Speaker 1: Welcome to the Solid Verbal.
Speaker 2: I'll that for me.
Speaker 3: I'm a man, I'm for I've heard so many players say, well,
Speaker 3: I want to be happy. You want to be happy
Speaker 3: for Dake Edith State.
Speaker 4: Is that whoo whoom?
Speaker 3: And Dan and Tye.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to this solid turble boys and girls. My
Speaker 4: name is ty hilden Brand over there on the other
Speaker 4: side of the table. Yeah, he is a fine gentleman.
Speaker 4: We like to call mister Dan rupert Stein, Sir, how
Speaker 4: are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty well. I'm I'm under the weather. I
Speaker 3: am currently full of Cuban food because that's what you
Speaker 3: do in Tampa. But you know what, Ty, it's wonderful
Speaker 3: to see you. Life is great. We're here for Alabama
Speaker 3: Clemson and we have and we mentioned this on Twitter
Speaker 3: dot com slash Solid Verbal got some goofs going on
Speaker 3: in the background. We have a multi layered college football
Speaker 3: Playoff National Championship preview, and so we have decided in
Speaker 3: advance to just like get as much information as possible
Speaker 3: so that once we get here we could just be
Speaker 3: dumb and not rely on people.
Speaker 4: Generally, as we discussed, we're very unreliable. Yes, we are
Speaker 4: very much When it comes to planning things out in advance.
Speaker 4: So the fact that we did as much as we
Speaker 4: did beforehand, Yeah, I think really is a testament to
Speaker 4: how much we've grown as individuals. That's what this is
Speaker 4: all about.
Speaker 3: I can't believe we have almost assuredly pulled this off.
Speaker 3: So we have a show that you will hear momentarily.
Speaker 3: So we have this game Alabama Clemson. We have recruiting
Speaker 3: with Bud Elliott, ESP Nation Recruiting Analysts editor and just
Speaker 3: sort of how these two teams constructed themselves. We have
Speaker 3: a statistical profile with Bill Connolly. We have Ryan Nanny
Speaker 3: to just be you know, his usual tell us.
Speaker 4: About Tampa Tapa, what are we to do when we're
Speaker 4: down here?
Speaker 3: He did make some recommendations. Hey, there's Chip Patterson from CBS,
Speaker 3: and we have who am I forgetting? Right now? We
Speaker 3: have Andy Staples talk about Nick Saban, Krispy Brown. We
Speaker 3: have Krispy Brown. I'm being tickled by Chip Patterson right now.
Speaker 3: We have Krispy Brown. We spoke with him about exactly
Speaker 3: what Clemson does on offense and how they simplify and
Speaker 3: how they go about their business. We have Richard Johnson
Speaker 3: from Espimnation who also is sitting at this table just
Speaker 3: minding his own business. He has a lot of pertinent
Speaker 3: information on Alabama's rushing attack and how that has evolved
Speaker 3: over the last couple of years. Now with Jalen Hurts
Speaker 3: and all sorts of goodness, I don't what am I
Speaker 3: am I missing anybody? We have Ryan Abraham to talk
Speaker 3: about the Sark factor.
Speaker 4: The Sark factor. It is Sark Week here, which we'll
Speaker 4: get into in a little bit. So, as we mentioned,
Speaker 4: they call this audio avenue. Yes, this is now the
Speaker 4: sixth time I counted that. Yeah, you and I have
Speaker 4: been at a National champs in Arizona. It's grown in
Speaker 4: terms of the production that we put into this whole
Speaker 4: National Championship Week thing. They call this audio avenue. They've
Speaker 4: been kind enough to invite us to this portion of
Speaker 4: the media gathering for the last couple of years. Now
Speaker 4: this year, it's decidedly louder because the room is decidedly narrow. Yes,
Speaker 4: so I think we're really going to have to project here.
Speaker 4: That's fine if we want to get our voices out there.
Speaker 4: These people will not us by the time we leave.
Speaker 3: So we have around this room. It looks like is
Speaker 3: that Bobby Bouden over there.
Speaker 4: That could be Bobby.
Speaker 3: You can't tell all old people.
Speaker 4: I see the Tennessee end zone with the checkerboards, I
Speaker 4: don't see.
