Resources: My charting, Alabama game notes (Michigan's not yet available), Alabama roster, CFBstats

The film: The Iron Bowl for all the reasons, including the German one:

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

Yes, Alabama has a lot of star players. That's what happens when you go to the playoffs every year and flaunt the rules to such a degree that paying players through your assistants' salaries is called the "Alabama System" in football circles. Tuscaloosa Football Inc. has had first pick of high school talent for a decade; hanging onto it is a challenge because the NFL takes those who are eligible and those who aren't starting can usually transfer somewhere where they will, however, so there are no seniors.

If you pay attention at all to college football outside of the Big Ten, you know that 5-star QB Tua Tagovailoa pipped incumbent star Jalen Hurts, who transferred to Oklahoma. That left QB Mac Jones, a barely top-400 player, the lead backup when Tua's Heisman campaign was cut short with a hip injury this season. Jones is your standard pre-Hurts Alabama quarterback: a stiff "game manager" who wouldn't look out of place at Michigan State. It's a big deal.

Tight end is the other position causing fret. Nominal starter/former Michigan target TE Major Tennison (+3/-3 in this game) hasn't developed into more than just a guy. He's only on the field a third of the time as they make heavy use of specialists. These are a moonlighting offensive lineman, Kendall Randolph (+6/-2, no bad pass pro events) and still-receiver-sized true freshman TE Jahleel Billingsley, who's rather like Devin Funchess was when he was wearing #19. Backup C Chris Owens will occasionally don a #84 jersey and add to the beef. Owens will also snap a few as a sixth OL, pushing the C, RG, RT, and TE one job to the right.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]

My charting scores for the regular OL have to be considered in the context of the competition—Auburn has one of the best defensive lines in the country, including NG Derrick Brown, who's expected to be the first DT off the board in April. The Tide mostly doubled Brown and left the OTs and the off guard with no help against various projected 3rd/4th rounders. Depressingly, it mostly worked; there's a reason this is widely considered one of the best offensive lines in the country, and after watching it in action I'm not enthused about what they'll do against a banged up Carlo Kemp plus various freshmen and walk-ons.

They got there, of course, by picking first—all of these guys were top-150 players to the two sites paying enough attention, four were inside the composite top 35, and two were top-10. The 2017 Composite's 4th overall prospect LT Alex Leatherwood (+8/-2, –2 pass pro) is a name familiar to Michigan fans from back when Drevno was desperately trying to recruit a start-immediately blindsider. Leatherwood would have sufficed; he's agile, long, strong, still a bit raw at times, and expected to go in the first two rounds of an OT-saturated draft. True freshman LG Evan Neal (+11/-6, –1 prot) was this year's 7th overall prospect, a ridiculously massive freak already developed by IMG into a terrifying offensive weapon. FSU grad transfer (Composite 31st in 2016) C Landon Dickerson (+6.5/-6.5, –0 prot) did a lot of damage as a puller, however his sloppy hard counts appeared to be at fault for most of Bama's five(!) false starts in this Iron Bowl. RG Deonte Brown (+7.5/-8, –1 prot) bore the brunt of Derrick Brown and even drove the big guy a few times. The lone 4-star (177th in the Composite), Deonte's listed "338" comes in quotes; his bench press is the stuff of legends, and it shows on the field. Finally there's (34th, 2017) RT Jedrick Wills Jr. (+8/-5, –0 prot), who has put himself in the discussion to be the first OT off the board in one of the best tackle classes in memory:

Alabama didn’t make the playoff but my Big Board is loaded with their players. pic.twitter.com/xffOU9TH1Y

— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) December 28, 2019

As you might imagine, the skill position players are elite, however the receivers have had less opportunity to show it sans Tua. In his place they've leaned on the #1 prospect of 2017, RB Najee Harris (+15/-4, 5.6 YPC and 11 TDs plus 304 yards and 7 TDs on 35 targets in the passing game), a big, do-everything ball of knives who would've been nice to have in a world where Michigan and Alabama play by the same rules. Backup RB Brian Robinson Jr. (4.57 YPC, 5 TDs), gets the other 25% of non-garbage snaps; he's a little less of everything than Harris, except just as patient, and an elite pass blocker.

