I really miss the pro-style offensive system.

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To get a sense of what Alabama's offense could look like in the future, it's essential to understand what happened in the past.

Start in August. That's when Brian Daboll met with the media and offered a revealing comment.

"We have a variety of different plays, both runs and passes, and we're implementing new plays every day," the Crimson Tide's first-year offensive coordinator said then. "Throwing a lot at these guys."

Yet as tight end Hale Hentges would soon discover, not everything Alabama practiced then would be used immediately.

As the season has progressed, Hentges has watched the offense evolve. Things Alabama worked on and installed in the summer have only begun to resurface in November.

"Maybe we're not going to do it in Week 1 or 2, but [Daboll is] like, 'We ran this play. We ran it a lot in camp,'" Hentges said. "So if we play something with an eight-man front and the middle's open, we can go back to this.'"

This is the beauty of the concept-driven Erhardt-Perkins system that Daboll learned as an assistant during multiple stints with the New England Patriots. 

On a week to week basis, Daboll can expand and contract the playbook and design a game plan tailored to beat a given opponent.

Alabama coach Nick Saban likened Daboll's call sheet to a menu -- and if Daboll is to be believed, then it resembles the encyclopedic one seen at The Cheesecake Factory.

"You choose what you want to do and each week based on what the other team does, based on the coverages that they play," he said. "You don't just draw up new stuff every week...We can expand that or contract it or use the things that we think are best based on what the other team plays. I think that's what we've tried to do all year long and that's what gives the players the best chance to execute."

Last Saturday, in a 24-10 LSU victory, Alabama ran a steady diet of plays featuring receivers running crossing routes with some play-action maneuvers. This made sense, considering the Tigers aimed to stop the Tide with a loaded box and man coverage.

On one occasion, Alabama even sent Hentges out on a wheel route -- failing to complete the pass but using the right kind of concept to beat the defense LSU was playing in that situation.

While Jalen Hurts only connected on 46 percent of his pass attempts last weekend, the team's radio analyst Phil Savage termed the Alabama quarterback's performance in that game as "night and day" compared to his outing against the Tigers, when the Tide won 10-0.

Middle of the field now open for business at Alabama

"LSU plays a lot of man and it is a bit easier to pick a matchup and go with it rather than read out across a zone coverage," Savage explained. "But I thought that in terms of the mistakes, the importance of the game and the talent on the other side of the field, especially in terms of the cornerbacks that LSU has, I thought they played really well. And I think [Hurts] has grown a lot as a passer."

Daboll has helped in that maturation -- using personnel and a variety of formations to create mismatches while adding layers to an offense that is clearly advancing with each passing week. He has also given Hurts the license to throw between the numbers -- an area of the field that appeared off limits to the passing game in 2016. 

"I think we've added some new wrinkles," Hentges said. "Especially as we've played different opponents, our playbook's going to expand a little bit, and every time we play a new defense, it seems like we have a new scheme or concept. Our offensive coaches are really good at saying, 'Hey, this is going to work against this. Let's try putting this in.' And we have a lot of great players that they can use to make that work. So it's definitely adapted." 

Piggybacking on the comparison Saban made, Hentges equated the Tide's roster to a buffet.

"Daboll can just come up and be like, 'I'll take some [DeVonta Smith] this week and I'll take some of Calvin (Ridley)," Hentges said, referring to two of his teammates. "No, I don't really want that. Some of that.'"

The idea is to have options.

And the goal is to maximize the personnel available.

The vision that Daboll described in August is starting to crystallize.

"We have a ton of different plays that we can run offensively," Daboll said back in the summer.

Nine games into the season, it's safe to say not all have them have been executed. As Hentges explained, the evolution continues. So, it's best to stay tuned to see what happens next.

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So, I guess my point is.................I don't agree.

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Ball control, run centric offenses seem to be far more consistent and steady.

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however you also rarely go an entire quarter or half without getting a first down. We do both of those things regularly now.

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spoiled

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bitch

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Those years, we had a balanced offense.

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It's kind of pointless to revel in the stats vs Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and a bad Tennessee. Those aren't the teams we will compete with for SEC and national titles.

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Edit: Well, not so much 08 and 09, but the McCarron, Sims, and Coker teams were balanced. We had a respectable and efficient passing offense.

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The Coker team wasn't balanced until the last 1/3 of the season. It was also wildly inefficient. We put it all together just in the nick of time for the playoff run. The Playoff version of our offense that year was beautiful. The rest of the season version was not.

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to dominate their division

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