Clemson’s Kelly Bryant offers some unique challenges for the banged-up Alabama defense, but he’s still probably going to have to make some big passes at some point since you can’t run on the Tide without another threat involved.
How should Alabama choose to attack Clemson’s loaded defense?
It’s often lazy to say a football game is all about the QBs, but the Sugar Bowl really is.
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
The same goes for Alabama QB Jalen Hurts.
But here’s some data to show just how important Hurts’ performance will be.
I’ve spent some time in 2017 looking at the differences between successful and unsuccessful drives and what it can tell us about a team. (Here’s a Wisconsin example.) Let’s lay out some national 2017 stats comparing scoring drives and non-scoring drives.
Successes vs. nonsuccesses
Category | Scoring drives | Non-scoring drives | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Success rate* | 51% | 26% | -25% |
| Rushing success rate | 49% | 27% | -22% |
| Passing success rate | 56% | 25% | -31% |
| Standard downs success rate | 53% | 31% | -22% |
| Passing downs success rate | 50% | 16% | -34% |
* Success rate measures how many of an offense’s plays gain sufficient yardage. The terms of success: gaining 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third or fourth down. For more on the power of efficiency and the success rate measure, read this. Passing downs are second-and-8 or more or third/fourth-and-5 or more, while all others are standard downs.
It is not a surprise to see that teams are more efficient on scoring drives. But the spread between success and non-success is larger when it comes to passing and passing downs. And the data says that at some point, to score, you’re going to have to make a play on a passing down.
For Bama, successful passing was more crucial to scoring drives than for most teams.
Bama successes vs. non-successes
Category | Bama scoring drives | Bama non-scoring drives | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Success rate | 58% | 26% | -32% |
| Rushing success rate | 55% | 32% | -23% |
| Passing success rate | 63% | 17% | -46% |
| Standard downs success rate | 59% | 32% | -27% |
| Passing downs success rate | 55% | 13% | -42% |
Bama’s aerial attack is even more all-or-nothing than the norm. And it gets even more extreme against good defenses. In four games against teams in the Def. S&P+ top 20, Bama’s passing success rate was 65 percent on scoring drives and 12 percent on non-scoring drives.
When the Tide are passing well, they are almost unbeatable. But that’s easier said than done.
While Hurts has a 129.5 passer rating on throws within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, Clemson allows a 102.6 rating on such passes.
Hurts has a 175.1 rating on passes 6 or more yards downfield; Clemson allows a 121.7.
Under new coordinator Brian Daboll, Alabama has incorporated a lot of option and run-pass option concepts.
When deployed properly and by a team with the talent that Nick Saban has amassed in Tuscaloosa, such concepts can be devastating.
There are basically two ways to move the football: by creating numbers advantages with tactics — 2-on-1 situations, 3-on-2s, etc. — or by simply having your guy beat the defense in a 1-on-1.
Option concepts are a familiar way of creating numbers advantages, and when it’s run by a team that can also win 1-on-1s, the odds of success are high.
The defense still has the chance to dictate which option you go with, however.
When Alabama deploys a run-pass option, the result is either a) a carry by one of many awesome Bama backs, b) a carry by Hurts, or c) a pass by Hurts. If an offense is awesome in all three of those facets, then it is pretty much unstoppable.
But when defending Bama, you’d prefer him choosing (b) or (c) to (a). Hurts is a good runner, but you can at least get some hits on him when he’s keeping the ball; plus, if he’s running, that means the explosive Damien Harris or the Mack truck Bo Scarbrough are not. And you’d rather force the Tide to the air if at all possible. They are 10th in rushing success rate but 34th in passing success rate.
Since options are based on reading specific defenders or alignments, you can position your defense to dictate exactly that.
That’s what Auburn did a few weeks ago in the Iron Bowl. Hurts is always going to make the proper read, and he’s rarely going to make a mistake. He has only one interception this season, after all.
In a roundabout way, that means the Bama option can be manipulated. Auburn got gashed on a couple of Iron Bowl drives, but ... they got gashed on only a couple of drives. Between reads and awkward downs and distances, the Tigers dictated that Bama backs Harris, Scarbrough, and Josh Jacobs carry the ball only 18 times.
Those 18 carries gained a healthy 122 yards, but circumstance took the ball out of their hands. Including two sacks as pass attempts, Hurts carried 16 times, and his 24 pass attempts netted just 101 yards. Hurts took quite a few hits, and the moment Alabama fell behind schedule, things fell apart. The Tide had just a 31 percent passing downs success rate and a 24 percent passing success rate.
I mention all of this for a pretty obvious reason: Clemson will force Hurts to make plays.
Clemson’s one of the few teams in the country with a defense better than Auburn’s and the best in the country at shutting you down on passing downs.
Opponents had just a 21 percent passing downs success rate against Clemson in 2017, lowest in FBS, and while Alabama is extremely efficient on standard downs (seventh in SD success rate), its 31 percent passing-downs success rate ranked a not-as-nice 69th.
If you’re Daboll, then, what do you do?
- Lean on the RPOs that will likely produce a lot of Hurts carries and passes?
- Attempt to establish a straightforward run game against one of the country’s 10 best run defenses?
- Come out throwing downfield in an attempt to keep the Tigers on their heels, despite one of the country’s best pass rushes?
- Play things safe until you know how well Clemson is moving the ball?
- See if Clemson cornerback Ryan Carter can handle Bama receiver Calvin Ridley as well as he did in last year’s title game (Ridley had just five catches for 36 yards in 10 targets.)?
- Test the rest of the secondary with your revolving door of No. 2 receivers (No player but Ridley has more than 26 targets.)?
The answer might lie in the passing game, if Clemson’s own stats are taken into account.
Clemson opponent successes vs. nonsuccesses
Category | Clemson opp scoring drives | Clemson opp non-scoring drives | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Success rate | 49% | 21% | -28% |
| Rushing success rate | 43% | 21% | -22% |
| Passing success rate | 57% | 21% | -36% |
| Standard downs success rate | 52% | 26% | -26% |
| Passing downs success rate | 40% | 15% | -25% |
Even on scoring drives, teams don’t have a lot of success against Clemson on passing downs. They don’t run particularly well either. But the range between success and non-success is a little higher for Tiger opponents in both passing success rate and standard-downs success rate.
Translation: When teams score on Clemson, it’s because they succeeded through the air and on first-and-10, second-and-medium, or third-and-short. It could be in both teams’ best interests to roll the dice on Hurts.
Can Bama pull this off? And can the Bama defense slow Clemson enough to where this recipe doesn’t have to work too many times?
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