re: So if Alabama 'murderball' is the best way to win, why did they get away from it?

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I think what he’s asking is, if it made sense to get away from murderball (which his quotes explain why it did) and he had success under the more spread out RPO system, why is he now saying they need to return to murderball? What changed?

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They aren't nearly as good at WR this year as they were from 2017-2021.

Just from looking at the numbers, you've been really pass heavy starting in 2019 and that has carried through until now. You had more pass attempts than rush attempts in 2021, but that can be explained by not having as many games that were over with in the fourth and you were just milking the clock.

Your best back last year was not a between the tackles back. I think N. Harris, D. Harris, Jacobs, were all pretty good at that. I like B. Rob, but he was probably a notch below those guys. The guys you have now may be better.

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Golding isn't to blame for y'all managing just 16 and 18 points in the 2018 and 2021 national championship games, respectively.

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How do you know? Missed tackle, poor fundamentals, playing on our heels, not putting pressure on true freshman QBs from Clemson, not stopping anything over the middle, not holding the edge when you have some of the greatest edge defensive players in the country, not getting players lined up at the snap, complicated terminology from the sidelines, interior LBers that can't cover anything over the middle, to name a few of the hilarious screw-ups BAMA fans have been privy to these last 5 seasons.

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Golding isn't to blame for y'all managing just 16 and 18 points in the 2018 and 2021 national championship games, respectively.

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How do you know?

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Well obviously, the defensive coordinator isn't responsible for scoring points.

But carry on with your lectures about how the rest of us don't know anything.

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Yeah, he just stuck with "murderball" permanently and it got him fired.

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After a national championship, 3 SEC Championships, and losing only ONE OOC in the regular season, and in year 12 on the job, as head coach. A running game and great defense matters and always will.

I think this gives a pretty good idea of the general difference in the last 2 years, the previous 5-6 and then the early Saban era.......with Rees' tenure as Notre Dame dropped in.

It's not a perfect comparison because a lot of these seasons had coaches tailoring things to their QBs/personnel (DaBoll in 2017 with Jalen as an example), but it's a pretty good general visual.



We will not be returning to the 2009-2012 offense. We also won't be doing what BoB did the last 2 years. The goal is to look more like what we were when Saban brought Kiffin in to mesh pro-style concepts with RPO stuff, which we did (in different varieties) from 2014-2020. Then BoB came in and basically ignored 2/3 of that "Alabama Playbook" Saban likes to talk about and just ran Patriots 2009 stuff, but without 5-10 year veterans at WR (Galloway, Moss, Welker) to read and adjust routes on the fly.

Rees ran a lot of RPO/Read Option at Notre Dame, but he also ran a lot of pre-called run plays where the OL are not just pass blocking regardless of the run/pass read. Powers with pulling guards, sweeps, stretch plays.....and then a lot of misdirection off of it (with WR/TE motions attached). We'll be motioning guys all over the place, misdirection, all that stuff that Sark and Lane had at the heart of their system. Rees does as well. BoB did none of it. That'll be the biggest difference, IMHO.

As for the "murderball" thing, I don't think of that as an offensive system. I always thought of it as the ability to line up and squeeze the life out of a game when you so choose by controlling the LOS, eating clock and being able to get positive gains in the run game when the opponent was relatively sure you were going to run. We have been unable to do that the last 2 seasons. The hope is we regain some of that this season with our OL/RB personnel and a play caller who calls games in a way that might lead to the OL/RB repping those situations in practice/games a whole lot more. It will not be a return to running on 3rd and 6 from the 44 yard line because you feel fine punting even if you don't get it. Those days are never coming back.

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I think this gives a pretty good idea of the general difference in the last 2 years, the previous 5-6 and then the early Saban era.......with Rees' tenure as Notre Dame dropped in.

It's not a perfect comparison because a lot of these seasons had coaches tailoring things to their QBs/personnel (DaBoll in 2017 with Jalen as an example), but it's a pretty good general visual.

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As I said in another post, I don't think BoB and Sark were that different in terms of balance. You passed more the last two years because you didn't get into the milking of the clock as much as you did in 2020 and 2019.

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1st Half splits
2021 - 49.3% pass, 50.7% run
2022 - 61.4% pass, 38.6% run

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Gibbs sucked at running between the tackles, but was good at receiving. I don't really recall anyone else in your backfield being someone to be feared as a power runner. Maybe he didn't have what he needed.

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don't really recall anyone else in your backfield being someone to be feared as a power runner.

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Jase McClellan was way underutilized. Really until late in the year at Ole Miss.