1st & Goal
Bama starts in a gun twins left and flanker right, with the TE (Michael Williams) on the right as well. Eddie Lacy the tailback is offset right toward the TE. The flanker Kenny Bell motions to the left of the formation creating the trips left look you see above.
It is pretty obvious that A&M is in man coverage across the board. Their is no safety and when the flanker motions he is followed across the formation.
After breaking this play down and seeing the routes run by the Bama receivers this play is even more painful to comprehend.
AJ McCarron (the Bama QB), clearly sees that this is man coverage as noted above. The read on this play appears to be the TE coming off the line of scrimmage and opening up on the second level of the defense like he had done all day long on previous four vertical routes, (that is until AJ went to him earlier in the game into double coverage). The reason the TE was coming open is because it had been zone coverage earlier in the game. Michael Williams is not going to win any 1on1 match ups with anyone, especially a defensive back. Though it appears that is what AJ is banking on with this play. The trips route concept that Bama employs on the backside of the play with the trips is baffling. Unless this was just a concept to clear the middle of the field I honestly have no idea what they are trying to accomplish. The widest man is Amari Cooper #9, who runs a streak to the corner of the endzone. Motion man, Kenny Bell runs a 5 yard out route, while Christion Jones runs a post corner that breaks very closely to Bell's route and Jones ends up in the same zone as Cooper. This would be a bad route combination against any coverage. I'm certainly hoping that someone ran the wrong route or this was just a "stay out of the middle of the field" play in order to give the TE space to make a play.
On the front side of the play the TE Williams releases pretty cleanly and quickly off the line until his man jams him around the 3 yard line. It is hard to tell exactly what route the TE is running here with the horrible camera angle CBS has given. He appears to take a jab step around the goal line but this could be a double move on his man in order to open up deep into the endzone or he could actually be planting on the goal line and turning this into an out route. Either way, against man, the best option for Williams would be to get two yards deep in the endzone and post up. Eddie Lacy clears out of the backfield and runs an arrow route, keeping it pretty flat to the line of scrimmage which leads me to believe that Williams may have been running an out route.
AJ gets the snap and quickly looks to the flat for Lacy. He appears to take a quick glance at Williams and then back to the middle of the field where nobody is at. My conclusion on 1st & Goal is that someone ran the wrong route. I'm not quite sure but this play was an absolute mess.
2nd & Goal
On 2nd & Goal, Bama lines up in a traditional 'I' formation with H back Kelly Johnson at fullback in front of Eddie Lacy. The tight ends are again Michael Williams with Brian Vogler in at backside TE. Amari Cooper is the flanker who motions across the formation. This play A&M is not playing man coverage because Cooper is not followed across the formation. The corner on the other side of the A&M defense simply widens out with Cooper.
This is just a simple stretch/outside zone play that the Houston Texans of the NFL have made a living off of. Lacy is clearly trying to get outside of this end that #89 Michael Williams is blocking. Once this player "sets the edge" of the defense by crossing Williams face it forces Eddie to cut up in the small seam that has been created which is quickly closed by the flow of the A&M defense.
3rd & Goal
On 3rd & Goal, Alabama comes out in a similar formation as they did on 1st down. They've initially lined up in a trips right look with the tailback offset to the left with the tight end. Kenny Bell #7 again motions, this time toward the tight end and sets up a 2x2 formation seen above.
This play begins as a simple pick play to get a slant into the middle of the field. As you can see above, Michael Williams the TE again releases downfield and appears to be trying to get a piece of as many people as he possibly can in order to open up the underneath route to Kenny Bell. Almost the exact same thing is happening on the other side of the field as the inside receiver who I believe is Christion Jones runs a corner route to back pylon of the endzone again trying to bait the A&M defense to follow him while Amari Cooper #9 runs a slant underneath him.
A&M initially shows a blitz but only brings 4 guys on the play. They are guarding the goal line essentially. It appears that one man ends up following Williams into the endzone while one man also occupies Christion Jones as well. Leaving 5 defenders who are guarding two slants run by Bell and Cooper while Lacy slips out of the backfield and begins to run an outlet crossing route till he is knocked off of his feet. The problem that I have with this route is it needed a lot more room than 15-16 yards in order for it to work properly. If A&M had blitzed anyone on this play then it may have been more effective but still the TE and split end to the right are trying to "blow the top off the defense" with 15 yards to work with. The safety immediately sees (which I've highlighted in the image above) the threat of Cooper coming across the middle on the slant and you can tell that AJ almost tries to force it in to Cooper because he is open for about a split second.
