Too Much on the QB? DeBoer’s One-Dimensional Offense Problem

[Slowpoke Catracho]

Our oline is horrible, utterly horrible. An offensive philosophy doesn't produce this bad of an OL. Bad talent and/or bad coaching does. I dont know if our rbs are average, good or bad because the OL sucks so bad.

This!

Sacks Allowed per ESPN:
2025 - 25
2024 - 24
2023 - 44 (Hard to believe)
2022 - 18
2021 - 39
2020 - 13
2019 - 10

 

[PGDocBama]

Well, I didn't have Cignetti on my radar but honestly he seems like who Alabama thought they were getting when they hired DeBoer.

That aside... you can want a coach to improve on his weaknesses, that doesn't mean you want him gone. I see talk about the need for DeBoer to retooll this roster into a finesses one, devoid of power running backs to "fit" his system and I think that's a terrible idea. He needs to fit his system to the SEC in my opinion. If he does that, then he can have more consistency.

This 100% ^^^

 

[Bamabuzzard]

DeBoer doesn't like to run it at all. That's why he only does it about 35% of the time. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. The first time DeBoer has a good running game will be his first.

I have no idea if he "doesn't like running the ball at all" or not. Thats a strong claim. I also dont know if hes not willing to adjust his scheme. If he wants to win in the SEC he has to get the offensive line fixed.

I dont agree that his scheme produces bad offensive lines. If thats the case he would have NEVER won as much as he has, regardless of the level. I think he needs to tweak his system and put more power into it. But I dont think a complete 180 overhaul in offense needs to be done. If hes not willing to tweak it then hes probably not cutout to coach in the SEC.

 

[AlexanderFan]

I have no idea if he "doesn't like running the ball at all" or not. Thats a strong claim. I also dont know if hes not willing to adjust his scheme. If he wants to win in the SEC he has to get the offensive line fixed.

I dont agree that his scheme produces bad offensive lines. If thats the case he would have NEVER won as much as he has, regardless of the level. I think he needs to tweak his system and put more power into it. But I dont think a complete 180 overhaul in offense needs to be done. If hes not willing to tweak it then hes probably not cutout to coach in the SEC.

Someone likes to run the ball on that staff if yo look at rolltide.com stats.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

This!

Sacks Allowed per ESPN:
2025 - 25
2024 - 24
2023 - 44 (Hard to believe)
2022 - 18
2021 - 39
2020 - 13
2019 - 10

Our last 1000 yard rusher was Najee Harris in 2019. The run game has rapidly declined.

In 2020 Najee ran for 1,466 Yards and 26 TD’s.

In 2021 Brob ran for 1,343 and 14 TD’s

In 2022 Gibbs just missed the mark at 926 yards but Jase also had 655 yards and as a team we actually rushed for more than either the 2020 or 2021 team. It was just spread out.

In 2023 Jase ran for 890 and Roydell 460 and #4 for 530. As a team we had 2,400 yards rushing which is 2nd only to 2022 this decade.

2024 is where the real decline began. Not a single RB with more than 700 yards.

2025 we don’t have a single warm body with 500 yards rushing and only have 1,500 yards rushing on the season.

We haven’t had a season this bad running the ball since the 2000 team that lost to UCLA at #3 and only won 3 games.

Even in the CNS ‘decline’ years we had strong and respectable running games with strong RB1s or RB1 A/B’s

This not running the ball well bug seems to be a trending feature for our new soft belly Offense exclusively.

 

[Slowpoke Catracho]

In 2020 Najee ran for 1,466 Yards and 26 TD’s.

In 2021 Brob ran for 1,343 and 14 TD’s

In 2022 Gibbs just missed the mark at 926 yards but Jase also had 655 yards and as a team we actually rushed for more than either the 2020 or 2021 team. It was just spread out.

In 2023 Jase ran for 890 and Roydell 460 and #4 for 530. As a team we had 2,400 yards rushing which is 2nd only to 2022 this decade.

2024 is where the real decline began. Not a single RB with more than 700 yards.

