« on: December 05, 2013, 08:03:10 AM »
Good read
http://thesidelineview.com/columns/ncaa/iron-bowl-was-2013A couple of summers ago, I was “forced†to drive to Atlanta to meet my father-in-law to pick up my kids, all because my wife’s paper covered my rock in a game of rock, paper, scissors. Now, I say “forced†because I really wasn’t; it’s a long drive, but a relaxing one with a ton of time to myself. Anyhow, after about nine hours or so, I needed to crash so I stopped for the night at Auburn University. I walked down to Toomers Corner to see the trees that Harvey Updyke poisoned, walked the campus a bit and went for a bite to eat. It was so quiet, so idyllic, so southern college-ish.
I sat down to eat at a burger diner and wondered what that place must be like on a football game day Saturday. Then, it hit me what it must be like to be on campus for an Iron Bowl.
Saturday, I thought about what it must’ve been like to be there for that Iron Bowl.
The 2013 Iron Bowl will go down in history of college football, not just Iron Bowl history, as one of the most insane endings of all-time. We’ve seen Hail Marys. We’ve seen last second field goals. We’ve seen bands on the field. We’ve seen 15 laterals in a game, by gosh.
We’ve never seen “put a second back on the clock after review so the No. 1 team in the country can attempt a 57-yard field goal only for it come up short and have hated rival run it back 109 yards for the game winning touchdown with no time on the clock†ending.
Say what?
Yep. So, in the end, there’s plenty to break down from the Weekend that Was, but let’s be honest, there was enough to assess after the epic Iron Bowl so we’ll start there for today. I’ll have a sort of season recap later this week as we lead up to the conference championship games next weekend.
The Malzahn Effect
I first heard of Gus Malzahn when he was winning state championships at Shiloh Christian HS in Arkansas and I was still coaching HS football in Jacksonville. I always found some sort of distant kinship with high school coaches as I was one, so I kept an eye on him from afar. When he took the Auburn head coaching job last December, I thought he would eventually get Auburn back in the SEC West mix but not this soon. I actually wrote this at the beginning of the season.
He’s stubborn enough to believe his way was, is and always will be the right way.
How many coaches have convinced themselves “you can’t run on Alabama� A ton. Malzahn didn’t.
How many coaches have been told “you can’t run THAT offense in the SEC� He has and still does.
How many coaches are married to Kristi Malzahn? Only Gus.
He’s equal parts offensive savant, riverboat gambler and sabremetrics coaching geek and it works. He coaches every game as if he still needs to prove to the proletariat that he’s worthy. He’s doing it his way, the way he’s always done it since those days at Shiloh Christian. Thank God for that.
He’s instilled discipline and consistency on a team that yearned for it after a disastrous season under Gene Chizik. He mentioned that after the game yesterday that one of his first goals with this team was get them to believe that it was truly that good, that it could compete for a title, that it could beat Alabama. It is, it did and it happened.
Alabama special teams
There’s little doubt that Alabama is one of, if not, the best coached teams in America. But, after K Cade Foster missed his third field goal, I thought back to the “other†game in which he missed three field goals. Then, of course, stream of consciousness took over and I thought back to the 2012 SEC Championship game. Then it hit me further.
In Alabama’s biggest games over the past three years, the special teams have really cost the Tide.
a. 2011 v. LSU in Tuscaloosa - a loss in which Alabama missed four field goals
b. 2012 v. A&M - punt return team jumped offsides late in game to allow A&M to kill rest of the clock in a loss
c. 2012 SEC Championship - allowed a key fake punt completion, had FG blocked that was returned for a TD
d. 2013 v. Auburn - dropped snap on a punt, missed three FG, had another blocked, allowed 109 yard return for TD
Look, the Alabama special teams, as a few on twitter pointed out to me, are ranked No. 1 by Football Outsiders. Know what? Couldn’t care less at all about statistical analysis in that situation. If I can point out breakdowns in special teams in every key game Bama has played recently, it’s an issue, right?
Was that Alabama?
There were so many times during this game where I wondered aloud “is this Alabama?†The Tide just looked off all day. The offense finally got on track in the second quarter and I thought that was it. The run is on. That’s the way it happened at Texas A&M. Buuuut, it didn’t go that way. Take out the 99 yard throw from A.J. McCarron to Amari Cooper and the Tide had only one lengthy drive that resulted in a missed FG in the second half. After three straight second quarter drives ended up in touchdowns, the Tide sputtered offensively over the last 30 minutes, other than that 13 play drive that resulted in, well, nothing.
Defensively, it felt much the same. On Auburn’s first touchdown drive, Auburn QB Nick Marshall ran through a hole wide enough for a truck, then untouched 45 yards for the game opening score. That doesn’t happen against Alabama; it’s never that easy. The defense gave up 296 yards rushing to the Tigers, including Tre Mason’s 164 and a touchdown. 5.7 yards per carry. Against an Alabama defense? It’s not as if the Tide’s defense is the 1985 Bears, but when have you seen an offense stuff it right down its throat like Auburn did?
