Ight boys, I figured I'd stop slacking on this site and start talking about the big game. It's odd how many people request my insight on the game versus how many people talk about the women I post, i.e. hey dude, you haven't posted shit lately, step it up. Well, I'll try to tie up both of those requests today. Hell, let's start right the f now.
Was that a good opening? Cool, let's talk football for a second.
First of all, to all my fellow Tiders complaining about RG3's average play in his bowl - shut the fuck up. Seriously, just shut the fuck up. Trent didn't get the Heisman, get over it. No, it wasn't rigged. No, it wasn't unfair. Griffin was unbelievable this year, and he led Baylor...BAYLOR...to a 10 win season. Get over yourselves, just because we have a kickass running back doesn't mean everyone should throw every fucking award his way just to massage your giant egos.
I mean my God, I can't imagine the outcry/tree-burning/trailer-shaking that would have happened if Tyrann Mathieu had won it. Oh, and by the way, I STILL think he should have won it. It's called an opinion, and mine is more valuable than yours because I said so. Here's a little video I made in my kitchen to let you know just how serious I am:
My prediction for the first game, while it may look a little lopsided in 20/20, wasn't that bad if we catch a case of the what-ifs. Had Alabama made their four missed FGs and run in a TD on the Reid did-he-didn't-he interception, we never would have needed overtime and the score would have been 25-6. My prediction was 27-6. Just wanted to get that out there to cockblock the haters from thinking I'm going to be insanely biased in this next installment of the big game. Not that I care, cuz haters gonna hate...
I told a buddy a few nights ago that I won't know who wins this game until I write out my thoughts on this'ere blog; but I did say the team that wins will do so by double digits. This WILL NOT be another 9-6 type game, regardless of however many people say it. Just cuz you say it a lot doesn't mean it's true; case in point, "TJ Yeldon is an Auburn lock." Yeouch. Bet that hurt almost as much as...
Let's run down a few things here before we begin:
- The amount of time between Bama's last game, the Iron Bowl, and the start of the BCS title game is equivalent to the amount of time it takes women to get ready. "10 more minutes, I swear." Don't sleep on this being a factor in one or both teams' performance early on (and possibly late if the conditioning wasn't a focus)
- In favor of LSU, they beat us at home and the damn Superdome rematch is in their hood
- In favor of Alabama, anybody knows it's tough to beat the same team twice in one season; even that much harder to do it to a physical team like Bama
- Les Miles, to my memory, ran zero trick plays against us at home; that can't possibly be omitted from the gameplan this time around
- Nick Saban did run a trick play - and it was the turning point of the game in favor of LSU. Let's hope he keeps his bag of tricks where they belong...on street corners, nawmean?! *high five*
- Be scared, Tiger fans - the latest on our kicker is that he's crazy focused and Saban won't hesitate to put him out there. *giant facepalm*
- The Tigers think Alabama doesn't deserve another chance...it seems everybody agrees:
If that ain't a slap in the face to Trent Richardson and the best defense in the nation, then I don't know what is. This should be on every locker in the Bama room when they walk in on Monday afternoon. I doubt they need motivating, but it couldn't hurt. I mean, this isn't a graph showing who thinks we don't deserve a rematch - this is America saying we have no shot in hell to WIN. LSU, we're hoping for a Rocky II result...don't make us put a Rocky IV result on your Apollo Creed asses. Wait, this isn't Russia...is this Russia?...didn't think so.
Did I just blend two classic movies into one, confusing all but three people? I THINK I JUST DID. Quick, divert their attention to something amazingly funny (I swear, if you watch this with dead eyes and no reaction, I hope your 2012 is filled with scorpions and anal probes):
Nobody told me American Dad was this funny. I now DVR it and every episode gets a good healthy guffaw out of me. Just FYI, note to yourselves, etc.
So let's go over the stats accrued in the first game:
Alabama
Time of Posession: 30:06
First Downs: Rush: 8 Pass: 7 Penalty: 2 Total: 17
Penalties: Number: 6 Yards: 73
Fumbles: Number: 1 Lost: 0
Third Downs: Attempted: 13 Converted: 5
Fourth Downs: Attempted: 0 Converted: 0
LSU
Time of Posession: 29:54
First Downs: Rush: 9 Pass: 4 Penalty: 2 Total: 15
Penalties: Number: 7 Yards: 56
Fumbles: Number: 0 Lost: 0
Third Downs: Attempted: 11 Converted: 3
Fourth Downs: Attempted: 0 Converted: 0
First of all, the third down percentages stand out to me: Bama 5/13 - 38%, LSU 3/11 - 27%.
Third down percentages are never going to be excellent (unless you play against Ted Roof), so Bama having a "bad" game and still approaching 40% conversion rate is promising, especially considering our defense held them to basically 1 first down out of every 4. Good sign #1.
However, there's immediately a bad sign to counter this. Not only did we not score a touchdown, through the air or on the ground - and granted, LSU didn't either - but Trent Richardson, our GUY, didn't top 100 yards rushing. To expound, he only averaged 3.9 ypc. Take away his longest run of 24 yards, and TR3 was only averaging 3.4 ypc. On the season, he's averaging a solid 6.0 ypc. If Bama wants to win this game, if Bama wants to establish their style of play, this HAS to change. Bad sign #1.
Bad sign #2 - While we kept their leading rusher in check - Spencer Ware had 16 carries for only 29 yards - they have since established Kenny HIlliard as their best back, and he only had two touches against us. Not only that, Michael Ford essentially carved us up, hitting 6.5 ypc on 72 yards. If we don't control their three-headed monster, we're in deep. But this can easily be managed.