2025 we don’t have a single warm body with 500 yards rushing and only have 1,500 yards rushing on the season.

We haven’t had a season this bad running the ball since the 2000 team that lost to UCLA at #3 and only won 3 games.

Even in the CNS ‘decline’ years we had strong and respectable running games with strong RB1s or RB1 A/B’s

This not running the ball well bug seems to be a trending feature for our new soft belly Offense exclusively.

True. My eyes went cross-eyed for a bit!

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Someone likes to run the ball on that staff if yo look at rolltide.com stats.

I dont think for one second DeBoer DOESN'T want to run the ball. Again, if anyone e truly believes that you're saying DeBoer isn't the guy for this job. Because any coach who coaches in this conference knows you HAVED to run the ball in this conference to win. If DeBoer doesn't know this he wont be here long.

 

[Slowpoke Catracho]

I dont think for one second DeBoer DOESN'T want to run the ball. Again, if anyone e truly believes that you're saying DeBoer isn't the guy for this job. Because any coach who coaches in this conference knows you HAVED to run the ball in this conference to win. If DeBoer doesn't know this he wont be here long.

I just don't think we have the backs. When Saban retired we lost our a lot if I remember correctly. I know Roydell for one went FSU. Their OL isn't any better than ours.

 

[BamaInCummingGA]

Also, let's look at Justice Haynes:
2024 Alabama: 448 yards, 5.7 avg
2025 Michigan: 857 yards, 7.1 avg (injured, out for the year)

I predicted he would do well at Michigan by the way. Why the disparity?

Haynes is very talented running back probably more than Miller but he was injured much of last year. Michigan also runs the ball about 60% of the time and has a quarterback that is basically a runner.

We could have run the ball 80% of the time last night and the results would have been the same or worse.
We clearly do not have SEC caliber RBs right now and more importantly we have a soft Oline.
Fix those two things and we can make a defense respect the run as well as the pass and not just be able to pin their ears back and rush more than we can block.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

I just don't think we have the backs. When Saban retired we lost our a lot if I remember correctly. I know Roydell for one went FSU. Their OL isn't any better than ours.

I'd like to see how they run without defenders in the backfield. From what ive seen when we block (a d thats not often) our rbs have shown flashes of talent. Justice Haynes is the best example. He was deemed to be "a bust" hetero then gets to Michigan where he has a blocking OL and all of a sudden he's a good back again. Its the OL

 

[BamaInCummingGA]

The system doesn't need to be tweaked. It's year 2. It takes time to rebuild a roster the way you want to. You don't just start retooling everything because it doesn't work immediately. Gotta have some conviction. Just give the man some time to fully rebuild the roster in his image, and I promise, you will like the results.

All fine and good until we can't line up and get two yards running the ball like we needed last night.
This is Krazy's point. This system does not put any kind of meaning into a run game.
It works well in the Pac and Big 12 because it's what all those teams do so defenses are built for it and not built like SEC defenses. If you can't/won't put an emphasis on the run game in the SEC you just aren't gonna consistently run with the big dogs and win the conference.
A guy I was watching the game with had a good point last night while watching the game: we don't run block in practice, we don't emphasize the run and therefore we have a bunch of olinemen that do not have a mentality that "we need 2 yrds and we're gonna run the ball and get 2 yrds and there's not a dang thing you can do about it".
You can be 60/40 pass all you want but if you can't get those tough yards when you need them/HAVE to have them then we'll see a lot more games like last night.

 

[GrayTide]

I am not yet ready for Deboer to be let go, but next year could be his last if he doesn't make some significant coaching and roster changes. Change is never easy and it is never more evident than in college football. I am still not convinced our talent level is as advertised, and obviously our coaching is, at best, mid level SEC quality. Unless there is significant improvement in the offense and special teams, next year will be a repeat of 2024 and 2025.

 

[BamaInCummingGA]

Yet we have lost 2 SEC games this year …. If we want to be honest Georgia should have lost 5 (us, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, and Ole Miss). The SEC isn’t the SEC anymore, it literally all boils down to scheduling. It is a miracle that both teams yesterday made it there with one conference loss but you probably got the two best teams in the SEC there anyways. Yet you still had the potential for two teams that played no one to sneak in.


