2021 Fall Camp Thread - Bend Over & I’ll Continue Showing You

LTtxfan · August 23, 2021

LTtxfan · August 23, 2021

12 DAYS !!! 🤘

LTtxfan · August 23, 2021

BurntOrange&White · August 23, 2021

Gerry’s top 5 newcomers for this season

The Texas Longhorns first football season under Steve Sarkisian is just 12 days away. That means plenty of newcomers will be hitting the field with the ability to make a difference.

There are two or three positions where the newcomers can make instant impacts on the 2021 team, including at receiver and several spots along the defensive front.

Here are five newcomers to watch in the Longhorns’ season opener on September 4.

Xavier Worthy, WR, Freshman, Fresno (Calif.) Central East

The 6-foot-1, 160-pound freshman has to become the top receiver on the team. He has a combination of quickness and big play speed no other receiver on the roster possesses. That combined with Jordan Whittington’s continued inability to stay healthy adds to Worthy’s importance. That’s a lot to put on the On3 five-star prospect, but Worthy has performed at a high level since arriving in June. He has learned the offense, and passed toughness tests in August.

Keilan Robinson, RB, Junior TR, Washington (D.C.) St. John’s College High

The 5-foot-9, 195-pounder was a four-star prospect when he signed with Alabama out of St. John’s College High School. His acceleration and ability to make chunk plays is badly needed in the Longhorn program. Robinson is also viewed as a prospect that can make plays in the passing game, whether out of the backfield or lining up in the slot. Rushed for 254 yards and two touchdowns on 34 carries at Alabama.

Ovie Oghoufo, EDGE, Junior TR, Lathrup Village (Mich.) Harrison

Oghoufo and Ray Thornton will be key if Texas is to play well at the EDGE position. The 6-foot-3, 237-pound Notre Dame transfer flashed very well at times for the Fighting Irish. His combination of initial quickness and physicality on contact with a controlled body is needed. Oghoufo played in 20 games at Notre Dame in three seasons. He recorded 22 tackles and 2.5 sacks.

Byron Murphy, DT, Freshman, DeSoto (Texas)

The interior of the Texas defensive line is the most talented and important position this season. The returnees have size and power with Keondre Coburn and T’Vondre Sweat. That plays perfectly into Murphy’s skill set. The 6-foot-0.5, 295-pounder wins with initial quickness, and has the ability to change direction and pursue. Murphy should get plenty of one-on-one opportunities when lined up next to Coburn or Sweat. Alfred Collins and Murphy have to be backfield disruptors for the Longhorns this season.

Ray Thornton, EDGE, Senior TR, Killeen (Texas) Shoemaker

Like Oghoufo, LSU transfer Thornton will play a key role for the Longhorns off the EDGE this season. Thorton played in 41 career games for the Tigers. He posted 45 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss and three sacks in Baton Rouge.

Also considered were EDGE Ben Davis, EDGE Barryn Sorrell and TE Juan Davis.

Getafix · August 23, 2021

Who stood out in the Longhorns' second preseason scrimmage?

Jeff Howe

Spoiler

Who stood out in the Longhorns' second preseason scrimmage?

Jeff Howe

If anything, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian downplayed how much better the offense was in Saturday’s second preseason scrimmage compared to the first outing for the Longhorns one week earlier. Sarkisian said afterward that the roles were reversed from the first scrimmage where the defense dominated with quarterbacks Hudson Card and Casey Thompson moving the offense “up and down the field,” according to one source.

“It was a complete 180 from last week,” the source said.

Outside of the play of the quarterbacks, the following is a collection of sourced notes from Saturday’s action inside Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium:

— Bijan Robinson scored at least one touchdown that we were told about, but the running back who generated the most buzz for the second week in a row was Jonathon Brooks. Sources continue to be impressed with how the true freshman has stepped up, especially on Saturday with Keilan Robinson being held out of the scrimmage.

— With the coaches holding Jordan Whittington out and Troy Omeire dealing with a knee injury, Joshua Moore took advantage of the quarterbacks being down a target by dominating on the field. Sarkisian said afterward that if he had to give a player of the game award it would go to Moore, but a source said bluntly that Moore “played his (expletive) off” on Saturday. Moore was said to have caught three touchdowns (one from Card and two from Thompson) with a big catch on the first drive of the scrimmage setting up a rushing touchdown by Card.

— The other receiver mentioned as delivering a noteworthy performance was Kai Money. On the drive where Moore had the big catch to set up Card’s touchdown run, Money reportedly climbed the ladder for a jump ball to get the offense close to the goal line.

— Juan Davis was the only tight end who received a mention for an impressive catch-and-run during the scrimmage.

— Other than the quarterbacks, the most improved group from the first to the second scrimmage was the offensive line. When Card and Thompson were with the first group, there were said to be fewer pressures than they faced the week before and even the second group wasn’t overwhelmed like they were at times in the first scrimmage.

— The improvement up front, especially in pass protection, can be attributed to the offense as a whole looking “a lot crisper,” according to a source. There were said to be fewer penalties and Sarkisian’s offense looked a lot more like the perceived vision (getting the ball out quickly to playmakers in space, moving players around within the formation and receivers catching the ball on the move) of what it’s going to be rather than the clunky product put on the field in the first scrimmage.

— It didn’t sound like there were any major depth chart changes of note on either side of the ball outside of players who were held out.

— It was mentioned that Brenden Schooler has continued to do a good job of directing traffic and getting guys in the right position from his safety spot. One play, in particular, Schooler helped true freshman Jamier Johnson get limed up correctly before the snap, helping Johnson ultimately break up a pass.

— After dropping a punt in Wednesday’s open practice much to the chagrin of those in attendance, D'Shawn Jamison looked like he would’ve taken a punt or two back for big gains before quick whistles blew the returns dead.

— Cameron Dicker punted in Saturday’s scrimmage, booming one while missing on a coffin corner attempt. With that said, one source said it would be the biggest upset of any position battle on the squad if Dicker isn’t both the primary placekicker and punter for the Longhorns in 2021.

Hiphopopotamos · August 23, 2021

16 minutes ago, Getafix said:

Who stood out in the Longhorns' second preseason scrimmage?

Jeff Howe

Hide contents

Who stood out in the Longhorns' second preseason scrimmage?

Jeff Howe

If anything, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian downplayed how much better the offense was in Saturday’s second preseason scrimmage compared to the first outing for the Longhorns one week earlier. Sarkisian said afterward that the roles were reversed from the first scrimmage where the defense dominated with quarterbacks Hudson Card and Casey Thompson moving the offense “up and down the field,” according to one source.

“It was a complete 180 from last week,” the source said.

Outside of the play of the quarterbacks, the following is a collection of sourced notes from Saturday’s action inside Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium:

— Bijan Robinson scored at least one touchdown that we were told about, but the running back who generated the most buzz for the second week in a row was Jonathon Brooks. Sources continue to be impressed with how the true freshman has stepped up, especially on Saturday with Keilan Robinson being held out of the scrimmage.

— With the coaches holding Jordan Whittington out and Troy Omeire dealing with a knee injury, Joshua Moore took advantage of the quarterbacks being down a target by dominating on the field. Sarkisian said afterward that if he had to give a player of the game award it would go to Moore, but a source said bluntly that Moore “played his (expletive) off” on Saturday. Moore was said to have caught three touchdowns (one from Card and two from Thompson) with a big catch on the first drive of the scrimmage setting up a rushing touchdown by Card.

— The other receiver mentioned as delivering a noteworthy performance was Kai Money. On the drive where Moore had the big catch to set up Card’s touchdown run, Money reportedly climbed the ladder for a jump ball to get the offense close to the goal line.

— Juan Davis was the only tight end who received a mention for an impressive catch-and-run during the scrimmage.

— Other than the quarterbacks, the most improved group from the first to the second scrimmage was the offensive line. When Card and Thompson were with the first group, there were said to be fewer pressures than they faced the week before and even the second group wasn’t overwhelmed like they were at times in the first scrimmage.

— The improvement up front, especially in pass protection, can be attributed to the offense as a whole looking “a lot crisper,” according to a source. There were said to be fewer penalties and Sarkisian’s offense looked a lot more like the perceived vision (getting the ball out quickly to playmakers in space, moving players around within the formation and receivers catching the ball on the move) of what it’s going to be rather than the clunky product put on the field in the first scrimmage.

— It didn’t sound like there were any major depth chart changes of note on either side of the ball outside of players who were held out.

— It was mentioned that Brenden Schooler has continued to do a good job of directing traffic and getting guys in the right position from his safety spot. One play, in particular, Schooler helped true freshman Jamier Johnson get limed up correctly before the snap, helping Johnson ultimately break up a pass.

— After dropping a punt in Wednesday’s open practice much to the chagrin of those in attendance, D'Shawn Jamison looked like he would’ve taken a punt or two back for big gains before quick whistles blew the returns dead.

— Cameron Dicker punted in Saturday’s scrimmage, booming one while missing on a coffin corner attempt. With that said, one source said it would be the biggest upset of any position battle on the squad if Dicker isn’t both the primary placekicker and punter for the Longhorns in 2021.

So this contradicts the IT report that said Moore had two TD's from Card and 1 TD from Thompson plus a TD from Thompson that was called back due to penalty.

XYZ · August 23, 2021

“coffin corner”?

TheBryMan81 · August 23, 2021

20 hours ago, Hiphopopotamos said:

Can we talk about the nice blocking by Denzel Okafor and Christian Jones in that Casey Thompson video? Okafor hands off the initial rusher to Jones and picks up the guy stunting inside. Casey stays clean and a TD is the end result.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS4Zu-9s3AT/?utm_medium=copy_link

7 minutes ago, Hiphopopotamos said:

So this contradicts the IT report that said Moore had two TD's from Card and 1 TD from Thompson plus a TD from Thompson that was called back due to penalty.

This video from the team's Instagram pretty clearly shows two TDs from 11 to 6. Probably wouldn't be featured on the IG if one of those hadn't counted, so I'm gonna assume both of those were for real.

Vito Andolini · August 23, 2021

2 minutes ago, XYZ said:

“coffin corner”?

It’s a phrase that’s been around for decades. Punting it down essentially inside the 10, preferably the five, near the sideline so the ball goes out of bounds and not crossing the goal line, protecting a return and a touchback.

