On Monday night we saw something that we had never seen before: Nick Saban’s Alabama get blown out. We’ve seen them blow a huge lead in the “Cam Back” and lose heartbreakers at the last second in the “Kick Six or against Clemson two years ago. We have even seen them get beat bad by Oklahoma or Utah in the Sugar Bowl, but we have never seen anything close to this. A 28 point loss where they were completely outplayed, out-coached and out-classed in every possible way. Clemson didn’t just randomly show up in Santa Clara and beat Alabama 44-16, so here’s how they did took down the Tide.
They Surprised Tua
From the very first drive of the game, defensive coordinator Brent Venables and Clemson were able to disguise what they were going to do enough to mess with Heisman runner-up Tua Tagovailoa. Here the Tigers lineup as if they are going to play straight up man coverage:
but then they instead blitz nickelback Isaiah Simmons and roll a safety over to cover that side of the field.
The deep safety allows corner A.J. Terrell to jump on the pass without the fear of giving up a long touchdown and sets up an easy pick-six.
Later in the half, they are able to fool Tua into another interception, again by disguising the coverage scheme. This time its corner Trayvon Mullen who looks to be pressing his man at the line of scrimmage, but then bails out into deep zone and makes the pick. Kirk Herbstreit explains here:
While Venables and his defense were obviously able to surprise the Alabama offense all night, one final clear example came late in the first half. At this point, the lead was only 12 and the Tide had a chance to score and be right back in it. However, Mullen was able to fool Tua and the rest of the offense once again. After Mullen followed WR Henry Ruggs III when he motioned inside, he came flying off the edge and got to Tua untouched. This was a huge turning point in the game because instead of potentially only being down one score, Alabama was forced to punt and went down 15 at half.
Dominated the Line
The Tigers’ incredible defensive line has naturally been talked about all season. Even without maybe their best player, the suspended Dexter Lawrence, the trio of Christian Wilkins, Austin Bryant and Clelin Ferrell was enough to disrupt Alabama upfront. They were able to hold the Tide to just 4.0 yards per run and did not allow a run of more than 15 yards.
We already knew that Clemson’s defensive line was capable of this, but we didn’t know their offensive line could be this good against the Alabama front seven. The Tide did not record a single sack in the game, but that doesn’t even tell the whole story. Trevor Lawrence looked more and more comfortable all night as he had plenty of time to find his receivers downfield.
Look at these third down plays where Lawrence has all sorts of time and space to throw:
Won Third and Fourth Down
Even though Alabama struggled to finish drives, they were able to move the ball on first and second down. It was pretty common for someone in their backfield trio of Harris, Harris and Jacobs to break off a run of 6 to 11 yards on first or second down. However, besides from several Jacobs’ conversions out of the wildcat, that’s where the success stopped. The Tide went just 4 for 13 on third down and half of those conversations came on one drive in the first quarter. Comparatively, Clemson went 10 for 15 while facing an average third down distance that was 3 yards longer than what Alabama faced. On fourth down, the Tide were able to convert their first three attempts by using the 215 pound Jacobs in the wildcat and running straight up the middle like this:
Yet on the next three 4th down attempts, Clemson didn’t allow another conversion. While Bama might’ve beat themselves on two of the plays, one of them was all Venables. He knew that Tua scrambling to convert was a likely possibility, so linebacker Tre Lamar was used a QB spy.
Although Lamar wasn’t the one to make the stop, his presence forced Tua to cut back into safety Tanner Muse.
Took Advantage of Bad Decisions
Alabama was only down 15 to start the second half. They’ve come back from that before, but this is when Saban started to panic. After 13 plays that just about reached the red zone, they faced a 4th and 6. Their kicker had already missed an extra point so they chose not to try the 40 yard field goal. By now you’ve already seen the disastrous fake, but just in case:
There are just so many things wrong with this call. First of all, Clemson is completely expecting it. They don’t even hide that their expecting a fake in this situation:
To make it worse, this isn’t even some backup special teams guys. They run it right at guys like Christian Wilkins and Austin Bryant, who could be in the NFL right now. Alabama had the 2nd best offense in college football and instead had a kicker lead block for a 3rd string QB.
There is also the play calling from the 1 yard line. After a Damien Harris catch to get them right to the goal line, they went with this on 2nd down:
Basically the same exact play on 3rd:
And then this to essentially end the game on 4th:
Saban and his staff also made some questionable decisions as it became clear that the game was over. Pulling Tua for Jalen Hurts with only 10 minutes left wasn’t good for the Tide or Jalen. I would say keep to keep Tua, the better player, in the game, but if you’re gonna put Hurts in at least give him a chance and make the change earlier. Also, punting down 28 with 10 minutes left? Is there that much of difference between losing by 35 instead of *only* 28? Why not go for it and at least give yourself a chance?
Justyn Ross
One team had a Justyn Ross and the other didn’t. The true freshman racked up 153 yards through the air on just six catches. And that doesn’t tell the whole story.
He had this 74 yard touchdown to almost put the game out of reach:
Then he made this incredible grab with a defender all over him:
And then this absolutely ridiculous one-handed catch:
To make this even worse, Ross is from the state of Alabama. His hometown, Phenix City, is only 3 hours from Tuscaloosa. Saban and his staff recruited him hard, but he chose Dabo Swinney and Clemson on signing day. On top of that, he’s still just a true freshman and we can watch Lawrence to Ross for *at least* 2 more years.