Speaker 3: We've got Tony Bruno behind me, We've got Sirius XM.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a hearty group. We ran into rivals
Speaker 3: in the elevator coming down here, Bruce and Sue from
Speaker 3: Fox Sports. We had a knife fight, yep, and they
Speaker 3: seem to be doing all right. So ty, let's start
Speaker 3: with this big picture, since we are going sort of
Speaker 3: micro with the layers that we're about to dip into.
Speaker 3: Big picture, what do you think Alabama Clemson is sort
Speaker 3: of defined by.
Speaker 4: I think it's defined by Alabama's defense and by Alabama's
Speaker 4: dominance over this stretch that Nick Saban's been there, I
Speaker 4: think far and away when you think of these two teams,
Speaker 4: That's what comes to mind what I'm interested in, And
Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you and really all the people
Speaker 4: that we talk with. As you know, when you do
Speaker 4: research for a game like this, it's very much incremental. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, it builds on things that be knew back
Speaker 4: in Week one that we've come to redefine. Now after
Speaker 4: fifteen weeks of college football when you did your research
Speaker 4: and starting looking into all right, what are the key
Speaker 4: factors for me, Dan, what's going to work for Clemson,
Speaker 4: what's going to work for Alabama? What was your starting
Speaker 4: point for that research. Were you coming from a place
Speaker 4: where you're just automatically assuming that Alabama is dominant, Alabama
Speaker 4: is unbeaten, it's going to be near impossible to beat Alabama,
Speaker 4: or were you coming at it from a perspective of
Speaker 4: this is a close game last year, Deshaun Watson's a
Speaker 4: transcendent player, could have very easily won the Heisman this year?
Speaker 4: What was the starting point for you?
Speaker 3: The starting point was one just figuring out how much
Speaker 3: I can believe in Clemson after a year in which
Speaker 3: it's been tricky to believe in Clemson, even though they've
Speaker 3: sort of almost run the table. They have the lot
Speaker 3: of loss against Pitt. I wanted to see if it
Speaker 3: was sor if it was a matter of anomalies with
Speaker 3: you know, Deshaun Watson struggling in the passing game. You know,
Speaker 3: the Troy game was very close. The NC State game
Speaker 3: should have probably been a loss. The loss to Pitt,
Speaker 3: but then we know what we can get when Clemson
Speaker 3: is firing on all cylinders. So I wanted to know
Speaker 3: if it was just a matter of Clemson playing sloppy
Speaker 3: and when they're focused they're greats because I think Alabama's
Speaker 3: especially defensively, it does almost doesn't matter what Alabama does
Speaker 3: on offense when they're not letting teams score more than
Speaker 3: like thirteen points. So Clemson, to me, even though we've
Speaker 3: seen them in this spot, was still much more of
Speaker 3: an unknown quantity after this season. So it was figuring
Speaker 3: out the differences between good and bad Clemson. That's what
Speaker 3: it's actually defined by, because they were so close last year.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. So you mentioned the defense, Our favorite meaningless stat
Speaker 4: is total defense. Alabama led the nation in vent for
Speaker 4: whatever it's worth. They also led the nation in scoring
Speaker 4: defense eleven point four points per game. In rushing defense
Speaker 4: they allowed only sixty two per game two yards per carry,
Speaker 4: which is crazy, and fourteenth in passing defense, so across
Speaker 4: the board, a really well balanced defense.
Speaker 3: You want to see what the analytics look like.
Speaker 4: Whatalytics do you have in front of you?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, wow, look at this. Did the solid fiance
Speaker 4: say yes before or after she saw.
Speaker 3: That she's the one who told me how to use.
Speaker 4: V look up.
Speaker 3: WHOA Okay, so you know it's real.
Speaker 4: You know it's real with V look up.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the analytics obviously love both of these teams.
Speaker 3: There's some weaknesses for Clemson. The only thing that you
Speaker 3: can say about Alabama is their touchdown frequency is in
Speaker 3: top of the top. It's right around forty, which is
Speaker 3: fine when you have the defense that they have, and
Speaker 3: they've stalled some in the red zone. But as we
Speaker 3: saw against Washington, they can generate longer touchdowns and so
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter as much here.
Speaker 4: Here's what spooks me a little bit. All year, it
Speaker 4: was Alabama is dominant, right, domin what context? Dominant in
Speaker 4: that you can't run on them, you can't score on them, right,
Speaker 4: You're not going to beat them period. Now they've got
Speaker 4: this third dimension, if you will, with a running or back.