Chuckie Finster · August 23, 2021

12 minutes ago, TheBryMan81 said:

This video from the team's Instagram pretty clearly shows two TDs from 11 to 6. Probably wouldn't be featured on the IG if one of those hadn't counted, so I'm gonna assume both of those were for real.

IT has long been my favorite insider site, but from a reliability standpoint they've had a fucking horrific offseason between the coaching search, recruiting, and now these practice reports.

Whether they have bad sources or are weirdly trying to drive the narrative around the QB battle, this shit is a bad look. The level to which they are invested in Card is honestly kind of weird.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Chuckie Finster

texifornia · August 23, 2021

1 hour ago, LTtxfan said:

Looks like someone needs to get the power washer out for that building in the foreground.

BurntOrange&White · August 23, 2021

IT Scoop:

By: Eric, Gerry, and Joe

Checking in on position battles

UT has had two scrimmages, one dominated by the defense, one much more even, though the coaches’ fingers may have tipped the scales in favor of the offense.

Given the vast amount of team experience, August started with a fairly clear depth chart, but from IT’s advantage its become even clearer. We’re to the point we can start to talk about depth chart jockeying beyond the starters in many cases.

Quarterback: After the second scrimmage Steve Sarkisian said he feels confident in both quarterbacks winning games. For the most part we take him at face value when he speaks (it’s not his fault if he’s asked a question that requires misdirection) and we definitely believe him when he says both quarterbacks are good options to start.

The Saturday scrimmage featured the best quarterback play of camp. The interesting thing is video released by Texas showed two high quality throws from Casey, while word out of the scrimmage is Card is the one who balled out. There are obvious reasons for Sarkisian to keep the mystery going as long as possible.

IT predicts Card will start but both quarterbacks can win a lot of games this year.

Offensive line: The starting line appears set with some intrigue remaining over who the first man up at each position would be.

Christian Jones and Derek Kerstetter will be the starting tackles, with Andrej Karic looking like the third option. Behind Karic would be Isaiah Hookfin, who has as much upside as any of them, save Jones.

At guard you have Denzel Okafor and Junior Angilau. Next man up would be Tope Imade. We’ve heard some good things about Imade, even as a puller in gap schemes. His issue is he struggles with quickness 1v1.

Behind Imade would be freshman Hayden Conner. As we’ve reported, the staff is high on Conner long-term. It’s not out of the realm of possibility he could play tackle one day if he irons down the technique required to play more agile athletes. We predict guard is his forever home but he works at both guard and tackle. Sources would feel pretty good about Conner playing this year, especially later in the season.

We know the o-line has had its struggles with the d-line in camp, but this is the healthiest the roster has been on both sides of the trenches in a long time.

Wide Receiver: It’s hard to get a handle on this position given the injuries. Both Jordan Whittington and Troy Omeire missed the scrimmage but should be available for the first game. Jaden Alexis was hurt in the scrimmage and we fear the worst with his knee.

We’ll go deeper in depth on the position later in the week.

Linebacker: Perhaps the most even battle is at linebacker, but it’s not the spot we expected coming into camp.

Luke Brockermeyer looks to be the starting Mike and DeMarvion Overshown the starting Will. On Saturday David Gbenda received reps with the ones at each linebacker spot which suggests he’s the swing guy and next man up at each position.

The linebacker spot with the most intrigue currently is Sam, which plays when Pete Kwiatkowski calls the base defense. In the last decade, Sam has typically been an afterthought after first-day base install. That is no longer the case as PK will bounce between base and nickel. The combatants to start here are transfers Ovie Oghoufo and Ben Davis. Ovie got the jump on Davis when Davis missed much of July and the first or so week of August, but they’re pretty even now. They rotated with the ones on Saturday. Expect both to play, and sometimes at the same time if Davis also plays Jack OLB. IT isn’t sure it’s worth handicapping who will start since both will play quite a bit when in base. Ovie does have a slight edge but both played with the ones on Saturday.

Ovie will also figure into the discussion at XOLB when in nickel, but Ray Thornton seems destined to start there.

Jack OLB: Jacoby Jones looks safe to start but there is a package that calls for Alfred Collins. IT has heard given Collins’ size he looks ridiculous standing up on the edge but that he is so athletic he’s not out of place.

The staff loves the depth at both DT and 3-tech which allows them to tinker with Collins.

How deep is the interior d-line? Even freshman Byron Murphy earned reps with the ones on Saturday.

Expect the staff to have a lot of different situational personnel packages.

Nickel: Anthony Cook has a good grasp on nickel after a strong camp. It looks like he’s locked in to start after the scrimmage on Saturday.

Scheme versatility

The defense sounds equally comfortable in base or nickel.

Meanwhile the offense’s bread and butter is when in 12 (one RB/two TE) or 11 (one RB/one TE) personnel, but they also also ran some 20 (two RB/no TE) and even some 10 (one RB/no TE/four WR) in the scrimmage.

The week ahead

The SEZ unveiling is happening this morning, right as a mouth breather is getting ready to type ‘First!’. Today will be the last afternoon practice.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be full pad practices held in the morning.

This week they’ll officially start prepping for the opener against Louisiana Lafayette.

Friday and Saturday will be a mock of next Friday and Saturday, right on down to staying in a hotel on Friday night and mocking the game on Saturday.

Hopefully they mock a win.

SydneyCarton · August 23, 2021

20 minutes ago, XYZ said:

“coffin corner”?

Jesus, how young are you?

Droopy · August 23, 2021

29 minutes ago, XYZ said:

“coffin corner”?

8 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Jesus, how young are you?

Gen X,Y,Z?

Hornlover · August 23, 2021

44 minutes ago, TheBryMan81 said:

This video from the team's Instagram pretty clearly shows two TDs from 11 to 6. Probably wouldn't be featured on the IG if one of those hadn't counted, so I'm gonna assume both of those were for real.

On the news last night (KXAN I think?) they showed footage from the scrimmage, including lots of Joshua Moore catches, the TD passes, QB TD runs, and the Kai Money climb the ladder catch. It didn't seem like they were revealing state secrets or actively trying to subvert the 9.95er propaganda.

Fud · August 23, 2021

13 minutes ago, Hornlover said:

On the news last night (KXAN I think?) they showed footage from the scrimmage, including lots of Joshua Moore catches, the TD passes, QB TD runs, and the Kai Money climb the ladder catch. It didn't seem like they were revealing state secrets or actively trying to subvert the 9.95er propaganda.

Can one of you fuckers find this footage?

BurntOrange&White · August 23, 2021

anyone have the article?

Slacks · August 23, 2021

Kai Money makes plays.

TheBryMan81 · August 23, 2021

4 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

anyone have the article?

I got you fam

Spoiler

The beast that the Alabama offense has evolved into in the last decade has the most unique origin story of any system in football. It’s not the brainchild of a coach or two who sketched out their visions on an endless array of grease boards or bar napkins.

No, tracing the path that the Tide has taken to get to this place — mid-Aughts top 20 offenses to the most explosive attack in college football — is as vexing as how it’s become for opposing defenses to try and handle.

In fact, there have been so many different architects and caretakers, and so many assistants and staffers who have come and gone — and many of them have come … and gone … and come back again — that it has led to a lot of debate about the process behind The Process in Tuscaloosa.

An origin myth’s beginnings … with The New England Patriots

Depending on which former Alabama coaching staffers you ask, Bill O’Brien, Nick Saban’s newest offensive coordinator, had his fingerprints on the Crimson Tide offense long before he accepted a job with the team this year.

“The Patriots, at that point, were getting into the one-word plays, and that’s when Alabama started implementing them,” said one former Tide assistant. “We had a menu of those. That came from Bill O’Brien. I think it was before 2011.”

Jim McElwain, Alabama’s offensive coordinator from 2008-11, couldn’t pinpoint a specific meeting with O’Brien: “We used fastballs while I was there, but I can’t say for certain that it came from the Patriots or Coach O’Brien.”

Another former staffer remembers O’Brien coming to Tuscaloosa a few times. Once, in 2012, after O’Brien became the head coach at Penn State, he wanted to learn how Saban’s teams practice and how the Alabama coach navigated the differences between college and the NFL game. O’Brien brought a few Penn State assistants with him on the visit in the spirit of professional development.

“I remember him meeting with the offense and talking red zone and some tempo stuff they did (with the) Patriots, ‘fastball’ stuff and coverage indicator stuff,” the staffer said of O’Brien’s input on using one-word or fastball play calls — all to simplify things so the offensive can be faster. “I remember thinking what a great teacher he was and how he made things so easy to grasp and made sense. They (Alabama) already had some of it in 2009, but I think he definitely got some expansion and ways to use it, getting on the ball and stressing defense. It always helped getting installed if it came from Patriots.”

A fourth former staffer didn’t think it came from O’Brien, and said whatever concepts they got from the Patriots offense back then came from Josh McDaniels, and it was made to fit more to the old Bama pro-style system. The one-word fastball concepts were something the Tide staff had home-cooked right before the 2014 season out of necessity, the staffer said.

The 2014 season was Lane Kiffin’s first at Alabama. Kiffin had just been fired by USC. “He really had the same pro-style system we had,” said that former staffer. “Really wordy. Philosophically, it was very similar. A lot on the quarterback to get the offense in and out of the right runs, checking to passes, flipping the protections if need be.”

The problem? Both of the Alabama quarterbacks competing for the starting job struggled with the system.

Blake Sims had bounced from safety, slot receiver, running back and then finally to quarterback. Jacob Coker had just transferred in from Florida State, where he’d played for Saban protégé Jimbo Fisher. After the second preseason scrimmage, Sims beat Coker for the job.

Sims had been a standout high school quarterback in Georgia but he wasn’t recruited by the Tide to play it. Alabama coaches thought he had great instincts and feel for the game and loved that he was a terrific recruiter and total team guy. He’d proven to be a great ambassador for the program. He was selfless.

His position had switched back and forth roughly four or five times, where he was good enough at both receiver and at safety but didn’t shine at either. He also was asked to jump in at scout team quarterback whenever Bama had to get ready for a mobile quarterback. Inside the program there was a lot of skepticism how Sims would run the offense.

According to multiple sources, a key figure in helping get the new quarterback ready — and in re-making the Tide’s offense — is a man who has never coached a down at Alabama or anywhere else.

Bill O’Brien has only just joined the Alabama staff, but his fingertips have been on the program for a decade. (Kent Gidley)

The psychiatry professor and The Process philosophy

Lionel “Lonny” Rosen, a professor in the psychiatry department at Michigan State, had known Saban for two decades and had become an invaluable resource. Rosen is the godfather of Saban’s “Process” philosophy upon which the Alabama program was built.

