Bama vs Oklahoma round 2 (Friday December 19th)

[crimsonaudio]

Things definitely have changed since I was in school. Our finals were alway the week after Thanksgiving or sometimes a little further like around now. I don't think I ever still had classes on the 19th.

Still that way in TN. Finals are finished first week of December.

OU must've bought a truck load of extra crayons in order to get this done.

 

[AlexanderFan]

I feel like we got a BIG gift by getting in this year after the SEC Championship game. Let's hope for getting healthy, and better play calling to help the OL and Ty. I hope we can run some screens and slants. Anything to keep the chains moving. Our runs seem so slow in developing, and our OL can't maintain the blocks. Got the gift that I hope keeps on giving! RTR!

Alabama roasted this defense the first go round. Pick six pass interference and the no call on Ryan Williams would’ve tilted the yards even further.

Pick six, muffed punt, missed 36 yard field goal, and lost by two.

This team needs to show up mad to the fist time in their lives, and play accordingly.

 

[Padreruf]

I'm not sure our offense has the intensity and confidence to show up angry and determined. They seem to me to be confused, cautious about making mistakes, and totally lacking in the confidence that is needed to amount this kind of a turn-around. CKD and CRG are going to have to work some attitudinal magic to achieve the performance that is needed.

The CKD to UM rumor mill does not help this situation. CKD needs to come out with a strong statement that will lift this team up...they need to believe in him and the coaching staff now more than ever.

 

[editder]

I'm not sure our offense has the intensity and confidence to show up angry and determined. They seem to me to be confused, cautious about making mistakes, and totally lacking in the confidence that is needed to amount this kind of a turn-around. CKD and CRG are going to have to work some attitudinal magic to achieve the performance that is needed.

The CKD to UM rumor mill does not help this situation. CKD needs to come out with a strong statement that will lift this team up...they need to believe in him and the coaching staff now more than ever.

I still say OU should be 7-5 or at best 8-4 and sitting at home for the playoffs right now. Yet they found a way to beat both the viles and us on the road in games they were outplayed in and should have lost.

We were a better team then than we are now. It remains to be seen if we can suddenly reverse course on offense and win on the road. A more likely scenario is that Mateer returns to his previous form and they discover an offense to complement their defense.

 

[arthurdawg]

I'm hoping they are spending lots of time working on our plan this week and mix things up and clean up the playbook we will use and make things simpler for Ty. We need to get in, run the play, and not give up any signals that we are calling or signal what we are doing. And that the players get some rest and rehab.

 

[BamaMike05]

sorry, but no.

The LG can absolutely pull when covered. The OC would have an easy down block onto the DT in that situation.

The RG had no one to downblock since there was no one on the LOS. The RG was also covered. He gave a quick look at the DT covering him that allowed the RT (Carroll) to reach and get a good block, before adjusting to the LB who was blitzing and he successfully picked up (see here).
View attachment 54673

RG had eyes on the play side backer the entire time, and the RT was staring directly at the playside DT. They were on the same page and picked up the guys coming on their side of the OL

The edge was already accounted for by the TE in motion. You can see here he takes a direct line to him, and in the prior pic, you can see he engages directly.

View attachment 54672

The problem on this play is Brailsford wasn't on the same page. He paid ZERO attention at the snap and never even appears to glance at the backside backer who is the one who applied the pressure. Everyone else seemed aware that the playside OLB was a coverage player and not rushing - he's pretty much watching the TE come in motion. We had Horton in the slot with the TE wide (pre-snap) on that side then coming in tight, with a CB, a S playing kinda deep and the OLB. I can't see a world where it makes sense to cover Horton 1-1 with no S, so it's a a simple read that if the playside ILB is coming, the OLB is in coverage. There wasn't going to be anyone for Brailsford to block out there. If Grubb and the O staff thought there would be, that's a bigger problem.

Even if he should have pulled, it's on him not getting enough depth. Formby is just barely deeper than Carroll, and Brailsford is not deeper than either of them.

This does illustrate a couple of things though. UGA only brought 4 and got pressure. LG, RG, and RT (at least on this play) all got decent blocks. LT and C blocked NO ONE. We simply have too many times where we have OL not blocking anyone. The hit against Um where Ty got hurt is was Carroll who blocked NO ONE and Miller had to try to clean it up himself, unsuccessfully.