Speaker 4: It's tough to try and defend all of that, Ammo.
Speaker 4: What spooks me now is if you read media reports
Speaker 4: in the build up to this game, a lot of
Speaker 4: people that I think very highly of in sports media
Speaker 4: and college football media have slowly gravitated towards Clemson. Correct
Speaker 4: And I don't know why that is, I didn't see
Speaker 4: anything last week other than a truly dominant performance gainst
Speaker 4: Ohio State. It was great.
Speaker 3: Shutout, Hi, shut out.
Speaker 4: Okay, it was great. I didn't see anything in that
Speaker 4: game that otherwise would lead me to believe, excuse me,
Speaker 4: that Clemson would all of a sudden win this game.
Speaker 4: I felt pretty good about what I saw on the
Speaker 4: Alabama side. But all week I've been reading about people.
Speaker 4: I think it was USA today five of seven for Clemson.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: So I'm starting to like overthink this. It's my most
Speaker 4: redeeming quality.
Speaker 3: So we know about this matchup already because we've seen it.
Speaker 3: We saw it last year. There isn't too much that's different.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Alabama quarterback situation is certainly big, the
Speaker 3: addition of Mike Williams for Clemson is certainly The loss
Speaker 3: of a couple of key defenders for Clemson is certainly
Speaker 3: a big factor. But unlike the Notre Dame matchup, in
Speaker 3: which we saw a lot of late intellectual money coming
Speaker 3: in on Notre Dame, right, we sort of talked to
Speaker 3: ourselves into like, well, that defense has been great all year.
Speaker 4: I'm like Pete Sampson sneaking this way, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Loves it. The thing is with Clemson, they just shut
Speaker 3: out a playoff team, not a pretty good team, they
Speaker 3: shut out a playoff team, not one, not two, not
Speaker 3: even three, but four fingers deep, tie fingers deep. So
Speaker 3: we know that Clemson with authority has the capability to
Speaker 3: beat Alabama, right, I would think so. Yeah, as with
Speaker 3: Notre Dame in this situation a few years ago, when
Speaker 3: people started talking themselves into it, it was sort of like,
Speaker 3: well maybe if and then I think it's a totally
Speaker 3: different scenario with this pick.
Speaker 4: Let's put it this way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When I saw the points spread for the Alabama Washington game, yeah,
Speaker 4: I thought to myself, Alabama can definitely cover this, and
Speaker 4: they did. When I look at this point spread, depending
Speaker 4: where you look, six six and a half, seven seven
Speaker 4: and a half. In some places, I look at that
Speaker 4: and I say, I saw I don't feel great about that.
Speaker 3: I think it was odd shark. I think the money
Speaker 3: is about fifty nine forty one Clemson right.
Speaker 4: Now, it makes sense to me, and that's kind that's
Speaker 4: kind of how I feel about it now. Of course,
Speaker 4: it's a separate ball of wax al together. Can they
Speaker 4: beat them? Yeah, can they outright beat them? Last year
Speaker 4: scored scored a eight touchdown, covered the point spread this
Speaker 4: year can I don't know. I don't know, so that's
Speaker 4: sort of the whole purpose of this. The game is
Speaker 4: Monday night, eight pm down here at Tampa at Raymond
Speaker 4: James Stadium. I don't know if they have the pirate
Speaker 4: ship decorated and it's in any particular fashion, or if
Speaker 4: they'll fire the cannons. If any team scores.
Speaker 3: I would pay attention to Richard Johnson. He will be
Speaker 3: doing a stadium walkthrough walk through. He will be getting
Speaker 3: the information that you use such desire to have full disclosure.
Speaker 3: He's seated right now, still sitting right, He's still seated
Speaker 3: here since he's already on this show. We don't need
Speaker 3: We're not paying them enough money. That's right, That's what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: That's what this comes down to. Monday night, eight pm,
Speaker 4: Raymond James Stadium. Look for Richard's walk through. The game
Speaker 4: is on ESPN, of course, Chris Fowler, Ork kurb Street.
