This past offseason, Bob Stoops was tired of seeing his offenses underperform, so he made the decision to lure Lincoln Riley away from East Carolina to be the new offensive coordinator at Oklahoma.
The 32-year-old Riley brought his Air Raid schemes to Norman, a direction that most teams around the country have already gone. Riley got his start in coaching under Mike Leach at Texas Tech, and it just so happens that Leach was Stoops’ first offensive coordinator at Oklahoma in the late 1990s.
And as Stoops looked for a new offensive approach, he couldn’t help but notice that nearly half of the top 13 offenses in 2014 had Air Raid concepts – the offense founded by Hal Mumme and Leach – incorporated into their respective playbooks.
“So I looked back, and I thought, well, here we are,” Stoops told Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News. “I made it popular 17 years ago, and it worked, and then here 17 years later I’m the only one not doing it. I just felt that it will give us more opportunity, hopefully, again, to stay on the field longer, eat up more yards, gain field position and score points.”
That’s exactly the type of realization that Nick Saban needs to have. Losing to Ole Miss for the second consecutive year shed an incredible amount of light on the fact that Alabama is living in the dark ages when it comes to offense and, if Saban would swallow his pride and bring in an offensive coordinator to implement the no-huddle, up-tempo spread attack, the potential of the Alabama program would be unlimited.
Just imagine the sheer volume of players that Saban has coached at Alabama that have gone on to play in the NFL – 39 former Tide are currently employed by NFL teams, according to ESPN.com. Plenty of them have been on defense – Nick Saban’s specialty – like Rolando McClain, C.J. Moseley, Dont’a Hightower, Marcell Dareus and Kareem Jackson to name a few, but there have also been a plethora of ultra-talented offensive players.
Wide receivers Julio Jones, Amari Cooper, Christion Jones and DeAndrew White all starred at Alabama, as did running backs Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon, who were all very productive backfield options for the Crimson Tide.
And those guys played in a Doug Nessmeier or Lane Kiffin offense that was classified as a pro-style offense. Now, close your eyes for a few seconds and try to imagine those same athletes playing in an up-tempo spread attack.
But, you say, Alabama did just fine with a pro-style offense. True, but they would have been even better with a spread offense. And, as Dan Wolken of USA Today noted in a recent article, the Tide are no longer the overpowering program they once were.
“Alabama no longer resides on a level above the college football mortals,” Wolken wrote. “It is now just another very good program that loses to other very good programs just about as often as it beats them.”
Check the numbers, and Wolken might be on to something. Since the 2012 BCS National Championship when they obliterated Notre Dame, Alabama has played nine times ranked in the top 15. Saban’s squad is a pedestrian 4-5 in those games, and has given up more than 40 points in several of those games.
The Tide defensive backs have been getting torched for a couple of years now – ever since Johnny Manziel exposed them in consecutive years – and even though it is ostensibly Saban’s specialty, there is nothing he or defensive coordinator Kirby Smart can do about it.
It’s the way college football has evolved. No matter how talented of a defensive unit a team has, it is going to give up plenty of yards and points.
Fortunately, it’s not too late. Saban still has time to change course and restore the program to the heights it reached in 2012, when it won its third national championship in four years.
All Saban has to do is swallow his pride and commit to updating his offensive gameplan. Saban has a defensive background, so he should go out and find a new offensive coordinator who knows how to implement a spread offense.
Heck, all Saban would have to do is show them the roster and history. Any offensive coach in his right mind would want to coach the Tide, who continually boast elite running backs, wide receivers and offensive linemen.
Scott Frost, Sonny Cumbie, Jake Spavital, who knows? How about Montana head coach and offensive mad scientist Bob Stitt, whose ideas have rubbed off on Dana Holgerson at West Virginia, Spavital at Texas A&M and many more offensive-minded coaches?
Give an offensive guru like Stitt – a coach who has made wildly productive offenses out of the small schools like the Colorado School of Mines and Montana – a plethora of premier recruits and big-time athletes, like the ones at Alabama, and they could probably set their share of offensive records.
A few years ago, Stitt came up with a way to make the jet sweep more efficient; by tossing the ball to the player in motion instead of handing it off.
Now, watch any college football game and there’s a good chance that that’s the version you will see in action.
Ultimately, the up-tempo offense has permeated throughout college football, even the mighty SEC. Texas A&M almost beat Alabama two years in a row with Johnny Football, but the Tide had enough offense to come back the second time. Ole Miss has now beaten Alabama two years in a row using a wide open spread attack.
Offenses are going faster than ever, and they aren’t going to slow down any time soon.
So, Saban can continue to publicly bash the up-tempo offense, claiming it’s unsafe, unfair or whatever line he can come up with. Or, he can make a simple personnel change and bring his offense into the 21st century.
Hiring a brand new offensive coordinator would probably be his best option but, if he doesn’t want to take such a drastic step, he could just tell Kiffin to open it up a little bit. Kiffin has it in his arsenal – he showed the ability to air it out with Matt Barkley at USC – so maybe all it would take is for Saban to give him a little more freedom.
Also, the Tide have the integral piece that is necessary to run a successful spread offense. Blake Barnett, former 5-star recruit and the second-best pro-style quarterback in last year’s class, is waiting in the wings to be the quarterback of the future.
If Saban would make this crucial step, Barnett would finally buck the trend of Alabama having “game managers” under center. John Parker Wilson, Greg McElroy and AJ McCarron were all fine QBs, but they didn’t have to do a whole lot except hand the ball off and rely on their stellar running backs to churn out yards behind the bruising offensive line.
With a new system, Barnett could surpass all his predecessor’s accomplishments.
If Saban continued to recruit at the blistering pace that he has in the past – he is often called the greatest recruiter in college football history – with maybe a bit more focus on wide receivers, the Crimson Tide dynasty would be back in action.
The move that Stoops made is already paying off in Norman, as the Sooners are already 3-0 – including a victory over an SEC team – and rank in the top five nationally in passing yards.
There are two things that run college football success in today’s game: recruiting and up-tempo spread offenses.
Alabama has the first one in bunches. Now, if Saban would follow in Stoops’ footsteps and hire his version of Lincoln Riley, the Tide would finally fully utilize the mass of talent in the program, and the ceiling would be limitless.