Instead however, McCarron tucks the ball and scrambles around before eventually landing on the 2 yard line after a helmet to helmet hit that wasn't called.
Above, a different view shows how little AJ's receivers tried to help bail him out on this play. Eddie Lacy has gotten up after being knocked down during his outlet route and retreated to the endzone where he is being covered man to man. At this point in the play McCarron is still about 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, plenty time to dump the ball into the endzone if an open receiver had been there. My question is where are both playside receivers, Kenny Bell and Michael Williams? Or instead Amari Cooper was running a slant in this direction, surely he should've arrived by now if he had kept running his route.
4th & Goal
This is the pre-snap look that we get on 4th & Goal from the 2 yard line.
Above, Bama shows a shotgun tight bunch formation with tailback Eddie Lacy offset right. TE Michael Williams is on the line of scrimmage to the left and Kenny Bell is off the line behind him and has begun to go in motion to create a bunch trips right formation. Christion Jones is on the line of scrimmage on the right side along with Amari Cooper behind him off the line.
This frame shows the formation just before the snap. Bell is now in motion and the ball is snapped while he is basically already running his eventual route which is a flat arrow route to the pylon of the endzone. A&M is once again in man coverage which is evident by #21 following bell accross the formation.
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Here is another look pre-snap that we get along with the genius Gary Danielson's illustrations. Again this shows Bell's path in his route with the eventual man that makes the play, Deshazor Everett #29.
Just after AJ has released the ball we again see two receivers that appear to be on very similar paths. Amari Cooper again looks to be on a corner route to the back of the endzone but is taking a very shallow angle to get there while Bell is still on his track for his arrow route. Meanwhile Christion Jones #22 has settled in on his quick curl route just inside the endzone. Deshazor Everett for A&M, who is on the red track above, widened with the formation when Bell came across in motion. He seemed to be playing against Amari Cooper in man coverage but the poor design or execution of this play allowed Everett to basically play man coverage against two Alabama receivers. Bell's original defender #21 is way behind in coverage due to the quick motion and snap of the play. What may have been if Amari Cooper would have done anything but almost duplicate Bell's route?
Gary Danielson of CBS says that "Cooper tried to pick 'em but he couldn't get to 'em." Really Gary? How would you pick someone from such a compressed formation like this? What would Cooper have done? Run his route out to Everett, 'pick him', and pick him all the way to the sideline where the ball was eventually thrown to Bell?
I'm not buying that this was a 'pick' play. If it was then it was an extremely poorly designed play. It looks to be more of a horrible route run by Amari Cooper. All around though in my opinion the play was poorly designed.
Things I would ask Coach Saban/Coach Nussmeier and random thoughts...
- Why not throw out of the Jesse Williams goal line formation? (seen below) An opponent hasn't yet seen a pass out of this unless I'm mistaken.
- If the 4th down play was a 'pick' as Gary Danielson says it was, then why not do it out of an easier formation to pick out of? A formation where Amari would have been split out wider to get an angle on the defender almost like a down block?
- Overall formation choice seemed odd to me on this possession.
- We have never seemed to shy away from running the ball out of the shotgun or pistol formation before. We run the ball one time in four chances from the 7 yard line but we do it from a tight 'I' formation.
- Keep the defense on their toes... run the ball from a spread look and pass the ball from a tight, compressed formation.
- In the passing game during this series we got zero chances in the endzone for our receivers to make a play. On 1st and 3rd down we were looking to pass and ended up with our QB on the ground both plays, while on 4th we through the ball straight to the defender on a terribly designed play.
- Why not throw a fade? (Amari Cooper as the target) Of course not on 4th down, but throw the ball up in the endzone to our best playmaking receiver and let him come down with it or draw an interference call. At least this creates a chance in the endzone.
- We have a 6'6 270lb TE named Michael Williams, why not post him up 3 yards deep in the endzone and let AJ bury it in his gut?
- Bama's go to pass play on 3rd down the last few years has been a shallow crossing route with two quick guys streaking across the field, why not spread the field against (most likely) man coverage and see if we can get one of them open?
- This would have been a GREAT 4th down call in that compressed formation.
- Play for the win NOW!
- It seemed like this whole series of plays was rushed. We had two timeouts and we should have used at least one of them before the 4th down play to pick out the play that could get Bama 2 yards.
- How could we not have a better play to get us anywhere from 2-7 yards when we absolutely needed it?
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