“Lonny came in every year and would do his evaluations and gave his recommendation on how to reach kids and coach them,” said a former Alabama assistant. “One thing that he said about Blake was that he would get really nervous.”

In one of Rosen’s sessions with the offensive staff, Rosen asked Kiffin to recite one of their plays. Kiffin rattled off some sentence-long thing that left the psychiatry professor wincing: “Huh? That’s a play? You all are a bunch of freaking imbeciles. I have anxiety just listening to that!”

“I don’t remember that,” said Kiffin with a chuckle. “I think you’re getting some interesting tales coming out of there. I don’t think the Michigan State psychiatrist had anything to do with us going to smaller terminology.”

About two weeks before the 2014 season opener against West Virginia, Kiffin and the staff brainstormed ways to help Sims operate the offense that suited his athleticism without getting bogged down trying to recite a whole bunch of words.

“We researched Auburn’s offense, A&M’s offense, Syracuse’s offense when Nathaniel Hackett was the offensive coordinator; we researched the Eagles with Chip Kelly; there were a lot of concepts that they ran at Oregon that we installed,” said a former Alabama staffer. “We slowly started implementing that this one word meant the formation, the personnel, the play, everything.”

For example: A running play that was called Silver Flank Right North Stormy Smoke became just North Stormy. “Then everybody knew that’s the formation; the RPO to the field; that’s how we’re getting lined up, the whole bit. We then evolved that to us having the box count RPOs and different things like that. That’s how it all started,” the staffer said.

One of the fastball plays Alabama acquired from Kelly was installed right before the 2016 national title game against Clemson. Alabama even called it the same thing Kelly did— Geronimo — and it hit for a Derrick Henry 50-yard touchdown run on the game’s first score.

Kiffin said he always had relied on using wristbands in communicating the play-calling process. “We always had that wherever we were, and that’s how you could get the long terminology in without having to signal everything in. We started in that direction, but then tried the other thing and said, ‘OK, let’s get rid of wristbands and go as short as we can to be able to play really fast.’

“We did take the boards, which Washington had copied from Oregon … that system that used the boards, which were the formations, so you didn’t have to signal them in. Then, we just signaled the plays, so that shortened down the signaling.”

One of the Tide coaches said that remaking the offense on the fly “was all hands on deck.”

“Everybody had a heavy hand in there,” he said. “The list of fastballs we ended up with was mind-boggling. We tried to use word association for everything we did. We used boards to signal tempo or signal a formation to the boundary. Those guys were, like, doing aerobics on the sideline trying to get the right board up at the right time. It was pretty intense. It just became so extensive. Players had to memorize what was to the field and what was to the boundary.”

Sims proceeded to break the Alabama single-season passing record and led the Crimson Tide to the SEC title. They were the top seed in the College Football Playoff and were upset by No. 4 Ohio State 42-35 in the Sugar Bowl. They also averaged almost 10 plays more than they had in each of the previous two seasons.

“That guy performed miracles,” a former Tide coach said of Rosen. “Just tapping into the brain and helping guys understand to learn. Blake was nonfunctional in what we were doing before the adjustments were made. You’re looking at a 9-3, 8-4 season before the adjustment, for real. Blake got it going in a big-time way.

“Fit the scheme to the athlete, not the other way around. That was the biggest lesson learned there. Get out of your ways and get into whatever works for the player.”

A Process begun by Nick Saban’s frustrations

What transpired at that inflection point in Alabama’s football history wasn’t just related to a shift in the personnel available to the Tide that year but also a response of Saban’s growing frustration with what his defenses — and his program — were now up against.

In 2013, Alabama lost the Iron Bowl to Gus Malzahn’s hurry-up, which converted on 8 of 15 third downs in the Kick-Six game, and also had its hands full with Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M (the program put 628 yards on them). The year prior, the Aggies attack that Kliff Kingsbury piloted beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Hugh Freeze and his up-tempo, RPO-loaded system then beat Saban’s team in back-to-back seasons in 2014 and 2015, when the Rebels beat them 43-37 despite only having the ball for less than 25 minutes.

“We made a tremendous change when Lane came in. Lane had always been the same, kind of philosophy-wise, as we were in terms of pro-style football,” Saban said. “And because of what Ole Miss — and it’s ironic that he’s at Ole Miss now — had done and beaten us several times running the spreads, running the RPOs, running the screens and things that are difficult to defend, and we weren’t utilizing some of those things, which I thought put us at a disadvantage.

“Lane really hadn’t done much of that stuff, either. So when he came in, I said, ‘Look, we want to change this. You need to research this. You’re smart. We can do this.’ He actually did implement that and was the first one to sort of change how we did things on offense. It enhanced our opportunity to score more points.”

It has been quite a 180 for Saban and Alabama.

In October 2012, a few days after West Virginia and Baylor staged a wild 70-63 shootout of more than 1,500 yards of offense, Saban went on the weekly SEC coaches teleconference, grousing about how the hurry-up, no-huddle was taking over football. He launched into what became an epic rant.

“I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety,” he began. “The team gets in the same formation group, you can’t substitute defensive players, you go on a 14-, 16-, 18-play drive and they’re snapping the ball as fast as you can go and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can’t even get lined up. That’s when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt when they’re not ready to play.

“I think that’s something that can be looked at. It’s obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we’re averaging 49.5 points a game. With people that do those kinds of things. More and more people are going to do it. I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking, is this what we want football to be?”

That 70-point reference was a nod to peak Big 12 football, but the rant also came in the wake of Freeze’s uptempo scheme at Ole Miss ripping off touchdown drives of 13 and 16 plays on Saban’s defense in what eventually turned into a Crimson Tide blowout.

“We’d been huddling, lining up in two-tights; we were a python and absolutely strangling people with our defense,” said a former Alabama offensive position coach. “That’s what we were. Credit to Saban. We changed. Lonny exclamation-pointed it, but I think it was headed in that direction.”

Looking outside the SEC to dominate within it

If it gave Saban’s defense headaches, he wanted his staff to dig into it. Two months after Alabama allowed 42 points in the semifinal loss to Ohio State, the offensive staff was on a flight to Houston to visit new Cougars coach Tom Herman, who had been the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator. Herman then visited Saban later that month in Alabama.

“Nick became enamored with that 11-personnel after getting beat by them in ’14,” said one of the Crimson Tide offensive position coaches. “Freeze had entered into the equation. And Nick wasn’t seeing those things in practice and he wanted to see more of that type of stuff in practice so he could defend it.

“It was nothing earth-shattering. We had the film. It’s more of the nuts and bolts of how to operate like that.”

After the 2016 season, Kiffin left Tuscaloosa to become the head coach at FAU. One of the candidates that Saban interviewed for the vacancy was Dan Werner, the former Ole Miss offensive coordinator who had worked with Freeze and had an expertise with RPOs. Saban ultimately hired his old protégé, Brian Daboll, away from the New England Patriots to run the offense, and brought on Werner in an analyst role.

“It’s one thing to say run this play and then here’s the rules on it, but there’re always the little things that may happen if, say, there’s a different technique by a DB,” Werner told The Athletic a few years ago. “That’s what I was there for, since I was doing it the last five years. I could give a little hint for them about what to tell the receiver or to tell the QB.”

In Kiffin’s three seasons at Alabama, he added more nakeds and play-action. “I think he brought quite a bit,” one of the former offensive position coaches said. “The big thing was Lane had experience. He was careless enough that he wasn’t concerned about rubbing Nick the wrong way. He pushed the boundaries more than other people had in the past. He did a good job of utilizing personnel. If he has a good player, he’s gonna feed that player the ball. He did a really good job with the naked play-pass complements.

“Lane’s not a quarterback guy. He’s a receiver guy. His strengths weren’t the drop-back game. The quick game, the five-out game, that is where the quarterback struggled in my opinion. Daboll did a good job of introducing some real progression passing game. The quarterback was getting coached at a very high level.”

When Daboll came to Tuscaloosa from New England, he started incorporating some of the terminology the Patriots used in their no-huddle offense and made it more no-huddle friendly by shortening up the verbiage even more with code words. Daboll also leaned on co-offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, who also has an extensive background in RPOs. “So all of a sudden, there was terminology that came in that was very Patriotsesque in terms of the passing game and in the run game,” said a former Tide offensive assistant.

Daboll spent one season in Tuscaloosa, helping Alabama win the national title before returning to the NFL. Locksley was promoted to the offensive coordinator job in 2018 as the Tide improved from No. 15 in scoring to No. 3. Locksley landed the Maryland job after the season. Saban brought back Sarkisian, an Alabama quality control assistant in 2016 and then one-time Tide play caller for the national title game that season, to call the offense.

“I think Lane really forced or spurred Coach Saban to adapt,” said a former Alabama analyst. “Coaching reads wasn’t his thing, but then Daboll came in and really tightened up that passing game by spacing the field and creating high-lows. He leaves and Locksley really meshed that Patriots passing game with the RPO game that he and (Josh) Gattis had. Then, Sark came back, and coaching reads was something he was really good at, and he was able to dial the quarterback in.”

Steve Sarkisian “was throwing freakin’ haymakers” during his time with the Crimson Tide. (Mickey Welsh / The Montgomery Advertiser via USA Today)

Steve Sarkisian’s finishing touches

“The verbiage was all over the place,” Sarkisian said. “It was kinda all over because there is a baseline that is Coach Saban, his vernacular and what he wants to hear, but year after year, you bring in a new coordinator and they’re gonna put their own twist on it and put different tags on things.

“With Locks and Daboll, there were 100 one-word plays. With Lane, there might’ve been five a game. So it was, who are we gonna be? We kinda had both. We were a no-huddle team the last two years but we didn’t necessarily go super fast. Our deal was we wanted to run the best plays available every chance we could. The reality of it, we implemented more shifts and motions than probably had been in that offense in the previous 5-6 years and kinda went back to that — although we didn’t huddle.

Under Sarkisian, Alabama was less reliant on RPOs and did more play-action. There were less drop-back passes, save for third downs; more 12-personnel; and much more aggression in a willingness to go downfield.

“He was always interested in completions but he wasn’t hunting 5- and 7-yard completions to keep the chains moving,” said one of the former Alabama assistants. “He was throwing freakin’ haymakers. Some people inherit a fast car and they drive it 85 miles an hour or a little bit over the speed limit. Sark inherited a fast car and he drove it 135 miles an hour, and it was fun to watch.