DeBoer is 12-5 in SEC games through two years. The only 4 guys better in that time period were Sark, Kirby, Kiffin, and Elko. If you take the SECCG out of the equation he is tied with Kiffin. But do you honestly think Elko and Sark have better records than DeBoer if they traded schedules? Alabama and Georgia have both got royally screwed over with conference scheduling to the point Kirby himself is defending Alabama and calling out Sankey after the SECCG because he knows that could easily be him one of these days. So the idea that DeBoer’s system doesn’t work in the SEC is just incorrect. There really isn’t one style that works it’s luck and in game adjustments at this point.

But this ultimately goes back to over half of our fanbase believing that Saban left DeBoer some championship guaranteed team when 40 players transferred out before DeBoer coached a single down at Alabama. It’s like the same fans who believe Georgia is infinitely more talented than Alabama after that one class that he recruited better than Saban only to realize 23 players in that class transferred out. So again what is a SEC team anymore when over half of these great recruiting classes are transferring out before they even show their potential.

That doesn’t even address the fact that the offensive line is probably the trickiest unit to address. You need about 7-8 good ones that you can rely on to feel really good about your offense. We have probably only one we feel really confident in and that is DeBoer’s guy. We have a few that are developing, we have one that has nfl talent but always finds a way to surprise you in bad ways, and the rest range from bad to maybe can be something. Having 12 guys rotating in and out and you really only feel good about 2-3 of them really isn’t a good place to be. Last night Tom Brady with Derrick Henry as a running back would’ve had a rough night. We need an offensive line that suits DeBoer’s style of offense and that takes time.

You keep bringing up justice Haynes…. I think it’s like saying Saban whiffed on Kamara. Sometimes things don’t work out and weaker scheduling with better offensive styles to suit your talents helps development. Haynes sat behind Roydell, Mcclelan, and Jam Miller… that’s with Saban calling the shots. DeBoer’s two top targets once he came in were Downs and Haynes. He got one of them. Haynes never produced here and was consistently a liability. He wouldn’t have mattered yesterday even if you told us to run it 50 times. I seriously doubt he would have sniffed 100 yards. Yeah go ahead… quote me his rushing vs Oklahoma, and I’ll show you that our backup got 60 yards on that same Oklahoma team in a far more competitive game with DeBoer’s system.

I still see this is as a “he isn’t my choice” kinda thing because these threads never seem to come out after wins. Last year you were blasting Wommack and saying he wasn’t SEC caliber. This year you have been very quiet on him. But now that we finally get a quicksand game on offense you want to bring up this gripe on DeBoer you have had since the moment we hired him. So I guess the only fair thing to do is ask the question… “do you still want Dabo?”

I mean at some point you have to accept that the SEC is now a revolving door of talent in and out of programs and you need someone that can win that week. You really can’t prepare for a 13 game season anymore because everyone is so equal. As bad as Auburn is they easily could have been a 10-11 win team if you flipped a few plays. As good as Georgia was flip a few plays and they could have easily been a 5 loss team. So really the fact that we won 10 games with this offense and this schedule kinda points to we most likely got the right guy.

What some of us are clearly concerned with is a seeming lack of belief in a physical run game that starts with the LOS and a will by the Oline to just burry the guy in front of him. We don't have that and currently, as others have said, there is nothing to point to to convince anyone that the coaching staff is willing to adjust to life in the SEC.
The SEC may not (in your opinion) be the same SEC but you pointing to how many losses UGA "could" have had really just bolsters the point that even the bottom feeders are getting better.
You're right that the SEC is not the same because in years past Vandy wouldn't sniff anything higher than last place or next to last in the SEC with UK vying for the other spot. But that's not the case now, is it?

 

[81usaf92]

I am not yet ready for Deboer to be let go, but next year could be his last if he doesn't make some significant coaching and roster changes. Change is never easy and it is never more evident than in college football. I am still not convinced our talent level is as advertised, and obviously our coaching is, at best, mid level SEC quality. Unless there is significant improvement in the offense and special teams, next year will be a repeat of 2024 and 2025.