They can't throw it on us if we play, or at least SHOW, bracket coverage. As good as our corners are, they're not going to blanket Russell Shepard, Reuben Randle, and Odell Beckham. That's an impossible task, which is why LSU has been running through folks. Our tendency is to bring Mark Barron closer to the box to help stop the run, but this time around, I want him playing center field all night long. If he does this, it will allow Lester the freedom he had last year to run around and make plays - HUGE plays - which he hasn't been doing this year. If we need to find reasons to bring a ninth man, Barron, into the box, then we're wasting our best assets out there at linebacker. So if we can keep Upshaw at Jack and rotate Dont'a from MLB to pass rushing DE, we'll have room for three guys to make plays: Nico Johnson (ace run stopper) + Jerrell Harris (speed in space for run or pass coverage) + CJ Mosley (ace pass defender).
So, if Saban is gameplanning for the above to happen, meaning they can't throw it on us, my God they're playing right to our strength. I don't see Ford averaging 6.5 ypc anymore if the pieces fall into place the way Saban and Smart conceive it; but like I said, Hilliard is the guy to watch out for anyway.
Now, that may sound all fine and fancy, and that may work quite well against other teams, but this is LSU. They are just as big, just as strong, and just as fast as Alabama. If the above scenario does turn out to work, then (outside of special teams) the game hinges on Bama's O and LSU's D - specifically in the trenches.
LSU's D-line is practically a rotating wall of awesome, so they'll never tire. This could explain why Trent couldn't even average 4 ypc. So there are two things Nick needs to rely on to offset this major strength of LSU: hurry-up offense when the time calls for it, keeping the same guys in with little to no substitutions for LSU; and plays OUTSIDE base formation to create opportunities for big plays, especially plays for our RBs, and especially done to the point of creating a morale battle. Let me elaborate, ight?
Ya see, as Bama fans, we're used to the (Tourette's mode engaged) FUCKINGRETARDEDGODAWFUL delayed handoff to Trent; it's slow to develop, it never works, it's in every gameplan, it's run over and over throughout every game, and there's no time for AJ to even blink if play action is called to offset it. Add in more runs up the middle and random traps and draws meant to tire the opposition, and you have the typically boring rushing attack that puts you to sleep until the 3rd and 4th quarter, when other teams have been worn down. LIke I said above, the Tigers will just replace spent DL with fresh legs, and we'll have the same OL getting beaten at the point of attack. This is literally beating our heads against a wall, and it can't happen.
So to counter that, as I said above, we need instances during drives when we go into our hurry-up offense mode. The key, to me, would be catching LSU with it during a certain formation with certain players. Let's say LSU called a 3-4 zone defense for something we ran on 2nd and long; let's also say they gave Sam Montgomery a breather. If we could see this scenario coming, converted with a money play we knew would work, and went straight to hurry up - that could be devastating to LSU. Obviously with forethought we'd still have Trent in, so the goal after converting would be to run Trent over and over at the 3-4, without their best D-lineman, and watch them struggle to adapt with bringing their weakness up - linebacking corps - or trying to hurry Sam and others back on to the field while risking a substitution infraction or missing the start of the play and being insanely out of position. To get a better idea of this, had you watched the Stanford game on Monday night, that one drive in the 4th quarter where Okie State converted 4th down and played hurry up just knocked the wind out of the Cardinal so badly that they were literally confused and standing around when the Cowpokes scored a touchdown. Let's keep in mind these are 18-22 year old kids---if you haven't done your due diligence, scenarios like this will arise, mental weakness sets in on top of physical exhaustion, and you lose. Saban knows this and has preached 4th quarter conditioning and mental strength since he first arrived at the Capstone. Catch LSU in predicaments like these, and CAPITALIZE.
Again, unfortunately, we're playing LSU, so it's probably going to take more than that. So the second part of this equation will be Saban's bane - getting out of his robot tendencies and schematics and thinking outside the (base) box. I seriously doubt we'll see Coach mix it up, considering he's always been the type to say "if we do what we're supposed to do, if we do our jobs relative to blah blah blah, then we'll be successful", all while making ridiculous hand gestures. Meaning he thinks, if ALabama players do what they've been taught to do, nobody has a chance to beat us at our own game. Sadly, that's wrong; I believe November 5, 2011 lends credence to that. Coach - remember remember the fifth of November - change your thinking. You're a good businessman as well as a head football coach, so you know as well as I do that you have to embrace change, not fight it, or you'll be left behind.
The simplest way for Coach to allow this to happen while still staying true to his style of offense is to incorporate one more formation to his base set. If you follow Bama ball, you know McEwlain likes to run multiple plays out of the same formations, whether we run men in motion or not, with the intention that AJ can see the necessary reads before having to make those reads post-snap. If Saban has gotten our guys used to running different looks out of just one more formation that we don't necessarily run very often, then I think that is one huge wrinkle LSU will have to adjust to - and with a defense like ours, that may be all we need. This has the chance to open up holes LSU's preparations would have normally managed to close down, and once multiple first downs are made from doing this, the on-field morale will start to change, and the momentum snowball could be in full effect.
Not having to play in the SEC Championship enabled more time for the Bama staff to incorporate wrinkles like this, but will it happen? Hell no. It's just Joker, speculating and dreaming. We'll do the same shit we've always done, hoping this time it works, hoping this time Michael Williams catches it, and hoping this time we can make at least one of 324 field goal opportunites.
I'll have more later as the game inches closer; probably position comparisons, latest stuff I've heard thru the grapevine, and a final score prediction. I know I say this a lot, but this time he actually said he'd write an article, so stay tuned for Sebastian's thoughts on the big game. Until then, have some more candy:
Recent Comments