“He could’ve lined up and been real conservative and still probably beat people, but I don’t know about Florida. If you’re not as aggressive as Sark was, and you don’t really test the boundaries with all the good tools that you have — he pushed it to the limit, and to me, I think we needed it when it came down on the Florida game. Those guys could score with us.”

Sarkisian, who has made “All Gas No Breaks” the mantra for his program at Texas, said his approach at Alabama was about playing to the team’s strengths more than trying to blow up scoreboards.

“At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to win, not put numbers up, and I felt like we had a chance to be uniquely special,” he said. “We were different those two years when I was the OC. My first year, we were four-wide receiver sets, a lot of RPOs, a little more play-action pass — Tua (Tagovailoa) with the quick trigger, create running lanes with space.

“The next year with Mac (Jones), it became more two tight end sets, downhill running game, play-action pass, moving (Jaylen) Waddle and Smitty around just to create those matchups … it became more matchup-based. The end result: We wanted to be very aggressive and the players knew it but the aggressive nature came because that’s what we felt like we were best at. It was pretty clear from Coach Saban down that us being aggressive was what was best for the team.”

In Sarkisian’s first season calling the offense, Alabama averaged a then-school-record 47.2 points per game. Last season, the Tide set the current record for points per game, averaging 49 points per game, and also led the country in third down percentage. Sarkisian who was fired from his last head coaching stint at USC, parlayed his success with Bama into landing the head coaching job at Texas.

Bill O’Brien comes full circle to Tuscaloosa

His replacement is O’Brien, who returns to college football for the first time in seven years. The hire may have seemed like an odd fit given the way his tenure with the Houston Texans, ended but then again, Kiffin and Sarkisian seemed like odd fits too, and it wasn’t like Locksley’s stock was exactly soaring either when he arrived in Tuscaloosa. O’Brien has never worked with Saban before, but he did spend five seasons coaching with one of his best friends, Bill Belichick, in New England.

O’Brien is now Alabama’s fifth offensive coordinator in eight seasons. Alabama has run through a dozen coaches for wide receivers, the offensive line and running backs. O’Brien will have to break in a new quarterback in freshman Bryce Young, as Mac Jones is one of five departed starters on offense who left as a first-round NFL draft pick. In all, only three offensive starters return, but two are All-SEC linemen: Evan Neal and Emil Ekiyor Jr.

“Alabama, quite obviously, has proven to be a very special place to play and coach,” O’Brien said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity that Coach Saban has given me. To work and learn from someone like Coach Saban — I’m going into my 29th year of coaching — that’s not something that can be replicated. I’ve only been here for seven months, and I have already learned a ton.”

O’Brien said Saban has told him “a little bit” about how the Alabama offense has evolved over time and how each coordinator has put his own touch on it.

“Every year’s different,” O’Brien said. “I think in the end, it comes down to who your players are, what can they do best, who your quarterback is, what can he do best, and what’s best for the team. No year is like any other year, so this year will be very different than any other year, and that’s just the way it is in football. That’s the way it’s always been in my career. And these guys are working hard every single day to try to improve.”

One of the former Alabama assistants who left Tuscaloosa and is now running his own program pivoted from the discussion of scheme to make sure one point was hammered home above all: Regardless of how much talent O’Brien, or any other offensive coach has inherited, and no matter what plays they run or verbiage they use, there is one key factor when it comes to making the system work better than any other in football.

“The king of all this is Nick Saban,” he said. “You’re put through that grinder because you’re competing against Nick and his defense every day, and he has a lot of ideas to contribute. The verbiage never gets too far away from him where he can’t sustain it. He’s not letting you come in and run your offense. You gotta operate within the installation plan. There is a progression to it all. He controls it.

“You’re talking about alphas now, and you have lots of ’em in one room. It’s impressive. His ability to hire the right people, to manage their egos and to continue to recruit and develop offensive talent. The consistency and the routine and structure and to keep the thing rolling, to allow minor tweaks and adjustments on the other side of the ball and keep the thing rolling, it’s really miraculous. It’s the Alabama way. Revolving door of assistants from a number of different play callers and line coaches … it truly is amazing.”

(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Droopy · August 23, 2021

I feel like we got the coach we thought Herman was going to be. Sark is going to take chances and put his foot on team's throats. As someone wise and all knowing once said, "Sark, please stunt on these hoes!"

Bevo · August 23, 2021

10 minutes ago, Snacks said:

Kai Money makes plays.

So, you are saying he is.....

good.

RollLeft · August 23, 2021

22 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

anyone have the article?

BOB had his hand on Bama offense a decade ago....

Steamboat1874 · August 23, 2021

29 minutes ago, Snacks said:

Kai Money makes plays.

Well he is money.

Reynolds Woodcock · August 23, 2021

1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Offensive line: The starting line appears set with some intrigue remaining over who the first man up at each position would be.

Christian Jones and Derek Kerstetter will be the starting tackles, with Andrej Karic looking like the third option. Behind Karic would be Isaiah Hookfin, who has as much upside as any of them, save Jones.

At guard you have Denzel Okafor and Junior Angilau. Next man up would be Tope Imade. We’ve heard some good things about Imade, even as a puller in gap schemes. His issue is he struggles with quickness 1v1.

Behind Imade would be freshman Hayden Conner. As we’ve reported, the staff is high on Conner long-term. It’s not out of the realm of possibility he could play tackle one day if he irons down the technique required to play more agile athletes. We predict guard is his forever home but he works at both guard and tackle. Sources would feel pretty good about Conner playing this year, especially later in the season.

Not seeing Tyler Johnson even mentioned in the two deep continues to be disappointing, but I will continue to hold out hope he is a late bloomer or Flood can rectify the abysmal coaching he received since he got here.

That led me down a rabbit hole of how he compares to other "elite" offensive lineman we've recruited the last ten years. Since the 2011 class, we've had 7 O line recruits with a .97 ranking or higher: Sedrick Flowers, Curtis Riser, Kennedy Estelle, Kent Perkins, Darius James, Patrick Hudson, and Tyler Johnson. Rough. Of course offensive lineman are the toughest position to project and we've hit on guys like Sam Cosmi and Connor Williams, but that really highlights the shit show our O line coaching has been the last decade. Here's hoping Flood is the guy that turns it all around.

Fud · August 23, 2021

16 minutes ago, Reynolds Woodcock said:

Not seeing Tyler Johnson even mentioned in the two deep continues to be disappointing, but I will continue to hold out hope he is a late bloomer or Flood can rectify the abysmal coaching he received since he got here.

That led me down a rabbit hole of how he compares to other "elite" offensive lineman we've recruited the last ten years. Since the 2011 class, we've had 7 O line recruits with a .97 ranking or higher: Sedrick Flowers, Curtis Riser, Kennedy Estelle, Kent Perkins, Darius James, Patrick Hudson, and Tyler Johnson. Rough. Of course offensive lineman are the toughest position to project and we've hit on guys like Sam Cosmi and Connor Williams, but that really highlights the shit show our O line coaching has been the last decade. Here's hoping Flood is the guy that turns it all around.

Sark mentioned him in his next three after the top eight were mentioned (five starters plus Karic, Tope, and Connor) along with Hookfin and Parr

Texasrocks · August 23, 2021

25 minutes ago, RollLeft said:

BOB had his hand on Bama offense a decade ago....

They really wanted that full circle narrative. BOB uses words. Bama uses words. Coincidence? I think not.

westexhorn · August 23, 2021

56 minutes ago, TheBryMan81 said:

I got you fam

Reveal hidden contents

The beast that the Alabama offense has evolved into in the last decade has the most unique origin story of any system in football. It’s not the brainchild of a coach or two who sketched out their visions on an endless array of grease boards or bar napkins.

No, tracing the path that the Tide has taken to get to this place — mid-Aughts top 20 offenses to the most explosive attack in college football — is as vexing as how it’s become for opposing defenses to try and handle.

In fact, there have been so many different architects and caretakers, and so many assistants and staffers who have come and gone — and many of them have come … and gone … and come back again — that it has led to a lot of debate about the process behind The Process in Tuscaloosa.

An origin myth’s beginnings … with The New England Patriots

Depending on which former Alabama coaching staffers you ask, Bill O’Brien, Nick Saban’s newest offensive coordinator, had his fingerprints on the Crimson Tide offense long before he accepted a job with the team this year.

“The Patriots, at that point, were getting into the one-word plays, and that’s when Alabama started implementing them,” said one former Tide assistant. “We had a menu of those. That came from Bill O’Brien. I think it was before 2011.”

Jim McElwain, Alabama’s offensive coordinator from 2008-11, couldn’t pinpoint a specific meeting with O’Brien: “We used fastballs while I was there, but I can’t say for certain that it came from the Patriots or Coach O’Brien.”

Another former staffer remembers O’Brien coming to Tuscaloosa a few times. Once, in 2012, after O’Brien became the head coach at Penn State, he wanted to learn how Saban’s teams practice and how the Alabama coach navigated the differences between college and the NFL game. O’Brien brought a few Penn State assistants with him on the visit in the spirit of professional development.

“I remember him meeting with the offense and talking red zone and some tempo stuff they did (with the) Patriots, ‘fastball’ stuff and coverage indicator stuff,” the staffer said of O’Brien’s input on using one-word or fastball play calls — all to simplify things so the offensive can be faster. “I remember thinking what a great teacher he was and how he made things so easy to grasp and made sense. They (Alabama) already had some of it in 2009, but I think he definitely got some expansion and ways to use it, getting on the ball and stressing defense. It always helped getting installed if it came from Patriots.”

A fourth former staffer didn’t think it came from O’Brien, and said whatever concepts they got from the Patriots offense back then came from Josh McDaniels, and it was made to fit more to the old Bama pro-style system. The one-word fastball concepts were something the Tide staff had home-cooked right before the 2014 season out of necessity, the staffer said.

The 2014 season was Lane Kiffin’s first at Alabama. Kiffin had just been fired by USC. “He really had the same pro-style system we had,” said that former staffer. “Really wordy. Philosophically, it was very similar. A lot on the quarterback to get the offense in and out of the right runs, checking to passes, flipping the protections if need be.”

The problem? Both of the Alabama quarterbacks competing for the starting job struggled with the system.