Speaker 4: Tom Rinaldi's going to be doing Alabama. I saw Sam
Speaker 4: Ponder is going to have the Clemson sidelines. Alabama's fourteen
Speaker 4: to zero. They are a six and a half point favorite,
Speaker 4: at least on my sheet, over Clemson thirteen oh one,
Speaker 4: the one loss coming against Pitt earlier in this season.
Speaker 4: What our plan is for this show is to walk
Speaker 4: through those layers. We're gonna analyze this from an analytical standpoint,
Speaker 4: as far as schemes go, as far as matchups go.
Speaker 4: We're going to talk about the Sark factor and all
Speaker 4: sorts of things here over the course of the next
Speaker 4: hour or so. Before we get there, though, we got
Speaker 4: to pay some bills. Here is and appropriately pre recorded. Yes, commercial,
Speaker 4: we're working ahead. This is what we do. Now.
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Speaker 4: Terms and conditions do apply, all right, Dan, Let's get
Speaker 4: rolling with our layer great read.
Speaker 3: By the way, Ty, you did a great take you okay,
Speaker 3: thank you? Where we start.
Speaker 4: Let's get rolling with our layered previews. So a good
Speaker 4: way to start this thing is to take a step back.
Speaker 4: Let's look at the numbers, just the way we always
Speaker 4: do before every game during.
Speaker 3: The most of all regular season sport.
Speaker 4: The numbers, the numbers, how the game is played on paper,
Speaker 4: and whatnot. You talked to Bill Connolly.
Speaker 3: I did, and what was really interesting to me is
Speaker 3: I did. And you know what, let's just start out
Speaker 3: right here. I asked him if anything jumped out to
Speaker 3: him even surprised him about the stat profiles mclems in Alabama.
Speaker 3: It was, actually, it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 4: Okay, here's some of your interview.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't think there are any major surprises here
Speaker 5: from a stat standpoint. I mean, basically, the biggest advantage
Speaker 5: of Alabama seems to have and you can see how
Speaker 5: this would define the game. You know, the Clemson's not
Speaker 5: a very good running team. They're better than they were
Speaker 5: at the beginning of the year, but Alabama's Alabama.
Speaker 1: They're not going to allow big run plays.
Speaker 5: They're going to probably Clemson's a pretty bad short yardage team,
Speaker 5: so Alabama's going to pretty much put it all onto
Speaker 5: Shaun Watson's shoulders. And that might work out okay for Clemson.
Speaker 5: But you know, that's kind of what's going to happen here.
Speaker 5: It would be very surprising if Clemson was able to
Speaker 5: generate too much on the ground. And then on the
Speaker 5: other side, you know what we saw Clemson being able
Speaker 5: to do to J. T.
Speaker 1: Barrett last week.
Speaker 5: I think is pretty similar to You're going to see,
Speaker 5: you know, a very good pass rush making Jalen hurts
Speaker 5: his life pretty uncomfortable when when they have.
Speaker 1: To pass or when he chooses to pass.
Speaker 5: Alabama will be better at running the ball than Ohio
Speaker 5: State was, or at the very least it's safe to
Speaker 5: assume they won't give up on the run as quickly
Speaker 5: as Ohio State did, and so you know, maybe that's enough.
Speaker 5: Maybe they get enough run run production that it doesn't
Speaker 5: matter that they can't really pass. But I don't think
Speaker 5: Alabama will be able to pass very well.
Speaker 3: What is a glaring deficiency or tendency for each team
Speaker 3: that you think will be very much publicly on display
Speaker 3: in this game.
Speaker 5: Well, I think Clemson's lack of a run game really
Speaker 5: is you know, like I said, they have improved as
Speaker 5: the as the season has progressed, but they don't. I
Speaker 5: don't think they're ready to take on Alabama in that
Speaker 5: regard yet. And I think that they give up a
Speaker 5: bunch of negative run plays. They give they get stucked
Speaker 5: in short yardage situations a lot. If you do those
Speaker 5: things against Alabama, I mean, any other quarterback and being
Speaker 5: rendered one dimensional pretty much ends your chances.
Speaker 1: But I do think that's what we're going to see.
Speaker 5: I think we're going to see a situation where that
Speaker 5: you know this, if a run game is just completely
Speaker 5: non existent against Alabama, I'd be surprised if if Goldin
Speaker 5: really gets going in that regard For Alabama, though, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's kind of the same deal. They also give up
Speaker 5: some negative run plays, they give up a ton of sacks,
Speaker 5: and as we saw, you know, they didn't move down
Speaker 5: too much in the ratings for not being able to
Speaker 5: pass against Washington because Washington has a very good pass defense,
Speaker 5: but they won't be able to rely on the on
Speaker 5: the pass, that's for sure. Clemson's pass defense is fantastic.