Marshall to Coates
As the clock wound down in the fourth quarter, I thought Auburn was being a little nonchalant about the clock. Down by seven, the Tigers needed to score a touchdown, had a couple of time outs but didn’t use one of them. Auburn was on the Alabama side of the field, but was nearly 35 yards away. As such, for a team that doesn’t throw the ball excessively well, it appeared that a sense of urgency was needed. But, that all changed with one play, one of the toughest plays for a defensive back to ever cover.
Marshall faked the handoff on a zone run and carried the ball to the left, tucking it under his left arm. As he neared the sideline, both CB Cyrus Jones and S Ha Ha Clinton Dix moved forward to make the tackle. Just before Marshall crossed the line of scrimmage, he put the ball back in his right hand and shot putted the ball to Sammie Coates, who slipped down the sideline wide open. Coates cruised down the sideline for the game tying score, seemingly the one that would take the game to overtime. What Marshall did is extraordinarily difficult. Want to see how hard that is, start to put the fork in your mouth tonight with one hand and then switch as fast as you can. See how much meatloaf you just got on your shirt? Marshall walked away spotless, with a mouth full of meatloaf. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
First guessing
Situational football is one of my favorite things in the world. Yes, I know, I’m sick but I’m okay with it. Honestly, I am. You name it, I try to play it out in my own mind how I would handle every situation. Down 3, 20 seconds left and a time out, figure it out. Up two, four minutes left, figure it out. I LOVE situations in football, especially late game situations. As a former coach, it’s like football porn. I’ll be honest, when the second was put back on the clock, I thought Alabama would throw a Hail Mary. This is the way I rationalized it.
a. The ball would’ve been in the hands of Bama’s senior three year BCS title championship QB and not on the foot of a kicker who had missed three field goals to that point (didn’t know of “long†kicker but still)
b. Alabama has, at a minimum, three receivers 6'2" or taller that could go up and get a Hail Mary toss.
c. A 57-yard field goal is typically kicked low so the chance of another block was high. As such, the block, bounce, catch and run for an inexplicable touchdown was a real possibility.
d. Kicker had missed three FG to that point - as I said, I didn’t know that they had a “long†field goal kicker waiting in the wings (but wouldn’t have changed my mind).
e. When I saw Auburn put No. 24 Ryan Smith back under the goal post just prior to the time out, it hit me that Alabama FG team is full of OL, guys unaccustomed to covering out in the open field on a return. My dad and I used to have this conversation all the time. It was great if your punter played baseball so he could field a bad snap like a ground ball hit to him. Same with a punt returner. On the victory formation, the deep guy needed to be a safety or a cornerback, not a WR. Which guy has more experience making a tackle or knowing the right angle to take to make a play deep down the field, if necessary, than a defensive back? That said, we never came up with a tried and true solution on the FG team. There’s just not a lot a coach can do tinkering with the FG team personnel but he has to coach them to cover. But, he has to coach them to cover intelligently. More on that in a bit.
So, keeping that ALL in mind, I didn’t think there was any way Alabama head coach Nick Saban would choose to kick it. But, the FG team went on the field. Then Auburn called another TO. Surely, he’s going to change his mind, right? Nope.
After Chris Davis caught the kick, the rest was easy. Why?
a. Alabama FG team didn’t initially cover. It stood there at the line of scrimmage to watch the kick.
b. Geometry. Huh? When Bama finally did cover, it ran straight down the field, which you’d expect from a bunch of OL. The ball was on the hash closest to the Alabama sideline. The OL ran straight down the field slowly while Davis caught the ball on the other hash and ran fast to the Auburn sideline. You do the geometry. There’s not a soul on that field taking the right angle to tackle Davis to stop the play. Even the two defensive players on the field Adrian Hubbard and Xzavier Dickson were jogging, following one another, then ran straight across the field. Someone had to think about a deep down field angle as a last chance tackle. Anyone? Uh, nope.
c. Finally, great blocking by Auburn’s FG defensive team. The aforementioned Smith threw a crushing block on Arie Kouandjio, while Kris Frost stopped Hubbard, the last true Alabama defender with a shot to tackle Davis. No one else sniffed Davis for the next 60 yards.
The rest is history, etched in st … err, I mean Iron.
One final thing…when I was in Auburn a few summers ago, it was the day after 5-star stud recruit Reuben Foster committed to Auburn. It was a good day for the Auburn faithful. As I walked through downtown and passed Toomers Drugstore, I came upon a deli that had already named a sandwich after Foster. Unfortunately, later that fall, Foster decommitted from Auburn and eventually signed with hated Alabama. After Auburn’s 3-9 season, it seemed like the right move if Foster ever wanted to win an SEC championship. Ironically, it’ll be the team he spurned that’ll play for it all in Atlanta next Saturday.
This thing we call college football is pretty wild, huh??
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