re: Alabama Hires Patriots' TE Brian Daboll as Offensive Coordinator

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When the news that Alabama would be pursuing a new offensive coordinator broke — again — the fan base seemed to split into philosophical halves. On one side, there were those intrigued by Chip Kelly’s availability — who found Lane Kiffin’s jet sweeps endearing — really. On the other, those fans just wanted to run the damn ball in the first place and would the brain trust please go out and find somebody with the good sense to just give the ball to the running back over right guard for 60 minutes of straight football so we can get a pick six and take our 14-3 victory home, thank you very much?

As the Kelly rumors died down, because they didn’t really make any sense, the notion that Alabama would be returning to some power-run roots began to take hold, powered by the reputation that Nick Saban has for being an angry old football traditionalist who would like to give the ball to the running back over right guard, etc. Because Alabama so egregiously lost the time of possession battle in the national championship game, the legendary coach would probably be returning to the days of seven offensive linemen and might trot out the Wing-T just because, or something.

That philosophy became the premise for this Alec Shirkey column, which does an excellent job of breaking down Jalen Hurts’ strengths and weaknesses while asserting that the incoming offense coordinator is creating an even field for Alabama’s incoming freshman quarterbacks. He does this, partially, by asserting that it is a “distinct possibility Alabama will revert to a pro-style offense” under the next offensive coordinator, because two of the candidates interviewed are members of the notoriously grouchy Bill Belichick coaching tree.

But Belichick might be the coach most responsible for the rise of the spread offense, with his 2007 Patriots team sparking the modern revolution. George Godsey, one of those candidates, was with Belichick in 2012 when the Patriots ran a no-huddle offense that dominated the AFC, before Chip Kelly ever showed up and before Saban asked if no-huddle was “what we want football to be.”

No offense is more “multiple” than New England. For a decade, the Patriots have been equally comfortable with spread concepts and supposed “pro-style concepts,” shifting between them from week to week based on matchups. [Saban's current offensive philosphy]

That Saban question has been answered in the affirmative. A “pro-style” offense doesn’t mean much of anything any more. Every offense contains spread concepts — even the much-maligned Doug Nussmeier offenses, which were prolific in their own right, used spread concepts to open the field for the inside zone running game — the same blocking scheme Kiffin relied on when he asked his quarterback to turn around and hand the ball to Derrick Henry 85 times a game. There is no turning back time on this cycle in football history.

I want to be clear: Alabama will almost certainly run the ball more directly and take more snaps under center next year. Saban absolutely wanted more direct runs under Kiffin last season and, despite his play-calling under a playbook not his own, was likely to get that under Steve Sarkisian, who ran many power-run concepts at Washington. But when Sarkisian was in charge, the thought was “more direct runs while relying on many spread concepts.” It seems unlikely that Saban, who has recruited skill position players to rival the best in the country, has decided to initiate a radical offensive regression in a matter of weeks.

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People get so locked into who they think would be good that it's like they take it personally when it doesn't happen like they think it should. Then they start to bash the guy the first time something doesn't go exactly right, where if it was "their" guy they would be a lot more patient.

Embarrassingly enough, I did this when Saban was hired. Of all people, I thought Alabama should've hired Jeff Tedford (even though he was never really considered), and after Saban's first year I was all like "Uh-huh, see?"

I'm not saying Saban knows best in every situation but ultimately the team on the field is going to be his team and his teams have done pretty well for close to a decade now, even with a myriad of players and play callers.

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Yes, I will melt...

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The American Dream

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2 posts

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