The receivers Gattis left are about on par with the ones he has now, though with different skills. Slot Jerry Jeudy (959 yards, 71 catches and 9 TDs on 100 targets) is the five-tool superstar, WR DeVonta Smith (14 YPT, 1200 yards, 13 TDs) is the Olave-like deep threat who adds (+6/-2) great downfield and crack blocking to the running game, and WR Henry Ruggs III (14 YPT, 719 yards, 7 TDs) is the slippery weasel who'll turn any underneath catch into a long touchdown. They'll also throw in sophomore slot jitterbug Jaylen Waddle (84% catch rate, 553 yards, 15 YPT, 6 Tds on 38 targets), who's also the most dangerous punt returner in the country. If there's a weakness in this group is there's nobody like (former Bama target) Nico Collins to win badly thrown jump balls—6'6 freshman Tyrell Shavers isn't ready to serve yet. When run-threat southpaw Tua was slinging slants that didn't matter so much, but the dumbed down offense of Mac Jones includes a lot of lofts to guys in single coverage, which isn't what this room was designed for.

--------------------------------

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Hybrid.

I forgot to separate regular shotgun snaps from offset gun but it was about 70 normal shotgun with that demi-pistol alignment mostly used for downhill runs, play-action, or RPOs.

The RPO stuff mostly came early—later in the game they shut it down and stuck to runs and play-action.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? This is as manball as Michigan's offense, with Counter Trey plus various play-actions and RPOs off of it accounting for almost a quarter of the offense. Pin & Pull (11%), Inside Zone (7%), Outside Zone and some split exotics (6%), ISOs (5%) were the other mainstays. They favored Zone Read Belly in short situations, one time running it with their backup QB/RB/Slot kid on 4th and short. Pure passing was mostly for passing downs. I don't read Bama boards but I bet they've had the same "Is Saban demanding the offense conform to his old school ideas?" arguments we've having.

Auburn had an interesting response to the Pin & Pulls that I clipped because it's certainly something Michigan is going to have to try in this game and because opponents are certainly going to do it to us. You're watching the OLB on the line of scrimmage at the top of the formation:

He sets up outside shoulder, then dives inside. The DT to his side was trying to do the same thing, but failed and Najee found a hole to run through, but note TE#19 (Billingsley) is wasted, and if that weird gap doesn't appear or if Najee doesn't see it, this is one dead Counter Trey.

This will probably be a Neck Sharpies down the line but the short version is the playside DL were setting up on the outside shoulders of their linemen then fighting inside, while the linebackers behind them made sure they were covered.

LSU used some big dudes for this. Sometimes the puller was able to root them out and make an inside gap, and when that happened Najee usually gashed them. But Bama's tight ends are either 300-pound converted linemen who don't fit in small gaps or quasi-receivers who don't quite know where to go (their TE coach has the profile of a guy on hand mostly for his recruiting). All this fake outside/go inside stuff was too much for the TEs to react to in the fraction of a second they had to do so. Ultimately the best idea they had was to run into the same guy the puller was trying to move.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Grind it out. Saban now acknowledges that the world has changed and his precious defenders can't be rescued from Tempo, but every second at the line of scrimmage has been ceded grudgingly. He'd much rather be pulling pieces on and off the field to create mismatches than locking opponents on the field against a base 11.

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): You can't throw a meme at the internet these days without coming across an Alabama fan's (usually racially coded) assessment of the difference between Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa in the running department. Since it's nearly 2020 and Alabama has finally embraced the 2010s, I was bracing for a guy more on Shea Patterson's level—underrated feet but not quite enough to be called a dual threat. Well:

Ladies and gentleman, we've got a "Pro Style." Bama hadn't changed the offense (yet) so running was often the 3rd read. When it happened, it wasn't that much to worry about beyond what you'd expect a normal football-playing young person is capable of. Let's call it a 4 because I keep getting burned.

HenneChart: They kept things simple:

Jones was asked to throw a lot of screens and reads that I charitably didn't chart as screens, like second-read dumpoffs to the running back, because the running back is Najee Harris and that's a good idea, and it was also a read. The MSU "TE Fade" that's just OPI to make space for a slant underneath was a popular one. Quite often his line gave Jones plenty of time, but the plays that came out of that were either wide, wide open busts (which then gained many yards because Bama's receivers are mustelids) or chucks that could have been throwaways or just badly overthrown. There were a couple of bombs that landed exactly where they needed to—and the receivers converted those into huge gains—but the majority of the time he unleashed the dragon it flew off to a faraway castle. Also the first pick six was just an extremely awful throw.

I'm not saying he's terrible. He's more like a Speight. You can win with Speight. You don't hate a Speight. On the other hand if you contain everything else and Mac Jones is the thing on Bama's offense that beats you, oh buddy.