Blake Sims had bounced from safety, slot receiver, running back and then finally to quarterback. Jacob Coker had just transferred in from Florida State, where he’d played for Saban protégé Jimbo Fisher. After the second preseason scrimmage, Sims beat Coker for the job.

Sims had been a standout high school quarterback in Georgia but he wasn’t recruited by the Tide to play it. Alabama coaches thought he had great instincts and feel for the game and loved that he was a terrific recruiter and total team guy. He’d proven to be a great ambassador for the program. He was selfless.

His position had switched back and forth roughly four or five times, where he was good enough at both receiver and at safety but didn’t shine at either. He also was asked to jump in at scout team quarterback whenever Bama had to get ready for a mobile quarterback. Inside the program there was a lot of skepticism how Sims would run the offense.

According to multiple sources, a key figure in helping get the new quarterback ready — and in re-making the Tide’s offense — is a man who has never coached a down at Alabama or anywhere else.

Bill O’Brien has only just joined the Alabama staff, but his fingertips have been on the program for a decade. (Kent Gidley)

The psychiatry professor and The Process philosophy

Lionel “Lonny” Rosen, a professor in the psychiatry department at Michigan State, had known Saban for two decades and had become an invaluable resource. Rosen is the godfather of Saban’s “Process” philosophy upon which the Alabama program was built.

“Lonny came in every year and would do his evaluations and gave his recommendation on how to reach kids and coach them,” said a former Alabama assistant. “One thing that he said about Blake was that he would get really nervous.”

In one of Rosen’s sessions with the offensive staff, Rosen asked Kiffin to recite one of their plays. Kiffin rattled off some sentence-long thing that left the psychiatry professor wincing: “Huh? That’s a play? You all are a bunch of freaking imbeciles. I have anxiety just listening to that!”

“I don’t remember that,” said Kiffin with a chuckle. “I think you’re getting some interesting tales coming out of there. I don’t think the Michigan State psychiatrist had anything to do with us going to smaller terminology.”

About two weeks before the 2014 season opener against West Virginia, Kiffin and the staff brainstormed ways to help Sims operate the offense that suited his athleticism without getting bogged down trying to recite a whole bunch of words.

“We researched Auburn’s offense, A&M’s offense, Syracuse’s offense when Nathaniel Hackett was the offensive coordinator; we researched the Eagles with Chip Kelly; there were a lot of concepts that they ran at Oregon that we installed,” said a former Alabama staffer. “We slowly started implementing that this one word meant the formation, the personnel, the play, everything.”

For example: A running play that was called Silver Flank Right North Stormy Smoke became just North Stormy. “Then everybody knew that’s the formation; the RPO to the field; that’s how we’re getting lined up, the whole bit. We then evolved that to us having the box count RPOs and different things like that. That’s how it all started,” the staffer said.

One of the fastball plays Alabama acquired from Kelly was installed right before the 2016 national title game against Clemson. Alabama even called it the same thing Kelly did— Geronimo — and it hit for a Derrick Henry 50-yard touchdown run on the game’s first score.

Kiffin said he always had relied on using wristbands in communicating the play-calling process. “We always had that wherever we were, and that’s how you could get the long terminology in without having to signal everything in. We started in that direction, but then tried the other thing and said, ‘OK, let’s get rid of wristbands and go as short as we can to be able to play really fast.’

“We did take the boards, which Washington had copied from Oregon … that system that used the boards, which were the formations, so you didn’t have to signal them in. Then, we just signaled the plays, so that shortened down the signaling.”

One of the Tide coaches said that remaking the offense on the fly “was all hands on deck.”

“Everybody had a heavy hand in there,” he said. “The list of fastballs we ended up with was mind-boggling. We tried to use word association for everything we did. We used boards to signal tempo or signal a formation to the boundary. Those guys were, like, doing aerobics on the sideline trying to get the right board up at the right time. It was pretty intense. It just became so extensive. Players had to memorize what was to the field and what was to the boundary.”

Sims proceeded to break the Alabama single-season passing record and led the Crimson Tide to the SEC title. They were the top seed in the College Football Playoff and were upset by No. 4 Ohio State 42-35 in the Sugar Bowl. They also averaged almost 10 plays more than they had in each of the previous two seasons.

“That guy performed miracles,” a former Tide coach said of Rosen. “Just tapping into the brain and helping guys understand to learn. Blake was nonfunctional in what we were doing before the adjustments were made. You’re looking at a 9-3, 8-4 season before the adjustment, for real. Blake got it going in a big-time way.

“Fit the scheme to the athlete, not the other way around. That was the biggest lesson learned there. Get out of your ways and get into whatever works for the player.”

A Process begun by Nick Saban’s frustrations

What transpired at that inflection point in Alabama’s football history wasn’t just related to a shift in the personnel available to the Tide that year but also a response of Saban’s growing frustration with what his defenses — and his program — were now up against.

In 2013, Alabama lost the Iron Bowl to Gus Malzahn’s hurry-up, which converted on 8 of 15 third downs in the Kick-Six game, and also had its hands full with Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M (the program put 628 yards on them). The year prior, the Aggies attack that Kliff Kingsbury piloted beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Hugh Freeze and his up-tempo, RPO-loaded system then beat Saban’s team in back-to-back seasons in 2014 and 2015, when the Rebels beat them 43-37 despite only having the ball for less than 25 minutes.

“We made a tremendous change when Lane came in. Lane had always been the same, kind of philosophy-wise, as we were in terms of pro-style football,” Saban said. “And because of what Ole Miss — and it’s ironic that he’s at Ole Miss now — had done and beaten us several times running the spreads, running the RPOs, running the screens and things that are difficult to defend, and we weren’t utilizing some of those things, which I thought put us at a disadvantage.

“Lane really hadn’t done much of that stuff, either. So when he came in, I said, ‘Look, we want to change this. You need to research this. You’re smart. We can do this.’ He actually did implement that and was the first one to sort of change how we did things on offense. It enhanced our opportunity to score more points.”

It has been quite a 180 for Saban and Alabama.

In October 2012, a few days after West Virginia and Baylor staged a wild 70-63 shootout of more than 1,500 yards of offense, Saban went on the weekly SEC coaches teleconference, grousing about how the hurry-up, no-huddle was taking over football. He launched into what became an epic rant.

“I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety,” he began. “The team gets in the same formation group, you can’t substitute defensive players, you go on a 14-, 16-, 18-play drive and they’re snapping the ball as fast as you can go and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can’t even get lined up. That’s when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt when they’re not ready to play.

“I think that’s something that can be looked at. It’s obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we’re averaging 49.5 points a game. With people that do those kinds of things. More and more people are going to do it. I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking, is this what we want football to be?”

That 70-point reference was a nod to peak Big 12 football, but the rant also came in the wake of Freeze’s uptempo scheme at Ole Miss ripping off touchdown drives of 13 and 16 plays on Saban’s defense in what eventually turned into a Crimson Tide blowout.

“We’d been huddling, lining up in two-tights; we were a python and absolutely strangling people with our defense,” said a former Alabama offensive position coach. “That’s what we were. Credit to Saban. We changed. Lonny exclamation-pointed it, but I think it was headed in that direction.”

Looking outside the SEC to dominate within it

If it gave Saban’s defense headaches, he wanted his staff to dig into it. Two months after Alabama allowed 42 points in the semifinal loss to Ohio State, the offensive staff was on a flight to Houston to visit new Cougars coach Tom Herman, who had been the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator. Herman then visited Saban later that month in Alabama.

“Nick became enamored with that 11-personnel after getting beat by them in ’14,” said one of the Crimson Tide offensive position coaches. “Freeze had entered into the equation. And Nick wasn’t seeing those things in practice and he wanted to see more of that type of stuff in practice so he could defend it.

“It was nothing earth-shattering. We had the film. It’s more of the nuts and bolts of how to operate like that.”

After the 2016 season, Kiffin left Tuscaloosa to become the head coach at FAU. One of the candidates that Saban interviewed for the vacancy was Dan Werner, the former Ole Miss offensive coordinator who had worked with Freeze and had an expertise with RPOs. Saban ultimately hired his old protégé, Brian Daboll, away from the New England Patriots to run the offense, and brought on Werner in an analyst role.

“It’s one thing to say run this play and then here’s the rules on it, but there’re always the little things that may happen if, say, there’s a different technique by a DB,” Werner told The Athletic a few years ago. “That’s what I was there for, since I was doing it the last five years. I could give a little hint for them about what to tell the receiver or to tell the QB.”

In Kiffin’s three seasons at Alabama, he added more nakeds and play-action. “I think he brought quite a bit,” one of the former offensive position coaches said. “The big thing was Lane had experience. He was careless enough that he wasn’t concerned about rubbing Nick the wrong way. He pushed the boundaries more than other people had in the past. He did a good job of utilizing personnel. If he has a good player, he’s gonna feed that player the ball. He did a really good job with the naked play-pass complements.

“Lane’s not a quarterback guy. He’s a receiver guy. His strengths weren’t the drop-back game. The quick game, the five-out game, that is where the quarterback struggled in my opinion. Daboll did a good job of introducing some real progression passing game. The quarterback was getting coached at a very high level.”

When Daboll came to Tuscaloosa from New England, he started incorporating some of the terminology the Patriots used in their no-huddle offense and made it more no-huddle friendly by shortening up the verbiage even more with code words. Daboll also leaned on co-offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, who also has an extensive background in RPOs. “So all of a sudden, there was terminology that came in that was very Patriotsesque in terms of the passing game and in the run game,” said a former Tide offensive assistant.

Daboll spent one season in Tuscaloosa, helping Alabama win the national title before returning to the NFL. Locksley was promoted to the offensive coordinator job in 2018 as the Tide improved from No. 15 in scoring to No. 3. Locksley landed the Maryland job after the season. Saban brought back Sarkisian, an Alabama quality control assistant in 2016 and then one-time Tide play caller for the national title game that season, to call the offense.

“I think Lane really forced or spurred Coach Saban to adapt,” said a former Alabama analyst. “Coaching reads wasn’t his thing, but then Daboll came in and really tightened up that passing game by spacing the field and creating high-lows. He leaves and Locksley really meshed that Patriots passing game with the RPO game that he and (Josh) Gattis had. Then, Sark came back, and coaching reads was something he was really good at, and he was able to dial the quarterback in.”

