemson offense this year.

Again, I am not ripping Daboll's play calling ability. I am questioning his insistence on running an offense that Jalen simply could not execute when he played against any defense with a pulse. But looking at the numbers that CA posted, I can see why many would disagree with me.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

They didn't have to "work", they had to spread out the defense so the other plays worked. Alabama scored 31 points against Clemson's defense with Sark calling Kiffin's plays. You scored 24 points with the help of a pick 6 and a horrible Clemson offense this year.

Again, I am not ripping Daboll's play calling ability. I am questioning his insistence on running an offense that Jalen simply could not execute when he played against any defense with a pulse. But looking at the numbers that CA posted, I can see why many would disagree with me.
Well, and to compare those teams is not even necessarily apples to apples. I think Clemson's defense was better in 2017 than 2016. Also, like you said, their offense was even worse than ours.

I think in the large scheme it's a bit of a moot point. In any of the offenses we've had Jalen hasn't been able to consistently pass the ball down the field and push defenses back from the LOS. That's why he likely won't be the starting QB this season.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

They didn't have to "work", they had to spread out the defense so the other plays worked. Alabama scored 31 points against Clemson's defense with Sark calling Kiffin's plays. You scored 24 points with the help of a pick 6 and a horrible Clemson offense this year.

Again, I am not ripping Daboll's play calling ability. I am questioning his insistence on running an offense that Jalen simply could not execute when he played against any defense with a pulse. But looking at the numbers that CA posted, I can see why many would disagree with me.

Kiffin’s ONFIELD problem was that he had a QB that wasn’t able to hit the deep ball, and was a 1st read and run guy. Luckily we had a defense capable of keeping points off the board. But LSU, Aub, UF, UW, and Clemson just loaded up and dared us to throw.

Daboll wanted and expected a Tom Brady and got a rb with some throwing capabilities. We didn’t face near the level of defenses we faced in 2016 the 2017 season. I think the thing that erked me about Daboll was how he kept taking a hot Rb out of the game every time he broke a td
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

I think the thing that erked me about Daboll was how he kept taking a hot Rb out of the game every time he broke a td

That's nothing new. We've been doing that for years.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

Ah no. Daboll tried to basically make Jalen Hurts Into Tom Brady. At least kiffin played Jalen more to his strengths. A lot of Jalen’s success in 2017 were against crappy teams compared to 2016.

no Daboll didn't.

As I said earlier in the thread, Saban openly talked about how they adjusted and simplified all the read packages to try to help Jalen. The route concepts had options and open receivers at all the levels of depth on the field, from short slants, outs, and hitches to the deep routes.

Go watch the video the guy did on Jalen from 2016. It was just as bad with Kiffin. The only reason 2016 was a bit better was that it took a while for other teams to diagnose where Jalen was having issues with making the right reads.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

They didn't have to "work", they had to spread out the defense so the other plays worked. Alabama scored 31 points against Clemson's defense with Sark calling Kiffin's plays. You scored 24 points with the help of a pick 6 and a horrible Clemson offense this year.

Again, I am not ripping Daboll's play calling ability. I am questioning his insistence on running an offense that Jalen simply could not execute when he played against any defense with a pulse. But looking at the numbers that CA posted, I can see why many would disagree with me.

but that was the big problem with kiffin - he was willing to keep running plays that were 'setting up' other plays. That worked ok with Sims and Coker, because they'd make those plays where Kiffin could make the touchdown signal right when he saw the ball fly for a deep pass. Problem is with Jalen, he rarely was able to make that long connection work so we were wasting plays to setup a play that had less than a 10% chance of working anyway. That's why our TOP was HORRIBLE and we had so many three and outs.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

no Daboll didn't.

As I said earlier in the thread, Saban openly talked about how they adjusted and simplified all the read packages to try to help Jalen. The route concepts had options and open receivers at all the levels of depth on the field, from short slants, outs, and hitches to the deep routes.

Go watch the video the guy did on Jalen from 2016. It was just as bad with Kiffin. The only reason 2016 was a bit better was that it took a while for other teams to diagnose where Jalen was having issues with making the right reads.

Again the only three defenses we played worth a darn in 17 and could stop our run were UGA, Auburn , and Clemson all 3 stopped him, but we couldn’t do jack when we got behind because daboll’s offense is designed to have a qb with good downfield passing and vision. Jalen had neither.


In 16 we had LSU, Auburn, UF, UW, and Clemson. All 5 stopped him, but atleast we stood a chance because we were playing to his strengths which is half the field reads and designed pop passes.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

“Forget them pistols you ain’t did nothin”
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

Daboll didn't even try to make it work. He kept calling the same plays expecting Jalen to get better and when that didn't happen, Daboll refused to adjust (or simply didn't have the ability to adjust?).

I've seen a couple of posters suggest this, but I can't buy into this theory. I dont think he would try to intentionally call plays JH couldn't run, and on the flip side.....at this level of football how do you adjust for a qb that can't hit a wide open receiver 25 or 30 yards downfield? You have to try to go downfield to keep the defense from bringing the house on every play.

Sent from my LGMS210 using Tapatalk
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

As noted many times, it was Daboll's job to produce the best offense he could, and not to adjust to one specific player. Nearly every time Tua came in the game, the offense improved. Sometimes he came in with the very same offensive players around him, and facing the same defensive players, and the offense immediately got better. If that offense is more productive than the one dimensional offense Jalen needed to run, then the problem is the quarterback, not the offense.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

I've seen a couple of posters suggest this, but I can't buy into this theory. I dont think he would try to intentionally call plays JH couldn't run, and on the flip side.....at this level of football how do you adjust for a qb that can't hit a wide open receiver 25 or 30 yards downfield? You have to try to go downfield to keep the defense from bringing the house on every play.

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So you don’t find it odd that in 16 he had more yards, more tds, and more ints than 17? That may seem like an improvement but it’s not when you factor that he was dinking and dunking and scrambling on just about every play in 17 with receivers running wide open down the side line. Point is when you play the Brady game with a QB incapable of hitting the deep ball you allow the defenses to cheat up because they don’t respect you. That’s what daboll did with Jalen. Kiffin tried misdirection and Jalen was more effective.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

I've seen a couple of posters suggest this, but I can't buy into this theory. I dont think he would try to intentionally call plays JH couldn't run, and on the flip side.....at this level of football how do you adjust for a qb that can't hit a wide open receiver 25 or 30 yards downfield? You have to try to go downfield to keep the defense from bringing the house on every play.

Sent from my LGMS210 using Tapatalk
Asked and answered. Look back in the thread for my response.
 
Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)

As noted many times, it was Daboll's job to produce the best offense he could, and not to adjust to one specific player. Nearly every time Tua came in the game, the offense improved. Sometimes he came in with the very same offensive players around him, and facing the same defensive players, and the offense immediately got better. If that offense is more productive than the one dimensional offense Jalen needed to run, then the problem is the quarterback, not the offense.
So, fire Nick Saban?
 
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