The other thing is that on this play, we started with Bernard lined up 2-3 yards away from the OT, and Horton 5-6 yards outside, AND motioned the TE to about 2 yards off the OT pre-snap. We only had ONE player (williams)far enough away to pull a player outside the box That makes it incredibly easy for a D to disguise who they might send and who they might not. UGA literally covered Bernard with the DE/OLB right off the LOS because he was so close. Pull him a bit further outside and the backside ILB has to shift his alignment outside somewhat and either can't blitz because he does have coverage, or at least has to start from further away, OR if the do choose to pull the OLB out there, Proctor would have known to slide in to help VDM, who then maybe could have picked up the other inside blitzer. It was pretty much the same thing on the other side. With the TE motioning inside, it was a very easy thing for the OLB to pick him up so that the ILB was free to blitz. Everything bunched in like this just makes it WAY to easy. It makes ZERO sense.

All that said, I still think Brailsford simply wasn't on the same page as the other 10 guys on this one. This was a one route, hot read play. Ty saw 1-1 coverage out there and called it, and everyone else executed that. Had #5 or #1 been out there as the WR on the route, it's probably a TD or worst case a PI call. I love #2 and think he does a lot of things really well, but he's not a contested catch guy like #5 and #1

If you every watch Alabama run Pin & Pull they use "covered/uncovered" rules. That isn't debatable. You can pull if your covered but Alabama typically doesn't. Also watch Formby, he is blocking down to show run and ran into Brailsford. I said that Brailsford likely didn't get enough depth on his pull.

You said "he's running around not knowing what he is doing". That isn't what he is doing. You mean not agree with the protection but that is what the play-action protection they are running entails.

 

[RammerJammer14]

Still that way in TN. Finals are finished first week of December.

OU must've bought a truck load of extra crayons in order to get this done.

It’s that way at Alabama too. I’ve got some younger cousins and a brother enrolled right now- finals at Alabama this year were held last week through this Friday. Classes ended on the 5th. Some finals were actually held the week of Thanksgiving. Graduation for the fall semester is this Saturday.

OU is wildly out of alignment if they are taking stuff all the way up to the week of Christmas.

 

[Tideflyer]

I’m trying to be optimistic for the CFP vs OU, but is Bama's offense capable, at this point, of threatening anyone? Based on what we saw in the SECCG last Saturday, everyone on the field and everyone watching knows we have absolutely no running game because the OL is not on the level required for D1 football. I really hope we can play smart and out-execute OU, but given the state of the team right now, that is a huge task.

If Bama can get more of the wounded in action healthy over the next 10 days and can figure out a way to scheme better considering the OL and running game weaknesses, then we do have a good chance, but scheming and adjusting do not seem to be strong suits of CRG. I've been a Bama fan for 55 years, and I’ll always pull for the Tide, but I’ve never seen a Bama running game this bad. BTW, JessN has an insightful post in another discussion on the drop-off in Bama’s running game from last year to this year—worth the read. Do any of you remember Johnny (“Bull”) Davis? It wasn’t until late in his senior year at fullback in 1977 that he was tackled for a loss while running the ball, and that happened only once! How I miss those great running teams of the 70’s and even from earlier in CNS’s tenure at Bama. Anything’s possible—and now Bama has a shot—so I hope they can produce.

Davis is one of my all time favorites. I think you have to have a certain amount of channeled meanness coupled with physicality up front to consistently run the ball effectively. How long has it been since, “ We’re going to run the ball. You know it, everyone in the stadium knows it…..” And you still couldn’t stop it? That takes guys up front cut from a certain bolt of cloth that I don’t think we have. With 5 Landon Dickersons or Barrett Jones or John Hannahs? Yeah.

 

[BamaMoon]

Thinking back on the first game. There's no question we should have won that game.

OU probably is not in the playoffs without that "upset."

And looking back on it. Despite OU DL showing other teams how to get pressure on Ty, he still burned their secondary.

Just hoping we can replicate that success and cut out the mistakes, which gift-wrapped that win for OU.

 

[gtgilbert]

If you every watch Alabama run Pin & Pull they use "covered/uncovered" rules. That isn't debatable. You can pull if your covered but Alabama typically doesn't. Also watch Formby, he is blocking down to show run and ran into Brailsford. I said that Brailsford likely didn't get enough depth on his pull.

You said "he's running around not knowing what he is doing". That isn't what he is doing. You mean not agree with the protection but that is what the play-action protection they are running entails.

I'm familiar with Pin and Pull, and still think Brailsford is lost here because I don't think that's what everyone else is running. IMHO, everyone wearing Crimson, other than Brailsford, had adjusted the blocking to account for a high likelihood of both ILBs blitzing, which they did. Neither the RTs nor the RGs steps look like pin and pull (not to me at least). Instead, the RG slide steps, with eyes on the playside ILB, with a little punch to the DT just in case. Even if he wasn't supposed to pull, in a pin motion it's most likely that instead he would shifted his outside foot slightly forward at the snap. The RT doesn't block like he's pinning at all; it's a slide step for shifting pass pro. Even looking at the LG and RT, their steps are not what you'd expect in Pin and Pull, it's more like traditional pass pro.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Thinking back on the first game. There's no question we should have won that game.

