re: Grantland article on Ford's 15 yd. run that iced the game

great post.... stud, up in the play box must have seen Bama was overloading the strong side leaving the weak side under manned in that formation... another example of Saban being out coached!!!

quote:

---

Who in their right mind would have predicted the short side option was the play that iced 8-0 Bama in OVERTIME?

---

As much as I hate to admit this but I think it was Lou Holtz that said Jefferson running the option would be the differance in the game.

Awesome...great play calling and execution

excellent play design... PERFECT execution.... intentionally letting the DE and first LBer go, then sealing the remaining LBers.

Id love to see Crowton's shortside alignment to see if;

1 - he waited for the defense to overload the stronside before calling it

and

2 - to see what his design/blocking assignments were.

quote:

---

tigerchamps85

---

find a fire. Die in it.

quote:

---

I do not post often but this has been bugging me. As I am sure most of you know JJ can not run the option. He is terrible at it. He dips into the backfield everytime and slows the option down and gives the D way to much time to react. This was a great play but if he had run it correctly(parallel with the LOS) Hillard would not have had to make a great block Ford would have just out ran everyone. This was a great play but it was made by Ford, Faulk and Hillard not Jefferson.

---

If you would've read the thread I started, I actually covered this subject.

Conventional wisdom does mean that you'd want to see the ball-carrier/QB "press the line" and initiate and/or force the defender whose keying on the QB to make a decision, thereby making the ball-carrier more easily and quickly able to make his own read.

In this case, I think LSU was running a counter off their traditional speed option from earlier in the game. They ran it off the unbalanced line to the backside and in this instance, wanted to actually wait to see if Bama would defend it the same way.

If you'd read the article, you see Brown mentioning that oftentimes, a sound option team (or good coaching staffs) will throw that at you early, watch your keys, read them, & then rearrange their own blocking assignments based on how the defense stopped or defended the play.

Georgia Tech is FAMOUS for this, & its how a relatively basic offense can continue to succeed for so long.

It appears that JJ was taking that big loop-and that Ford was also trailing him even deeper-because we were almost "reading" the defensive assignments, rendering Bama's attempt to play "assignment football" meaningless.

JJ not pressing the line is a simple nuance that even to educated option observers may seem like poor execution, but in essence, doing so baited the defender into going for a TFL instead of keying on the FB-which could've very well destroyed the play completely.

In other words: We coached it that way to help read the defense, & then school it after we ran counters in the blocking scheme to what we ran earlier.

We outcoached them, brah.

Damn Smoke, are u an analyst for OU or something? That's some graphic stuff right there. Mad props to u.

Some folks post that it doesn't matter on a running play who the QB is because one QB can hand off as well as another QB.

Some folks post that a QB running a play takes away a carry from a more talented running RB.

This play shows why a running QB makes a running attack better. With a QB who is a running threat, the defense has to account for the QB.

On this play, Jefferson completely takes the DE out of the play. Without the threat of Jefferson keeping the ball, that DE would have either neutralized Hilliard or tackled Ford. Either way, the play doesn't work without a QB who is a running threat.

Good point