Steve Sarkisian “was throwing freakin’ haymakers” during his time with the Crimson Tide. (Mickey Welsh / The Montgomery Advertiser via USA Today)

Steve Sarkisian’s finishing touches

“The verbiage was all over the place,” Sarkisian said. “It was kinda all over because there is a baseline that is Coach Saban, his vernacular and what he wants to hear, but year after year, you bring in a new coordinator and they’re gonna put their own twist on it and put different tags on things.

“With Locks and Daboll, there were 100 one-word plays. With Lane, there might’ve been five a game. So it was, who are we gonna be? We kinda had both. We were a no-huddle team the last two years but we didn’t necessarily go super fast. Our deal was we wanted to run the best plays available every chance we could. The reality of it, we implemented more shifts and motions than probably had been in that offense in the previous 5-6 years and kinda went back to that — although we didn’t huddle.

Under Sarkisian, Alabama was less reliant on RPOs and did more play-action. There were less drop-back passes, save for third downs; more 12-personnel; and much more aggression in a willingness to go downfield.

“He was always interested in completions but he wasn’t hunting 5- and 7-yard completions to keep the chains moving,” said one of the former Alabama assistants. “He was throwing freakin’ haymakers. Some people inherit a fast car and they drive it 85 miles an hour or a little bit over the speed limit. Sark inherited a fast car and he drove it 135 miles an hour, and it was fun to watch.

“He could’ve lined up and been real conservative and still probably beat people, but I don’t know about Florida. If you’re not as aggressive as Sark was, and you don’t really test the boundaries with all the good tools that you have — he pushed it to the limit, and to me, I think we needed it when it came down on the Florida game. Those guys could score with us.”

Sarkisian, who has made “All Gas No Breaks” the mantra for his program at Texas, said his approach at Alabama was about playing to the team’s strengths more than trying to blow up scoreboards.

“At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to win, not put numbers up, and I felt like we had a chance to be uniquely special,” he said. “We were different those two years when I was the OC. My first year, we were four-wide receiver sets, a lot of RPOs, a little more play-action pass — Tua (Tagovailoa) with the quick trigger, create running lanes with space.

“The next year with Mac (Jones), it became more two tight end sets, downhill running game, play-action pass, moving (Jaylen) Waddle and Smitty around just to create those matchups … it became more matchup-based. The end result: We wanted to be very aggressive and the players knew it but the aggressive nature came because that’s what we felt like we were best at. It was pretty clear from Coach Saban down that us being aggressive was what was best for the team.”

In Sarkisian’s first season calling the offense, Alabama averaged a then-school-record 47.2 points per game. Last season, the Tide set the current record for points per game, averaging 49 points per game, and also led the country in third down percentage. Sarkisian who was fired from his last head coaching stint at USC, parlayed his success with Bama into landing the head coaching job at Texas.

Bill O’Brien comes full circle to Tuscaloosa

His replacement is O’Brien, who returns to college football for the first time in seven years. The hire may have seemed like an odd fit given the way his tenure with the Houston Texans, ended but then again, Kiffin and Sarkisian seemed like odd fits too, and it wasn’t like Locksley’s stock was exactly soaring either when he arrived in Tuscaloosa. O’Brien has never worked with Saban before, but he did spend five seasons coaching with one of his best friends, Bill Belichick, in New England.

O’Brien is now Alabama’s fifth offensive coordinator in eight seasons. Alabama has run through a dozen coaches for wide receivers, the offensive line and running backs. O’Brien will have to break in a new quarterback in freshman Bryce Young, as Mac Jones is one of five departed starters on offense who left as a first-round NFL draft pick. In all, only three offensive starters return, but two are All-SEC linemen: Evan Neal and Emil Ekiyor Jr.

“Alabama, quite obviously, has proven to be a very special place to play and coach,” O’Brien said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity that Coach Saban has given me. To work and learn from someone like Coach Saban — I’m going into my 29th year of coaching — that’s not something that can be replicated. I’ve only been here for seven months, and I have already learned a ton.”

O’Brien said Saban has told him “a little bit” about how the Alabama offense has evolved over time and how each coordinator has put his own touch on it.

“Every year’s different,” O’Brien said. “I think in the end, it comes down to who your players are, what can they do best, who your quarterback is, what can he do best, and what’s best for the team. No year is like any other year, so this year will be very different than any other year, and that’s just the way it is in football. That’s the way it’s always been in my career. And these guys are working hard every single day to try to improve.”

One of the former Alabama assistants who left Tuscaloosa and is now running his own program pivoted from the discussion of scheme to make sure one point was hammered home above all: Regardless of how much talent O’Brien, or any other offensive coach has inherited, and no matter what plays they run or verbiage they use, there is one key factor when it comes to making the system work better than any other in football.

“The king of all this is Nick Saban,” he said. “You’re put through that grinder because you’re competing against Nick and his defense every day, and he has a lot of ideas to contribute. The verbiage never gets too far away from him where he can’t sustain it. He’s not letting you come in and run your offense. You gotta operate within the installation plan. There is a progression to it all. He controls it.

“You’re talking about alphas now, and you have lots of ’em in one room. It’s impressive. His ability to hire the right people, to manage their egos and to continue to recruit and develop offensive talent. The consistency and the routine and structure and to keep the thing rolling, to allow minor tweaks and adjustments on the other side of the ball and keep the thing rolling, it’s really miraculous. It’s the Alabama way. Revolving door of assistants from a number of different play callers and line coaches … it truly is amazing.”

(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Sounds like Sark will just adapt the schemes to the type of players we have as opposed to forcing the players to a particular style.

Skipper · August 23, 2021

7 minutes ago, westexhorn said:

Sounds like Sark will just adapt the schemes to the type of players we have as opposed to forcing the players to a particular style.

Yeah, I think it's telling he indicates his last year at Bama they weren't just aggressive for the sake of being aggressive but they were aggressive because it is what they are best at. We obviously don't have personnel like Waddle/Smith. I do expect Sark is going to figure out what we're best at but I think people that expect we're going to double our explosive plays overnight are setting themselves up to be disappointed.

GoldAppleCorps · August 23, 2021

11 minutes ago, westexhorn said:

Sounds like Sark will just adapt the schemes to the type of players we have as opposed to forcing the players to a particular style.

This is what I've been noticing for a bit.

Seems Herman would say, "Here's the plays I want to run. Teach your group to do this.".

Sark asks, "What does your group do well? We'll run those plays.".

Wiler77 · August 23, 2021

10 minutes ago, GoldAppleCorps said:

Sark asks, "What does your group do well? "

It was good enough for the 3 Amigos to defeat El Guapo. Should be good enough for us to win 10 games.

Fud · August 23, 2021

The BOB media apparatus is already in full force in T-town, I see

Gucci_Suit · August 23, 2021

58 minutes ago, Steamboat1874 said:

Well he is money.

And he doesn’t even know it. He’s the guy in the rated R film.

Enchubben · August 23, 2021

4 minutes ago, GoldAppleCorps said:

This is what I've been noticing for a bit.

Seems Herman would say, "Here's the plays I want to run. Teach your group to do this.".

Sark asks, "What does your group do well? We'll run those plays.".

Unblocked Cade Brewer WR screen? Go route to Malcom Epps? Sam Ehlinger sprint/option play. I'm shocked he didn't work out here.

Fud · August 23, 2021

21 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Yeah, I think it's telling he indicates his last year at Bama they weren't just aggressive for the sake of being aggressive but they were aggressive because it is what they are best at. We obviously don't have personnel like Waddle/Smith. I do expect Sark is going to figure out what we're best at but I think people that expect we're going to double our explosive plays overnight are setting themselves up to be disappointed.

He's still going to try and score on deep play-action passes and giving the ball to fast WRs on the move

elguapo · August 23, 2021

5 minutes ago, Wiler77 said:

It was good enough for the 3 Amigos to defeat El Guapo. Should be good enough for us to win 10 games.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot · August 23, 2021

It was good enough for the 3 Amigos to defeat El Guapo. Should be good enough for us to win 10 games.

Sew! Sew like the wind!

Sent from my motorola edge plus using Tapatalk

Newy25 · August 23, 2021

If you thought Sark was aggressive with Waddle, Jeudy and Smith just wait until you see what he does with Cade Brewer and Kai Money.

Pig Bellmont · August 23, 2021

30 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Yeah, I think it's telling he indicates his last year at Bama they weren't just aggressive for the sake of being aggressive but they were aggressive because it is what they are best at. We obviously don't have personnel like Waddle/Smith. I do expect Sark is going to figure out what we're best at but I think people that expect we're going to double our explosive plays overnight are setting themselves up to be disappointed.

A little gas, some brakes?

gmr548 · August 23, 2021

Not seeing Tyler Johnson even mentioned in the two deep continues to be disappointing, but I will continue to hold out hope he is a late bloomer or Flood can rectify the abysmal coaching he received since he got here.
That led me down a rabbit hole of how he compares to other "elite" offensive lineman we've recruited the last ten years. Since the 2011 class, we've had 7 O line recruits with a .97 ranking or higher: Sedrick Flowers, Curtis Riser, Kennedy Estelle, Kent Perkins, Darius James, Patrick Hudson, and Tyler Johnson. Rough. Of course offensive lineman are the toughest position to project and we've hit on guys like Sam Cosmi and Connor Williams, but that really highlights the shit show our O line coaching has been the last decade. Here's hoping Flood is the guy that turns it all around.

Yeah it’s really disappointing a 19-20 year old with one real off-season off college conditioning, and reportedly a lingering COVID case the prior offseason, can’t crack the starting line up on a OL unit that’s basically BYU with three fifth and sixth year seniors in line to play - those guys are what, 24? OL with three or four fewer years of experience are in line for OL playing time at healthy programs all the time! It’s why Hayden Connor is being treated as such a routine occurrence.

Some of y’all, I swear.

perfectchaos007 · August 23, 2021

33 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

A little gas, some brakes?

Nah it’s still all gas no brakes, but Bama’s ride has 700 horsepower while ours is a Honda Civic. Good news is, a Civic can still go pretty fast if you’re all gas no brakes

Edited August 23, 2021 by perfectchaos007

NoName · August 23, 2021

3 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Nah it’s still all gas no brakes, but Bama’s ride has 700 horsepower while ours is a Honda Civic. Good news is, a Civic can still go pretty fast if you’re all gas no brakes

ALL GAS, MINIMAL BRAKES

Royale with cheese · August 23, 2021

3 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

Jesus, how young are you?

