re: Defense - last 45 minutes of the game (2nd - 4th qtrs) and the impact of the penalties

It did make me chuckle thinking about Saban saying "What makes you think we dont know them?" Well it doesn't really matter considering we play the same way regardless. And most of our opponents always have new looks that we aren't ever prepared for

I saw some guys on ESPN and one guy stated that it was the end of the 3rd quarter before Sark repeated an earlier offensive play. Like so many teams we play they clearly dedicated half their offseason to this one game. This tends to not work out well for them down the road. Like Texas A&M last year, yea, they beat us at home, but they were forgotten by time playoffs come around. Same could be said for them with Johnny football and Ole Miss during their cheating years. Saban doesn't do that. he puts prep into every game. He may adjust things due to what the other team does but he isn't going to run an entirely different scheme for a specific opponent. I remember one year Auburn came out with an entirely different defense that they had apparently been practicing all year on the side. It gave us fits but I believe we still beat them. To me doing stunts like that is just telling your team who is the real deal and you're not it.