OU probably is not in the playoffs without that "upset."

And looking back on it. Despite OU DL showing other teams how to get pressure on Ty, he still burned their secondary.

Just hoping we can replicate that success and cut out the mistakes, which gift-wrapped that win for OU.

This just hit me. notre dame should be mad at Oklahoma. They really took their spot.

 

[bamaga]

I’m right there with you. I just don’t see it. I thought it was a bad match up for the first game. This will be worse.

Because Bama dominated the first game, and I have beat that drum since the clock struck 0:00. Most on here call me crazy, that OU dominated Bama but that simply wasn’t true. The only thing that gives me pause is the off time for OU and Mateer getting healthier. I wish we had that off time.

 

[BamaMoon]

Because Bama dominated the first game, and I have beat that drum since the clock struck 0:00. Most on here call me crazy, that OU dominated Bama but that simply wasn’t true. The only thing that gives me pause is the off time for OU and Mateer getting healthier. I wish we had that off time.

Look up the stats. We beat them everywhere but the scoreboard. Albeit that's all that matters, but the point is our offense looked pretty good against them and their vaunted D.

 

[arthurdawg]

Is Brailsford returning next year?

I appreciate what he has done for us and he is a baller, but we need an extra 30 lbs of beef in the middle.

 

[Coach D]

The lack of respect and credit to OU for the first game is crazy. They beat us hands down. They made the plays, created TOs and won. Their offense didn’t have to do anything so played it safe. Stacking up yards isn’t a huge factor as it used to be in the bend type defense. They didn’t dominate obviously but they made the plays. Bama offense has gotten way worse since so over simplifying like saying do what we did in the first game is asinine. They are a top 10/5 defense this year and bama is bottom offense right now. Their offense is better than ours at the moment. Bama defense will have to win this game at least on paper and score and hope special teams does too.

 

[The Ols]

Is Brailsford returning next year?

I appreciate what he has done for us and he is a baller, but we need an extra 30 lbs of beef in the middle.

2nd team All-American…we only have 2.

 

[Padreruf]

As I read this I hear too many "I hope" statements and not many positive statements about our ability to physically dominate OU. I am under no illusions about this year's team...if we win it will be because TS has a resurrection to early form and the line blocks just well enough for him to complete 67-70% of his passes.

 

[squib]

It’s that way at Alabama too. I’ve got some younger cousins and a brother enrolled right now- finals at Alabama this year were held last week through this Friday. Classes ended on the 5th.

Daughter at the Capstone took her last final of the semester yesterday. En route back to Texas today. Can't wait to give her a hug.

 

[BamaMike05]

I'm familiar with Pin and Pull, and still think Brailsford is lost here because I don't think that's what everyone else is running. IMHO, everyone wearing Crimson, other than Brailsford, had adjusted the blocking to account for a high likelihood of both ILBs blitzing, which they did. Neither the RTs nor the RGs steps look like pin and pull (not to me at least). Instead, the RG slide steps, with eyes on the playside ILB, with a little punch to the DT just in case. Even if he wasn't supposed to pull, in a pin motion it's most likely that instead he would shifted his outside foot slightly forward at the snap. The RT doesn't block like he's pinning at all; it's a slide step for shifting pass pro. Even looking at the LG and RT, their steps are not what you'd expect in Pin and Pull, it's more like traditional pass pro.

I didn't say it was pin & pull. I was using pin & pull as an example of "covered/uncovered" rules that teams use with pin and pull. This wasn't pin & pull play action but rather likely power read play action. Normally the guard pulls on PR but rather than asking the C to block back on the 3 technique, you pull the C. Like I said "covered/uncovered".

We can argue all day until we are blue in the face. But one thing is for certain, we aren't in the meeting rooms and can't know for certain if he was or wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing. The point that I was trying to make is that I have seen us run that play-action protection before. My point is that it was poor execution by both Brailsford & Formby. Parker needs to get more depth and Formby needs to take a better angle.

I don't know alot of things, but one thing that I do know well is offensive football lol. With that said, I think we can just leave it at agree to disagree.

 

[Rocky Mtn Bob]

Don't know where to put this, so....

Most of our high country snow from last week has melted; it was time to drive my truck through a car wash.

The young man checking me in returned from recording my plate and asked, "Bama fan?"

[I have two Alabama stickers on my back window a bumper sticker AND a license plate frame which are pretty good indicators, but I elected to skip the snarky reply.]

"Yes, I grew-up in Alabama."

He smiled and said, "I'm from Auburn."

[I couldn't help it and blurted....] "I'm sorry!"

"Yeah. It's been a rough several years for us."