Gus Malzahn Discusses how to Attack Nick Saban's Defense (Smart Football)
A smart football link detailing how Gus Malzahn (former Auburn OC) attacked Alabama's defense (mostly when he had Cam Newton). I expect a lot of the same things out of Michigan come September, as Borges offense last year was relatively similar to what Auburn has deployed in the pass.
One thing is for sure if Michigan plans to run some of these plays: they need to get the timing and blocking down on the jet sweep if they want to have any success with it.
The I formation and the QB sweep. You can't just run it right at those guys.
it's probably not going to work against Alabama
Step 1: Have Cam Newton on your team
Step 2: Profit
Actually, I believe it's this:
Step 1) purchase the services of Cam Newton
Step 2) ?
Step 3) profit
1) have Cam Newton
2) play the worst Saban coached Bama team since Saban's first year.
3) Marry a crazy lady.
Oh wait, Left Eye Lopes was just Rison's girlfriend.
"Traditional play-action was no good."
"The only way time we were able to run between the tackles is when we were patient."
"Pace 'em."
Really intelligent, fascinating stuff here. I'm sure our coaches have taken note of these types of things...I hope we can execute on the field when it comes down to it.
I really missed seeing Denard fake the QB run, and was surprised that it wasn't incorporated into our offense on a regular basis. Defenses are so keyed in on Denard running that the safety/DB bit happened nearly every time. I hope we get to see more of that this year.
Thanks for posting this.
Alabama has lost a lot of great players off last year's D (Barron, Kirkpatrick, Upshaw, Hightower), but they'll just reload and a Saban defense will always be well-coached. I'm glad that Borges will have all summer to prepare a game plan against these guys.
Talent =/= experience, and we are playing them in the first game of the season. Hopefully that makes a difference.
This game is going to be like when you played Heisman mode for the 1st time on NCAA Football. We will probably be shocked by their speed and ability at first. We have to weather the storm, play desperate football, and hopefully we can pull it out in the end.
you're saying their corners will make interceptions without looking and their linebackers will be able to jump 6 feet in the air to swat passes? Shit.
Don't forget their RBs breaking 7 tackles to break it open 56 yards for a touchdown.
If Stephen Garcia and South Carolina can beat Alabama then we can too.
We have to score early to have our best chance against them.
Alabama's key to success last year was pound the ball til they tire out the defensive line and are getting 4-7 yards a carry while playing excellent defense themselves.
Even if we can stop the run early in the game if we don't score much in the first half that beast of an O Line Bama has is going to wear us out and their running game will start churning out yardage.
If we can score, even though Saban is patient with sticking to the running game, we could force them to air it out and I like our chances much better that way.
But if we manage to stop the run, Alabama still has their best QB in years in AJ McCarron. Our DB's will have to play lights out in this game to stop him as well. Alabama's offense is much more balanced now.
Really interesting video. One thing that jumps out is "pace 'em" – a trend that Borges seems to ignore. It seems like a great way to keep a good defense literally off-balance. You don't have to go pedal to the metal Oregon or RichRod – just have one or two plays per drive where you run to the LOS and snap it before the defense can align, much less substitute. Tressel used to do that to Michigan a couple times a game and it led to some huge plays (e.g. Troy Smith to Ginn in a short yardage situation in 06). I hope Borges decides to employ some pace stuff this season.
I don't McCarron was really that impressive. He just had a solid team around him. He was good but not great last year.
He reminds me a lot of Jimmy Clausen. Competent, but never going to beat you and susceptible to real pressure. Only question is if we can deliver it.
I bet Borges has been talking to all his buddies down in SEC country about how to attack Saban's defense. They all probably want us to beat them as much as we do, because they know one of them is going to the national championship game and it's easier for them to get there if Bama has one loss before the conference games start. They'd probably hand over their entire playbook if Borges asked for it.
That's an amazing video, and what it basically says is, "You have to be able to make yardage in the most difficult way possible in order to beat them."
To take away the strong side of the field, between the tackles, and over the top leaves us with the boundary--and having to produce yards in a short field against a very fast defense. Ummm...yeah, that's really hard.
That said, with the duo of Robinson/Fitz in the backfield, I think we have the only tools that can really trouble 'Bama.
What's being overlooked here is that this game will be a battle for field position, and that our defense MUST play extremely well, because we're simply not going to get many yards against 'Bama. Here's what we need:
- Short fields produced by great defense.
- Big plays to score points.
- Some misdirection (pace, play action, etc.) to produce big plays.
If we don't get all three of those, we are in big trouble. And all three of those are really tough to do.