Speaker 5: And if it becomes a s situation where Hurts has
Speaker 5: to have time, I mean not only they have to pass,
Speaker 5: but I mean he has to get receivers downfield, it's
Speaker 5: gonna be really tough because comes and rushes the pass
Speaker 5: are really really well.
Speaker 3: Is there anything else from the statistical profile of these
Speaker 3: two teams, the profiles of these two teams that stands
Speaker 3: out to you as perhaps being unexpected.
Speaker 5: Well, I think, you know, maybe because we remember last
Speaker 5: year's you know, forty five to forty game. It's most
Speaker 5: of the advantages on both sides of the ball are defensive.
Speaker 5: That's usually the case with Alabama just because they typically
Speaker 5: have a humongous defensive advantages against anybody, but even against
Speaker 5: Clemson it's the case. And then on the other side,
Speaker 5: even against Alabama, Clemson's defensive advantages, the pass rush and
Speaker 5: whatnot seemed to stand out. So I would be really
Speaker 5: really surprised if we get anywhere close to eighty five
Speaker 5: points in this game. It feels more like a twenty
Speaker 5: five to twenty situation than than forty five to forty.
Speaker 4: All right, So that's Bill's perspective, That's how he sees
Speaker 4: the game shaking out, doesn't see as many point could
Speaker 4: see it unfolding in a similar fashion.
Speaker 3: Two great defenses. I don't think it's a reach at
Speaker 3: all to say.
Speaker 4: That in a similar close fashion as we did last year.
Speaker 4: The next place you and I decided to look for
Speaker 4: clues was to our good friend Bud Elliott. So, as
Speaker 4: you know, Bud Elliott does a great job Tomahawk Nation
Speaker 4: covering the Knowles to the degree that they do. But
Speaker 4: he's also really in the weeds. When it comes to
Speaker 4: all things recruiting, and when you look at games like
Speaker 4: this and you look at matchups, you want to talk
Speaker 4: to people who not only know the teams well, but
Speaker 4: also know the players, know the construction of the team,
Speaker 4: the talent on the team, really know what these coaches
Speaker 4: are working with. So we asked, Bud, can you give
Speaker 4: us some indication where you think this thing might head
Speaker 4: based on the construction of these two teams.
Speaker 3: These are the two best houses in college football. They
Speaker 3: have the two best foundations absolutely.
Speaker 6: For about the billionth year in a row.
Speaker 7: Now it seems the national championship is going to go
Speaker 7: to a team that has signed more four and five
Speaker 7: stars over the last four seasons than two and three stars.
Speaker 7: Got to have a certain minute level of talent to
Speaker 7: take home the national title. I call that the blue
Speaker 7: chip ratio, and you can read about that on espnation
Speaker 7: dot com. This year, Alabama unsurprisingly was number one in
Speaker 7: the blue chip ratio, with an incredible seventy seven percent
Speaker 7: of their signings over the last four years being blue chips.
Speaker 7: Clemson was number twelve with fifty two percent. Really, the
Speaker 7: goal here is just to be over half what we
Speaker 7: see with Clemson, though, is that Clemson has one of
Speaker 7: the most talented rosters in college football, much like Alabama does.
Speaker 7: Other than the quarterback position, though these teams are not
Speaker 7: that dissimilar. They both have dominating defensive lines. Clemson with
Speaker 7: Christian Wilkins, Carlos Watkins, and importantly Dexter Lawrence, who I
Speaker 7: think is probably, if you want to make an NFL
Speaker 7: comparison talent wise, probably the closest thing we've seen to
Speaker 7: Albert Haynesworth since Albert Haynesworth. He moves like a three
Speaker 7: hundred pound guye despite being forty pounds bigger, and that's
Speaker 7: just that's a whole lot of mass moving at a
Speaker 7: quick speed. It's just difficult to block. On the other side,
Speaker 7: I think if you look at Alabama, one of their
Speaker 7: most impressive players this year is Jonah Williams, a former
Speaker 7: five star offensive tackle. I believe he enrolled early, came
Speaker 7: in started immediately, has played great this entire year. And
Speaker 7: playing offensive tackle is a really tough ask of a
Speaker 7: true freshman. But the tie they have Jonah Williams on
Speaker 7: one side is doing it, and on the other side
Speaker 7: they have Cam Robinson, who's one of the top draft prospects.