Displaying ignorance is what the interweb, and especially Surly, is for. It's what we do.

texifornia · August 23, 2021

6 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Nah it’s still all gas no brakes, but Bama’s ride has 700 horsepower while ours is a Honda Civic. Good news is, a Civic can still go pretty fast if you’re all gas no brakes

#SteveSarkisianTexasFootball

SydneyCarton · August 23, 2021

6 minutes ago, texifornia said:

#SteveSarkisianTexasFootball

Fun Fact, this is Tex’s actual car.

Reynolds Woodcock · August 23, 2021

3 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

Yeah it’s really disappointing a 19-20 year old with one real off-season off college conditioning, and reportedly a lingering COVID case the prior offseason, can’t crack the starting line up on a OL unit that’s basically BYU with three fifth and sixth year seniors in line to play - those guys are what, 24? OL with three or four fewer years of experience are in line for OL playing time at healthy programs all the time! It’s why Hayden Connor is being treated as such a routine occurrence.

Some of y’all, I swear.

I didn't say starting, I said two deep. Do you understand what that means? Being behind a younger player with a lesser pedigree and particularly a guy like Tope Imade is disappointing for a recruit like Tyler Johnson. It doesn't mean he is a lost cause and it doesn't mean it's all or even primarily his fault. If you want to rationalize and explain it away, have at it. But you would think after 10 years of getting kicked in the nuts you would quit trying to excuse the nut kicking.

texifornia · August 23, 2021

7 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Fun Fact, this is Tex’s actual car.

I might get a ticket every time I drive the WeebRocket, but at least women refuse to be seen inside it.

Vito Andolini · August 23, 2021

3 hours ago, TheBryMan81 said:

I got you fam

Reveal hidden contents

The beast that the Alabama offense has evolved into in the last decade has the most unique origin story of any system in football. It’s not the brainchild of a coach or two who sketched out their visions on an endless array of grease boards or bar napkins.

No, tracing the path that the Tide has taken to get to this place — mid-Aughts top 20 offenses to the most explosive attack in college football — is as vexing as how it’s become for opposing defenses to try and handle.

In fact, there have been so many different architects and caretakers, and so many assistants and staffers who have come and gone — and many of them have come … and gone … and come back again — that it has led to a lot of debate about the process behind The Process in Tuscaloosa.

An origin myth’s beginnings … with The New England Patriots

Depending on which former Alabama coaching staffers you ask, Bill O’Brien, Nick Saban’s newest offensive coordinator, had his fingerprints on the Crimson Tide offense long before he accepted a job with the team this year.

“The Patriots, at that point, were getting into the one-word plays, and that’s when Alabama started implementing them,” said one former Tide assistant. “We had a menu of those. That came from Bill O’Brien. I think it was before 2011.”

Jim McElwain, Alabama’s offensive coordinator from 2008-11, couldn’t pinpoint a specific meeting with O’Brien: “We used fastballs while I was there, but I can’t say for certain that it came from the Patriots or Coach O’Brien.”

Another former staffer remembers O’Brien coming to Tuscaloosa a few times. Once, in 2012, after O’Brien became the head coach at Penn State, he wanted to learn how Saban’s teams practice and how the Alabama coach navigated the differences between college and the NFL game. O’Brien brought a few Penn State assistants with him on the visit in the spirit of professional development.

“I remember him meeting with the offense and talking red zone and some tempo stuff they did (with the) Patriots, ‘fastball’ stuff and coverage indicator stuff,” the staffer said of O’Brien’s input on using one-word or fastball play calls — all to simplify things so the offensive can be faster. “I remember thinking what a great teacher he was and how he made things so easy to grasp and made sense. They (Alabama) already had some of it in 2009, but I think he definitely got some expansion and ways to use it, getting on the ball and stressing defense. It always helped getting installed if it came from Patriots.”

A fourth former staffer didn’t think it came from O’Brien, and said whatever concepts they got from the Patriots offense back then came from Josh McDaniels, and it was made to fit more to the old Bama pro-style system. The one-word fastball concepts were something the Tide staff had home-cooked right before the 2014 season out of necessity, the staffer said.

The 2014 season was Lane Kiffin’s first at Alabama. Kiffin had just been fired by USC. “He really had the same pro-style system we had,” said that former staffer. “Really wordy. Philosophically, it was very similar. A lot on the quarterback to get the offense in and out of the right runs, checking to passes, flipping the protections if need be.”

The problem? Both of the Alabama quarterbacks competing for the starting job struggled with the system.

Blake Sims had bounced from safety, slot receiver, running back and then finally to quarterback. Jacob Coker had just transferred in from Florida State, where he’d played for Saban protégé Jimbo Fisher. After the second preseason scrimmage, Sims beat Coker for the job.

Sims had been a standout high school quarterback in Georgia but he wasn’t recruited by the Tide to play it. Alabama coaches thought he had great instincts and feel for the game and loved that he was a terrific recruiter and total team guy. He’d proven to be a great ambassador for the program. He was selfless.

His position had switched back and forth roughly four or five times, where he was good enough at both receiver and at safety but didn’t shine at either. He also was asked to jump in at scout team quarterback whenever Bama had to get ready for a mobile quarterback. Inside the program there was a lot of skepticism how Sims would run the offense.

According to multiple sources, a key figure in helping get the new quarterback ready — and in re-making the Tide’s offense — is a man who has never coached a down at Alabama or anywhere else.

Bill O’Brien has only just joined the Alabama staff, but his fingertips have been on the program for a decade. (Kent Gidley)

The psychiatry professor and The Process philosophy

Lionel “Lonny” Rosen, a professor in the psychiatry department at Michigan State, had known Saban for two decades and had become an invaluable resource. Rosen is the godfather of Saban’s “Process” philosophy upon which the Alabama program was built.

“Lonny came in every year and would do his evaluations and gave his recommendation on how to reach kids and coach them,” said a former Alabama assistant. “One thing that he said about Blake was that he would get really nervous.”

In one of Rosen’s sessions with the offensive staff, Rosen asked Kiffin to recite one of their plays. Kiffin rattled off some sentence-long thing that left the psychiatry professor wincing: “Huh? That’s a play? You all are a bunch of freaking imbeciles. I have anxiety just listening to that!”

“I don’t remember that,” said Kiffin with a chuckle. “I think you’re getting some interesting tales coming out of there. I don’t think the Michigan State psychiatrist had anything to do with us going to smaller terminology.”

About two weeks before the 2014 season opener against West Virginia, Kiffin and the staff brainstormed ways to help Sims operate the offense that suited his athleticism without getting bogged down trying to recite a whole bunch of words.

“We researched Auburn’s offense, A&M’s offense, Syracuse’s offense when Nathaniel Hackett was the offensive coordinator; we researched the Eagles with Chip Kelly; there were a lot of concepts that they ran at Oregon that we installed,” said a former Alabama staffer. “We slowly started implementing that this one word meant the formation, the personnel, the play, everything.”

For example: A running play that was called Silver Flank Right North Stormy Smoke became just North Stormy. “Then everybody knew that’s the formation; the RPO to the field; that’s how we’re getting lined up, the whole bit. We then evolved that to us having the box count RPOs and different things like that. That’s how it all started,” the staffer said.

One of the fastball plays Alabama acquired from Kelly was installed right before the 2016 national title game against Clemson. Alabama even called it the same thing Kelly did— Geronimo — and it hit for a Derrick Henry 50-yard touchdown run on the game’s first score.

Kiffin said he always had relied on using wristbands in communicating the play-calling process. “We always had that wherever we were, and that’s how you could get the long terminology in without having to signal everything in. We started in that direction, but then tried the other thing and said, ‘OK, let’s get rid of wristbands and go as short as we can to be able to play really fast.’

“We did take the boards, which Washington had copied from Oregon … that system that used the boards, which were the formations, so you didn’t have to signal them in. Then, we just signaled the plays, so that shortened down the signaling.”

One of the Tide coaches said that remaking the offense on the fly “was all hands on deck.”

“Everybody had a heavy hand in there,” he said. “The list of fastballs we ended up with was mind-boggling. We tried to use word association for everything we did. We used boards to signal tempo or signal a formation to the boundary. Those guys were, like, doing aerobics on the sideline trying to get the right board up at the right time. It was pretty intense. It just became so extensive. Players had to memorize what was to the field and what was to the boundary.”

Sims proceeded to break the Alabama single-season passing record and led the Crimson Tide to the SEC title. They were the top seed in the College Football Playoff and were upset by No. 4 Ohio State 42-35 in the Sugar Bowl. They also averaged almost 10 plays more than they had in each of the previous two seasons.

“That guy performed miracles,” a former Tide coach said of Rosen. “Just tapping into the brain and helping guys understand to learn. Blake was nonfunctional in what we were doing before the adjustments were made. You’re looking at a 9-3, 8-4 season before the adjustment, for real. Blake got it going in a big-time way.

“Fit the scheme to the athlete, not the other way around. That was the biggest lesson learned there. Get out of your ways and get into whatever works for the player.”

A Process begun by Nick Saban’s frustrations

What transpired at that inflection point in Alabama’s football history wasn’t just related to a shift in the personnel available to the Tide that year but also a response of Saban’s growing frustration with what his defenses — and his program — were now up against.

In 2013, Alabama lost the Iron Bowl to Gus Malzahn’s hurry-up, which converted on 8 of 15 third downs in the Kick-Six game, and also had its hands full with Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M (the program put 628 yards on them). The year prior, the Aggies attack that Kliff Kingsbury piloted beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Hugh Freeze and his up-tempo, RPO-loaded system then beat Saban’s team in back-to-back seasons in 2014 and 2015, when the Rebels beat them 43-37 despite only having the ball for less than 25 minutes.

“We made a tremendous change when Lane came in. Lane had always been the same, kind of philosophy-wise, as we were in terms of pro-style football,” Saban said. “And because of what Ole Miss — and it’s ironic that he’s at Ole Miss now — had done and beaten us several times running the spreads, running the RPOs, running the screens and things that are difficult to defend, and we weren’t utilizing some of those things, which I thought put us at a disadvantage.

“Lane really hadn’t done much of that stuff, either. So when he came in, I said, ‘Look, we want to change this. You need to research this. You’re smart. We can do this.’ He actually did implement that and was the first one to sort of change how we did things on offense. It enhanced our opportunity to score more points.”

It has been quite a 180 for Saban and Alabama.

