Fantastic Long-Read : 6 Coaches Breakdown Alabama/Georgia

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“Everybody is saying the difference (Saturday) night was between the quarterbacks at Bama and Georgia and that’s the difference in the game; it’s not. It’s the wide receivers. They don’t drop it, and they score at Alabama.


“I think what made Saban change his mind was Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss, because they dropped down into hat-on-hat defense back then and Ole Miss had first-rounders catching passes. Chunk plays, shock plays, two a quarter, eight a game. And then it opens up all the underneath, crossers getting you 15 yards down the field. But you have to be willing to throw it at least 6 times, 35-40 yards down the field, and they hit them.

“Bama’s line is way better than anybody thought they were. Tennessee’s O-line isn’t bad, they’re overrated, but they don’t suck. And they had 1.5-seconds to block Georgia. Bama was running switches, double-moves and still protected.

“When they went out and said they’re going to have more than just one Amari Cooper, Julio Jones, it changed completely. If you’ve got two guys that are going to be 50-50-plus in man-to-man, if not 70-30 in contested balls, it can’t be stopped. That was the missing piece for them on offense.

“Ohio State’s going to have that, Clemson has that; that’s going to hold Penn State back, hold Notre Dame back. Can’t take the top off the coverage, can’t throw it downfield.

“I think the first big-picture thing, for me, is Alabama’s receivers. They’re different. They’re so deep, first-rounders, and on a field full of NFL guys, they’re elite. That ultimately is what made the difference, because they were able to get out front of Georgia and play how Georgia didn’t want to play.

“At the end of the second quarter, it looked like Georgia was getting into two-tight stuff and running it. I don’t know if they’ve got enough dudes at wideout to be a three-wideout team. They need to help Bennett by running the ball with him a young quarterback.

“Teams used to always spread out to run the ball, makes protections easy to run the ball and you displace people in such a way that you can cover down all the receivers. Only so many guys can be in the box. It’s a little bit more on the QB, but you can run the ball. Fifteen years ago that was true, hell 5 years ago that was true. But all these defensive guys have started going to this three-down Odd look, both Georgia and Bama base out of it, they match personnel, create line movements, false reads, Georgia gives lots of problems to other teams with its shifts. Tennessee still hasn’t figured that out.

“Now you’re aligned in that spread formation because you have chaos in coverage, but you’re also getting chaos in the box, stunting and moving and blitzing guys, so you get no help. It’s defeating the purpose of why you’re spread out. It’s happening late, changing and moving and it’s not easy on the OL. So you’re better off getting into two tight ends, and Georgia started doing it and ‘Bama has done it, they played a lot more two tight. Such a big deal that (tight end Miller) Forristal came back into the game because without him they were going to have to spread out more. The Metchie kid (Bama wideout John Metchie III) is going to be a freak, but he is still learning. Bama got into more two tight. They may take their other tight end and flex him out, motion him in, but what it does is that makes it simpler on the quarterback. When you align with big people, it’s the inverse of the reason you spread out. It forces accounting for people in the box and then there’s only so many ways they can align the coverages.

“Look, the NFL is THE ONLY league where you line up with two tights and they line up in 4-3 cover-2. That doesn’t happen in college ball. That’s when Georgia was on a run and scoring, because they were able to run the ball. They were able to get yards running it and play-action was easier. And that helps the young QB throw it on time, because he can look out and know they’re in man-to-man or Cover-3. They had to get away from that because they got behind. Then they had to spread out and it was chaos. We dealt with that last year, our team did. We weren’t good enough out wide to have multiple threats go the distance at receiver, and we were better off getting into two-tight and dictating coverage structures for the young QB.

“Bama did a really good job of that. They had their little isolation deal they were doing, iso the backside LB on inside runs too. It set up their run, and it was really smart.

“I think Sarkisian is as good as anybody in college football and possibly even in the NFL at layering concepts. Wide receiver motion, here comes motion, he’ll fake it, just the way he set it all up, switch-release post like he did on that score, and then the same thing but try to hit the running back on a wheel. He does a really good job of that. It’s hard to see all the time what all is happening on just the TV feed, but he’s always done a really nice job of layering the concepts with what they’re doing. Here’s run, here’s the RPO, here’s the PA pass, here is the faux PA and we’re going to drop back and sling it. And then it goes all the way down to the screen. So many layers, it’s really, really good. And they’ve got phenomenal players that execute. They out-recruit, they out-scheme and then they out-execute.

“He’s worth every damn penny. Every penny.

“(Georgia’s Dan) Lanning is a good DC, Georgia is a good defense. The first touchdown they threw, this is all you need to know about how dialed in Bama was and how smart Mac Jones is, the first TD they threw to Metchie, Georgia corner-fired, ran a corner blitz, and the tackle saw it, came off the DL stunting, passed off to the corner blitz, and, man I’m telling you, that’s really hard to do, really smart.

“Lanning is a big corner blitz guy, safeties and corners, and that’s really hard to pick up. Alex Leatherwood later in the game picked one up, Georgia blitzed from the field, blitzed the rover or the star, blitzed him from depth and he’s about to get home and Leatherwood sees it and he and the guard pass off and exchange a D-lineman for that guy, they don’t chase and it was incredible. It was one of the better blitz pickups I’ve ever seen an OL do. Really, really intelligent. I tend to think that since it happened twice, they probably had alerts to it. That takes serious nuts to do that.

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