Frames Janklin Factor: I'm sorry did you watch the Cotton Bowl I'm sorry I ever doubted you Frames. Unfortunately Saban doesn't make these mistakes, or any mistakes for that matter. There was the one time I thought I was watching a give-up-and-punt when they ran routes a couple yards short of the sticks on 3rd and long, but this set up a 4th and 1.5 and Bama had a Belly play dialed up.

Dangerman: Yes I know the other Tristan Wirfs is on the other side but the left side of the line was the most dominant in this game:

I also came away in fear of any of their receivers getting the ball in space, especially Jaylen "DO NOT PUNT TO" Waddle.

But also Ruggs:

And also Devonta Smith:

I figure by now you already know about Jeudy. You were also dreading this moment, because the engine of post-Tua Bama is, of course Najee Harris.

You may content yourself with knowing had he come to Michigan he probably would have been attacked by a rogue robot turkey the engineering students programmed to assault anyone who says an unkind word about books. You may also feel better knowing this was always going to be his last week in college. You may wish to skip this part now where I confirm he checks all the boxes for a college running back:

☑ Uncanny vision
☑ Outstanding acceleration
☑ Cuts on a dime
☑ Jukes
☑ Really hard to tackle
☑ Super-strong, pile-driver
☑ Just massive
☑ Pretty fast
☑ Plus-plus receiver out of the backfield, can split out and run routes
☑ Totally healthy
☑ Hurdles people
☑ Goddammit he's likeable

The fetters on the Michigan money cannon can't be removed soon enough.

OVERVIEW:

What else did you expect? Auburn won this game with two interception return touchdowns, one of them 100 yards after an underthrown ball bounced off the running back's back. Their other loss was to LSU, a 41-34 sling-a-thon versus Joe Burrow, but that was in the Tua age.

Sans Tua, we're looking at a more vintage Alabama. A Blake Barnett, Jake Coker, Blake Sims, Greg McElroy kind of Alabama where the talent around the game manager is the richest in college football history. Those teams didn't put up 50 points, but even Doug Nussmeier managed to look like a functional offensive coordinator by taking five-star linemen and rolling over anything up to and including elite defensive lines.

Auburn's gamble was they would rather give up 12 yards on first down for a chance to keep it to zero than bleed 4 every down. Let's take a look at the times they managed to force the offense to give up the ball willingly:

1. Unveil the outside-inside counter to Counter Trey on 2nd and 10 of the first drive. Brings up 3rd and 11, pass batted, field goal.
2. First blitz of the day brings a safety (named Smoke Monday) outta nowhere. Two dump-offs and a false start later it's a 4th and 16 punt
3. Najee trips to bring up 2nd and 11. Two incomplete passes and punt.
4. TE screwup gets an unblocked LB to Harris. Two errant bombs later it's a 4th and 9 punt.
5. Greater TE screwup leads to 2nd & Goal from the 10. A false start, 5-yard run, and batted pass that probably doesn't connect anyway later they have to try a 30-yard field goal to tie it, and miss.

That's a very Don Brown philosophy but to make it work you're going to have to see hosannas from Hinton or something. Auburn's defense also gave up six touchdown drives, and two more drives that got to the 2 yard line and resulted in zero points because of luck and stuff. I'm sorry to be all doom and gloom, but Michigan's outings against these kinds of monsters this year have resulted in pavings. And we just heard yesterday that Mike Dwumfour couldn't even travel down there, let alone play.

I'm not going to say you can't beat a team of five-stars with three-stars, but you do need pro-caliber players to beat a team that's full of them. You take a Terrance Taylor and Alan Branch against these guys and you're fine. Go into this with Ryan Glasgow and Mo Hurst, or pair a Rob Renes with an Eric Wilson, or a Mike Martin with a Ryan Van Bergen, or a Grant Bowman with a Gabe Watson, and yeah you're in business. I've no doubt Carlo Kemp's going to be a warrior on Wednesday. I've no doubt Chris Hinton, and likely Mazi Smith too, are going to be good or great as soon as next season. Stars don't mean everything.

What they do mean, however, is that if U.S. high schools ever manage to produce a prototypical, ready-made NFL left tackle the minute Michigan desperately needs one, and Alabama wants him, they get to have him; if they ever spit out a perfect running back prospect who loves football more than Harbaugh and loves the Harbaughs more than football, and Alabama wants him, they get to have him; and in the rare instance that the distribution of human genes and secondary education coalesces into a 6'7"/360 being with the agility of a gazelle, the skills of a typical college junior, and the intelligence of a top quartile Michigan freshman who could instantly make literally any team better, the way college football works these days he's going to wear #73 for Alabama.

And I don't think Michigan has the guys to deal with all of that.