In October 2012, a few days after West Virginia and Baylor staged a wild 70-63 shootout of more than 1,500 yards of offense, Saban went on the weekly SEC coaches teleconference, grousing about how the hurry-up, no-huddle was taking over football. He launched into what became an epic rant.

“I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety,” he began. “The team gets in the same formation group, you can’t substitute defensive players, you go on a 14-, 16-, 18-play drive and they’re snapping the ball as fast as you can go and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can’t even get lined up. That’s when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt when they’re not ready to play.

“I think that’s something that can be looked at. It’s obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we’re averaging 49.5 points a game. With people that do those kinds of things. More and more people are going to do it. I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking, is this what we want football to be?”

That 70-point reference was a nod to peak Big 12 football, but the rant also came in the wake of Freeze’s uptempo scheme at Ole Miss ripping off touchdown drives of 13 and 16 plays on Saban’s defense in what eventually turned into a Crimson Tide blowout.

“We’d been huddling, lining up in two-tights; we were a python and absolutely strangling people with our defense,” said a former Alabama offensive position coach. “That’s what we were. Credit to Saban. We changed. Lonny exclamation-pointed it, but I think it was headed in that direction.”

Looking outside the SEC to dominate within it

If it gave Saban’s defense headaches, he wanted his staff to dig into it. Two months after Alabama allowed 42 points in the semifinal loss to Ohio State, the offensive staff was on a flight to Houston to visit new Cougars coach Tom Herman, who had been the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator. Herman then visited Saban later that month in Alabama.

“Nick became enamored with that 11-personnel after getting beat by them in ’14,” said one of the Crimson Tide offensive position coaches. “Freeze had entered into the equation. And Nick wasn’t seeing those things in practice and he wanted to see more of that type of stuff in practice so he could defend it.

“It was nothing earth-shattering. We had the film. It’s more of the nuts and bolts of how to operate like that.”

After the 2016 season, Kiffin left Tuscaloosa to become the head coach at FAU. One of the candidates that Saban interviewed for the vacancy was Dan Werner, the former Ole Miss offensive coordinator who had worked with Freeze and had an expertise with RPOs. Saban ultimately hired his old protégé, Brian Daboll, away from the New England Patriots to run the offense, and brought on Werner in an analyst role.

“It’s one thing to say run this play and then here’s the rules on it, but there’re always the little things that may happen if, say, there’s a different technique by a DB,” Werner told The Athletic a few years ago. “That’s what I was there for, since I was doing it the last five years. I could give a little hint for them about what to tell the receiver or to tell the QB.”

In Kiffin’s three seasons at Alabama, he added more nakeds and play-action. “I think he brought quite a bit,” one of the former offensive position coaches said. “The big thing was Lane had experience. He was careless enough that he wasn’t concerned about rubbing Nick the wrong way. He pushed the boundaries more than other people had in the past. He did a good job of utilizing personnel. If he has a good player, he’s gonna feed that player the ball. He did a really good job with the naked play-pass complements.

“Lane’s not a quarterback guy. He’s a receiver guy. His strengths weren’t the drop-back game. The quick game, the five-out game, that is where the quarterback struggled in my opinion. Daboll did a good job of introducing some real progression passing game. The quarterback was getting coached at a very high level.”

When Daboll came to Tuscaloosa from New England, he started incorporating some of the terminology the Patriots used in their no-huddle offense and made it more no-huddle friendly by shortening up the verbiage even more with code words. Daboll also leaned on co-offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, who also has an extensive background in RPOs. “So all of a sudden, there was terminology that came in that was very Patriotsesque in terms of the passing game and in the run game,” said a former Tide offensive assistant.

Daboll spent one season in Tuscaloosa, helping Alabama win the national title before returning to the NFL. Locksley was promoted to the offensive coordinator job in 2018 as the Tide improved from No. 15 in scoring to No. 3. Locksley landed the Maryland job after the season. Saban brought back Sarkisian, an Alabama quality control assistant in 2016 and then one-time Tide play caller for the national title game that season, to call the offense.

“I think Lane really forced or spurred Coach Saban to adapt,” said a former Alabama analyst. “Coaching reads wasn’t his thing, but then Daboll came in and really tightened up that passing game by spacing the field and creating high-lows. He leaves and Locksley really meshed that Patriots passing game with the RPO game that he and (Josh) Gattis had. Then, Sark came back, and coaching reads was something he was really good at, and he was able to dial the quarterback in.”

Steve Sarkisian “was throwing freakin’ haymakers” during his time with the Crimson Tide. (Mickey Welsh / The Montgomery Advertiser via USA Today)

Steve Sarkisian’s finishing touches

“The verbiage was all over the place,” Sarkisian said. “It was kinda all over because there is a baseline that is Coach Saban, his vernacular and what he wants to hear, but year after year, you bring in a new coordinator and they’re gonna put their own twist on it and put different tags on things.

“With Locks and Daboll, there were 100 one-word plays. With Lane, there might’ve been five a game. So it was, who are we gonna be? We kinda had both. We were a no-huddle team the last two years but we didn’t necessarily go super fast. Our deal was we wanted to run the best plays available every chance we could. The reality of it, we implemented more shifts and motions than probably had been in that offense in the previous 5-6 years and kinda went back to that — although we didn’t huddle.

Under Sarkisian, Alabama was less reliant on RPOs and did more play-action. There were less drop-back passes, save for third downs; more 12-personnel; and much more aggression in a willingness to go downfield.

“He was always interested in completions but he wasn’t hunting 5- and 7-yard completions to keep the chains moving,” said one of the former Alabama assistants. “He was throwing freakin’ haymakers. Some people inherit a fast car and they drive it 85 miles an hour or a little bit over the speed limit. Sark inherited a fast car and he drove it 135 miles an hour, and it was fun to watch.

“He could’ve lined up and been real conservative and still probably beat people, but I don’t know about Florida. If you’re not as aggressive as Sark was, and you don’t really test the boundaries with all the good tools that you have — he pushed it to the limit, and to me, I think we needed it when it came down on the Florida game. Those guys could score with us.”

Sarkisian, who has made “All Gas No Breaks” the mantra for his program at Texas, said his approach at Alabama was about playing to the team’s strengths more than trying to blow up scoreboards.

“At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to win, not put numbers up, and I felt like we had a chance to be uniquely special,” he said. “We were different those two years when I was the OC. My first year, we were four-wide receiver sets, a lot of RPOs, a little more play-action pass — Tua (Tagovailoa) with the quick trigger, create running lanes with space.

“The next year with Mac (Jones), it became more two tight end sets, downhill running game, play-action pass, moving (Jaylen) Waddle and Smitty around just to create those matchups … it became more matchup-based. The end result: We wanted to be very aggressive and the players knew it but the aggressive nature came because that’s what we felt like we were best at. It was pretty clear from Coach Saban down that us being aggressive was what was best for the team.”

In Sarkisian’s first season calling the offense, Alabama averaged a then-school-record 47.2 points per game. Last season, the Tide set the current record for points per game, averaging 49 points per game, and also led the country in third down percentage. Sarkisian who was fired from his last head coaching stint at USC, parlayed his success with Bama into landing the head coaching job at Texas.

Bill O’Brien comes full circle to Tuscaloosa

His replacement is O’Brien, who returns to college football for the first time in seven years. The hire may have seemed like an odd fit given the way his tenure with the Houston Texans, ended but then again, Kiffin and Sarkisian seemed like odd fits too, and it wasn’t like Locksley’s stock was exactly soaring either when he arrived in Tuscaloosa. O’Brien has never worked with Saban before, but he did spend five seasons coaching with one of his best friends, Bill Belichick, in New England.

O’Brien is now Alabama’s fifth offensive coordinator in eight seasons. Alabama has run through a dozen coaches for wide receivers, the offensive line and running backs. O’Brien will have to break in a new quarterback in freshman Bryce Young, as Mac Jones is one of five departed starters on offense who left as a first-round NFL draft pick. In all, only three offensive starters return, but two are All-SEC linemen: Evan Neal and Emil Ekiyor Jr.

“Alabama, quite obviously, has proven to be a very special place to play and coach,” O’Brien said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity that Coach Saban has given me. To work and learn from someone like Coach Saban — I’m going into my 29th year of coaching — that’s not something that can be replicated. I’ve only been here for seven months, and I have already learned a ton.”

O’Brien said Saban has told him “a little bit” about how the Alabama offense has evolved over time and how each coordinator has put his own touch on it.

“Every year’s different,” O’Brien said. “I think in the end, it comes down to who your players are, what can they do best, who your quarterback is, what can he do best, and what’s best for the team. No year is like any other year, so this year will be very different than any other year, and that’s just the way it is in football. That’s the way it’s always been in my career. And these guys are working hard every single day to try to improve.”

One of the former Alabama assistants who left Tuscaloosa and is now running his own program pivoted from the discussion of scheme to make sure one point was hammered home above all: Regardless of how much talent O’Brien, or any other offensive coach has inherited, and no matter what plays they run or verbiage they use, there is one key factor when it comes to making the system work better than any other in football.

“The king of all this is Nick Saban,” he said. “You’re put through that grinder because you’re competing against Nick and his defense every day, and he has a lot of ideas to contribute. The verbiage never gets too far away from him where he can’t sustain it. He’s not letting you come in and run your offense. You gotta operate within the installation plan. There is a progression to it all. He controls it.

“You’re talking about alphas now, and you have lots of ’em in one room. It’s impressive. His ability to hire the right people, to manage their egos and to continue to recruit and develop offensive talent. The consistency and the routine and structure and to keep the thing rolling, to allow minor tweaks and adjustments on the other side of the ball and keep the thing rolling, it’s really miraculous. It’s the Alabama way. Revolving door of assistants from a number of different play callers and line coaches … it truly is amazing.”

(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

You’ve been doing a good job lately, BryMan. You’re becoming one of our top men.

Napoleon · August 23, 2021

1 hour ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Nah it’s still all gas no brakes, but Bama’s ride has 700 horsepower while ours is a Honda Civic. Good news is, a Civic can still go pretty fast if you’re all gas no brakes

1 hour ago, texifornia said:

#SteveSarkisianTexasFootball

All Gas…

…Occasional NOS !!

Herpa Derpa · August 23, 2021

Just keep it on the track!

Darth Tron · August 23, 2021

11 minutes ago, Vito Andolini said:

You’ve been doing a good job lately, BryMan. You’re becoming one of our top men.

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