Aubie414
Rookie
Needless to say, I hope that the Buckeyes beat the Bamas being that I am an Auburn fan but I just wanted to give you Buckeye fans a little insight about Nick Saban and Kirby Smart's game plan which they win with more than they lose with against spread teams.
Nick's base Defense this year is a 4-3 (depends on his personal, I think he is a 3-4 coach at heart), but for spread teams, Alabama switches to a nickel (4 linemen, 2 linebackers and 5 dbs)... They are very stubborn with this defense being that a dime might be better against spread teams but I think he likes this nickel defense for two reasons.... ON THIRD DOWN, THEY WILL BLITZ THAT SLOT DB and surprise teams at times.... ON THIRD DOWN, THEY BLITZ ONE OF THE LINEBACKERS UP THE MIDDLE to flush the qb out and cause a rushed throw.
If that fails horribly, they then switch to a dime, blitz the one middle line backer or have him spy then trust their weak secondary, If you make it to this point, you are doing very well :)
This year, Alabama's front four are much better than usual but the db's are much worse than usual so this should be interesting to see how much pressure they generate with their front four to try to protect those sorry dbs. Big 10 O-lines seem to give SEC teams a very hard time every bowl season but a Big 10 spread team might not (Judging by Michigan's effort) but I hope that I am wrong :)
Nick's base Defense this year is a 4-3 (depends on his personal, I think he is a 3-4 coach at heart), but for spread teams, Alabama switches to a nickel (4 linemen, 2 linebackers and 5 dbs)... They are very stubborn with this defense being that a dime might be better against spread teams but I think he likes this nickel defense for two reasons.... ON THIRD DOWN, THEY WILL BLITZ THAT SLOT DB and surprise teams at times.... ON THIRD DOWN, THEY BLITZ ONE OF THE LINEBACKERS UP THE MIDDLE to flush the qb out and cause a rushed throw.
If that fails horribly, they then switch to a dime, blitz the one middle line backer or have him spy then trust their weak secondary, If you make it to this point, you are doing very well :)
This year, Alabama's front four are much better than usual but the db's are much worse than usual so this should be interesting to see how much pressure they generate with their front four to try to protect those sorry dbs. Big 10 O-lines seem to give SEC teams a very hard time every bowl season but a Big 10 spread team might not (Judging by Michigan's effort) but I hope that I am wrong :)