Alabama rarely does dumb stuff. The Tide don’t succeed on every play, but as you’d expect from a team coached by Nick Saban, they’re usually following a smart process.
What the absolute hell was this Bama fake field goal?
This catastrophe was ill-advised on multiple fronts.
The ugliest exception in a while happened Monday, in the third quarter of the National Championship. Get your children out of the room before you look:
Obviously, it’s easy to pick on the team that loses 2 yards on a fake field goal. But this thing was just spectacularly stupid, for three reasons.
1.
I’m not a special teams coach by trade, but I think Clemson might have seen it coming. Was holder Mac Jones responsible for, uh, checking out of the fake call when he noticed Clemson was in a standard four-down front with seven linebackers and DBs on the field? I don’t know whose job it was to say “DON’T DO THIS,” but it should’ve been someone’s.
2. Bama had its redshirt freshman kicker attempt to plow over future first-round defensive tackle Christian Wilkins to pave the way.
No matter what, the kicker, Joseph Bulovas, was going to lead-block someone here, right?
3. Holy hell, you’re Alabama. It’s fourth-and-6, and you have Tua Tagovailoa and five future NFL pass-catchers. Just throw a damn pass.
Just ... ugh. What on Earth are you doing? Clemson scored a 74-yard touchdown three plays later, and the Tide deserved every ounce of it.
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