Alabama has been the dominant program of this era, and the Tide have never looked less beatable than they do right now. They’re 13-0 heading into a Playoff semifinal against Washington at the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Eve (3 p.m. ET, ESPN), and they’re a clear favorite to win it all a week later.
Washington can disrupt Alabama’s passing, but what about that run game?
The Huskies might have one advantage on Bama’s offense. One.
For most of the country, Alabama is literally unbeatable. Most teams don’t have the talent for their shot at beating Bama to be anything more than a rounding error.
But Washington isn’t one of those teams. S&P+ gives the Huskies a roughly 30 percent chance of beating the Tide. Vegas favors Bama by about 15.
Washington’s offense is excellent. Its 44.5 points per game are third in the FBS, and there’s talent all over the field. But that falls to an ordinary 33 in three ranked games.
If Washington is to beat Alabama, it’ll need just about everything to work. But it will start on defense, not offense.
Washington’s defense has played better against ranked teams.
The Huskies gave up 18.2 points, on average, to their 10 unranked opponents. But against the top 25, they allowed 14. They held Stanford to six, USC to 26, and Colorado to 10 in the Pac-12 Championship.
Washington lost that USC game but held the Trojans to their second-lowest output in an eight-game winning streak. Colorado’s offense was good this year, and Stanford’s was bad, though the Cardinal do have a nice, beefy offensive line. Here’s what the Huskies did to it:
Washington also had great showings against Oregon (the No. 29 offense, scoring 21 points) and Washington State (No. 14, scoring 10). The Huskies can stop good offenses, whether those teams sit in the top 25 or not.
Alabama’s a different beast. The Tide have no offensive weaknesses.
Mike Leach’s Washington State air raid is different from Lane Kiffin’s spread running system that true freshman Jalen Hurts has run so expertly. Alabama ran for a ridiculous 5.7 yards per carry against a difficult schedule, and the Tide have a fairly good passing game.
LSU held Bama to 10 points, and otherwise, nobody consistently kept Bama out of its groove. Everyone else has given up 30 or many, many more.
It doesn’t help that Alabama has 10 defensive touchdowns and four more on punt returns. Stopping Bama’s offense is hard, but you have to do even more than that to keep the Tide off the scoreboard.
But some things about Bama’s offense are merely good, not great. The Huskies are fifth in the country in adjusted sack rate, while Alabama is 44th in the same stat on offense. The good things about the passing offense are more top-25 than top-five. And Alabama gets stuffed at the line on 20 percent of its runs, which is 86th in the country.
Washington can make life hard on Hurts ...
Washington is a good pressure defense. The Huskies bring down opposing QBs about three times per game, 19th in the country. There’s no single prolific pass-rusher, but 14 players have at least recorded a partial sack each, and nine have at least two.
In Bama’s 13 games, Hurts was sacked once or fewer in eight games. But Texas A&M got him three times. So did FCS Chattanooga. Washington has the chops to disrupt him, at least.
Behind Washington’s pass rush, the secondary is one of the best. Washington is missing injured linebacker Azeem Victor, who had been an important seam defender against passes to tight ends. But the Huskies still have SB Nation All-American safety Budda Baker and a couple of good cornerbacks. Kevin King and Sidney Jones have five interceptions and 19 breakups between them. Freshman safety Kevin Rapp has four picks, including two in the Pac-12 title game, where he ran one back for a score and was named game MVP. Rapp shares time opposite Baker with Jojo McIntosh, the team’s fourth-leading tackler, who’s forced a pair of fumbles.
Alabama’s offense is loaded at the skill positions. There’s no prescription to guarantee you can stop Calvin Ridley and ArDarius Stewart. Without Victor, tight end O.J. Howard, a darling of last year’s Playoff, could have a day. Hurts doesn’t throw much to his running backs, but if Washington’s bugging him, one or two could slip behind the pass rush and do some damage.
... but that only matters if Washington can slow down the run.
Whether Washington can do anything about Bama’s rushing attack — which now runs around teams as much as it runs through them — is an open question. It’s closely related to the issue of stopping Hurts, who runs almost half as often as he throws and often has options to do either on the same play.
Washington’s run defense is quite good. The Huskies are seventh against the run by S&P+ and 18th by yards allowed per carry (3.5). 6’5, 332-pound sophomore Vita Vea is a havoc-wreaker. The same is true of first-team All-Pac-12 tackle Elijah Qualls. Washington often lines them up as three-technique tackles, so if you’re running, you’re going toward one either way.
Qualls is an incredible player. He is listed at 321 pounds and can do all the run-stuffing you’d think, but he can also chase fast guys from an outside linebacker position. Washington sometimes uses him to cover running backs or receivers in the flat. No. 11 here:
Having huge, fast linemen who can play outside the box seems like it’d be helpful against Hurts, yes.
Other teams Alabama has played and destroyed have great fronts. Having Myles Garrett didn’t stop Texas A&M from giving up 5 yards per run. Alabama’s option game is designed to make edge defenders wrong.
All we can say for Washington is that the Huskies have a good run defense with good players. Is that enough to stop Hurts, Damien Harris, Bo Scarbrough, and Joshua Jacobs?
The Huskies probably won’t get Florida’d, at least.
Florida has a top-10 defense that’s just about identical in caliber to Washington’s. The Gators are 10th in points per game and eighth in S&P+. Alabama, with help from its defense, dropped 54 on UF.
Why would it be different now, in the same Georgia Dome?
Washington gets more sacks and more pressure than Florida and plays the run a little better, overall. The Huskies get more interceptions, though UF holds teams to a lower efficiency rating.
And Florida’s offense is terrible. Washington’s has been elite enough to not have 10 drives end in punts or turnovers, as Florida’s did. The SEC Championship was a formality because no matter what Florida did on defense, its offense wasn’t going to score enough to beat Alabama.
This game doesn’t have to be like that game. Washington’s offense is sentient. The defense just needs to give it a chance, and Bama might have to sweat.
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