Speaker 6: And he's been doing it for three years now.
Speaker 7: Alabama, we know all the stars up front, and that's
Speaker 7: really I think what separates Alabama from most of the
Speaker 7: other teams is we had this much talent on the team.
Speaker 6: There's no doubt that you're.
Speaker 7: Able to practice at a higher level because if you
Speaker 7: take a day off practice at Alabama, they have somebody else,
Speaker 7: probably very close to your.
Speaker 6: Talent level behind you.
Speaker 7: And I think the drop off in terms of talent
Speaker 7: when you go down the depth chart at Alabama is less.
Speaker 7: That is, it utters schools and other schools they may
Speaker 7: have the top level talent may be the same, but
Speaker 7: they probably haven't stockpiled quite that death. As we've seen
Speaker 7: again seventy seven percent of their signings over the last
Speaker 7: four years being four and five stars. That's by far
Speaker 7: the biggest amount in the country. I'm excited to watch
Speaker 7: this ball games. I think there are really playmakers at
Speaker 7: every position.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: Alabama has has a nice trio of running backs like
Speaker 7: Wayne Golman out of Clemson, but really it's can.
Speaker 6: Either side block each other.
Speaker 7: They're so good on the defensive lines that I think
Speaker 7: it's it's just it's hard to do a lot offensively
Speaker 7: against these guys. Pitt torrip Clemson a little bit. Alabama
Speaker 7: really hasn't given up many points the entire year, but
Speaker 7: they're missing a couple of guys on defense. Miss and
Speaker 7: Eddie Jackson now one of their top linebackers is out
Speaker 7: as well, one of the better cover guys at the
Speaker 7: linebacker position.
Speaker 6: I'm excited to watch this game.
Speaker 7: You don't see a whole lot of matchups that feature
Speaker 7: this much talent on the field at one time, and
Speaker 7: from somebody who makes his money on people caring about recruiting,
Speaker 7: I'm really.
Speaker 6: Happy to see that again.
Speaker 7: The National Championship rings are going to go to a
Speaker 7: team that has recruited what I've defined as kind of
Speaker 7: the minimum threshold of talent you need to bring home
Speaker 7: the title.
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, Bud. Next up, where do we look
Speaker 4: for our clues? Next?
Speaker 3: Chrispy Brown chris By Chris B. Chris By Brown of
Speaker 3: Smart Football and has done some work for The Ringer,
Speaker 3: formerly of grant Lands. Touched on a number of issues,
Speaker 3: but really focused in on Clemson, their offense and how
Speaker 3: well the wrinkles that they've added these past couple of seasons,
Speaker 3: how well they're working.
Speaker 4: Chris Brown Smart football dot Com has been a long
Speaker 4: time guest of the show, has a lot to offer.
Speaker 2: I mean, as we know, Clemson went Inity are not
Speaker 2: wanting to run Deshaun Watson too much, which is I
Speaker 2: think a smart move, but is also a little bit
Speaker 2: of a challenge at times when you're a spread offense
Speaker 2: that's sort of designed and originally built to include quarterback
Speaker 2: run in what you do. Otherwise you'd run a pro
Speaker 2: style offense and do something else. So at times it's
Speaker 2: not like this year they're playing with one hand behind
Speaker 2: their back, but against Ohio State you saw them unveil
Speaker 2: a couple things that hadn't shown previously and then also
Speaker 2: just emphasize a couple more that they've been working on
Speaker 2: this year. One of the main ones, and ironically you
Speaker 2: actually saw Alabama run the same play was something growing
Speaker 2: out of a play that Cam Newton made famous a
Speaker 2: few years ago, which is called the inverted veer or
Speaker 2: the power read, which is basically where the offensive line
Speaker 2: will block sort of an old school traditional power play.
Speaker 2: The backside guard will pull around, but instead of sending
Speaker 2: your full back to kick out or block that defensive
Speaker 2: end like you see Stanford and Michigan running with Jim Harbaugh.