Well we have people that are convinced that DeBoer inherited a gold mine of talent that he never did. This is based around 3 things:

1) They don’t like DeBoer and want to paint him as the destruction of the Alabama machine instead of laying some (key word some) blame on Saban. As me and @crimsonaudio have said for awhile, Saban was missing on coaches and players from 2017 to 2023 and was more focused on recruiting talent than development. Really what separates us from Georgia is culture not talent. A big part of that is that DeBoer is dealing with a lot of players that don’t fit his culture and is having to play a lot of undeveloped players that were survivors of the great purge of winter of 24. I know everyone’s response is “well Saban did it better with Shula’s players” but every time someone says that they conveniently forget that 08-09 are a lot of Saban’s players too and Saban didn’t have to deal with a transfer portal mixed with a NIL craziness.

2) People believe 23 and 24 are the same team. Spoiler warning…. They aren’t. And how could they be with 41 spring transfers.

3) people still buy into recruiting rankings. After the 22 season everyone should have moved past this belief. Alabama was fielding the most talented team in college football history by far and still lost 2 games. That was with Nick Saban and Bryce young. So it is not really fair to base an opinion off of DeBoer’s success on recruiting ratings of the team unless you are going to point that microscope at Saban from 21-23 too. I don’t think many want to know what those metrics really say.

 

[81usaf92]

What some of us are clearly concerned with is a seeming lack of belief in a physical run game that starts with the LOS and a will by the Oline to just burry the guy in front of him. We don't have that and currently, as others have said, there is nothing to point to to convince anyone that the coaching staff is willing to adjust to life in the SEC.
The SEC may not (in your opinion) be the same SEC but you pointing to how many losses UGA "could" have had really just bolsters the point that even the bottom feeders are getting better.
You're right that the SEC is not the same because in years past Vandy wouldn't sniff anything higher than last place or next to last in the SEC with UK vying for the other spot. But that's not the case now, is it?

I’m not arguing that the SEC doesn’t require us to be more physical or to develop a more effective running game. I’m arguing that you can’t just copy Georgia or Indiana and expect to win a national championship either.

 

[BamaInCummingGA]

I’m not arguing that the SEC doesn’t require us to be more physical or to develop a more effective running game. I’m arguing that you can’t just copy Georgia or Indiana and expect to win a national championship either.

I don't see anyone on here asking DeBoer to COPY anybody.
Again, he can have a pass ratio of 60/40 pass to run and a lot of us would be happy that when we need 2 yards for a first down we can run the ball and get it instead of having to rely on a passing game to get TWO YARDS because we simply CAN"'T run the ball. That is coaching. Be it position coaching, s&c, OC or HC. A mentality has to be instilled into these linemen that run blocking (heck, blocking period) is not optional.

 

[Slowpoke Catracho]

However, Ty still holds the ball too long and his timing is off!

 

[Frosty]

I seriously doubt that CKD will do much "adapting". He is basically running the same offense, with the same coaches that he's always had. It's his ride, it's what got him here etc (in his mind). I'm sorry but I really don't see him thinking that's the problem. He's one of those coaches that thinks he can out scheme everyone. I don't think this coaching staff is worthy of these players and this school's proud tradition. Yesterday looked like amateur hour. Just like last year against OK, Michigan and this year against Fla State, Ga we put a truly embarrassing product on the field in prime time. IMO we have to ride it out (2-3 more years at least) while Ga stays strong, LSU and Tex A&M got their man etc. Tough sledding ahead.

 

[BamaInCummingGA]

However, Ty still holds the ball too long and his timing is off!

Receivers running into coverage, not getting separation, dropping balls will do that........

 

[arthurdawg]

I hope they can heal up and rest out primary guys this week and revamp their offensive plans. We just need a spark and few things that work in each game going forward. Doesn't have to be 2020 level to make some noise.

And the defense needs to take one more step along the way...