Speaker 2: The quarterback will read that defender and he'll either hand
Speaker 2: it off to a running back on a sweep around end,
Speaker 2: or if you remember Cam Newton winning the Heisman Trophy,
Speaker 2: sort of keeping it himself and running right up the
Speaker 2: middle for a big run. That play has been effective
Speaker 2: for the last five six years in college football. You've
Speaker 2: seen a lot of teams try to find new ways
Speaker 2: and new wrinkles that take that same idea and expand
Speaker 2: on it or do different things. One of the cool
Speaker 2: ones is something that high school coaches talk about really
Speaker 2: a short time on about a year ago, and then
Speaker 2: suddenly a bunch of teams started running it this year,
Speaker 2: including Clumbs and then again later in the year Alabama,
Speaker 2: which is where instead of putting the ball in the
Speaker 2: running back's belly as he sort of fakes a sweep
Speaker 2: and then letting him try to dash around end, the
Speaker 2: right back will actually swing out and the quarterback has
Speaker 2: the option to either pitch it to him or keep
Speaker 2: it up the middle himself, which allows the running back
Speaker 2: to get wide much more quickly. It kind of what
Speaker 2: it does is it kind of takes the old speed
Speaker 2: option like the Nebraska you know old school option fotball
Speaker 2: where the quarterback runs down the line and can either
Speaker 2: pitch it or keep it himself, and combines it with
Speaker 2: this the inverted veer power read game, where it's a
Speaker 2: little bit of a it's both a faster read gets
Speaker 2: it to the running back faster, or a little bit slower,
Speaker 2: more deliberate run inside. So you saw you've seen Clemson
Speaker 2: using a bunch of times. Well this year they pitched
Speaker 2: outside the Wayne Goldman a couple of times. When Alabama
Speaker 2: ran it, you saw Jayalen Hurts keep it up inside
Speaker 2: for like a first down. But the other marinkle is
Speaker 2: that Ohio State was ready for that play. They were ready.
Speaker 2: They clearly scouted it. So where they really killed Ohio
Speaker 2: State and Deshaun Watson at a touchdown and two or
Speaker 2: three really huge runs was where he faked like he
Speaker 2: was tossing it, but then instead of running the power
Speaker 2: read to the same side, he came back the other
Speaker 2: way and ran what they call a counterplayer counter tray
Speaker 2: where the guard and then the tight end would pull
Speaker 2: around and lead around, which, ironically to Ohio State, was
Speaker 2: probably one of their best plays. Is the counter tray,
Speaker 2: and when you saw Ohio State try to defend the thing,
Speaker 2: they ended up a guy short. A couple of different times.
Speaker 2: Watson took it down the sideway for a bunch of
Speaker 2: big games, and so it was. It was a great
Speaker 2: example using the bowl season to both expand what they
Speaker 2: were doing, using more runs with Deshaun Watson when it's
Speaker 2: crunch time, but then also taking Ohio these preparation and
Speaker 2: using it against them, which is something you have to
Speaker 2: do against Alabama because you know they've will have watched
Speaker 2: ten years of your film and scouted you out and
Speaker 2: know every tendency. See, you have to strategically break your Tennessee.
Speaker 3: So who does it specifically stress this this variation on
Speaker 3: a single concept, Who on the defense is it meant
Speaker 3: to make make a quick decision? And you say, Ohio
Speaker 3: State was ready. So now with even more variations to
Speaker 3: this play, how do you anticipate teams? And I guess
Speaker 3: specifically Alabama in this case or Clemson in this case
Speaker 3: defensively since they both run an offense, what is a
Speaker 3: potential solution to cover every single area if possible.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's that's the whole game. Is you can't
Speaker 2: cover every single area. So the play the bass play itself,
Speaker 2: whether it's the inverted Viera, the toss toss read concept
Speaker 2: is you're just trying to read the defensive end. So
Speaker 2: if he goes out with the running back of the
Speaker 2: quarterback keeps it inside. If you crash it down inside,
Speaker 2: you you pitch it outside. You defend that by getting
Speaker 2: your other players involved. Safety is coming downhill, linebackers scraping
Speaker 2: over the top to stop the running back, and then
Speaker 2: that's when you start opening up other things. So Ohio
Speaker 2: State plays a quarters cover four defense, so which basically
Speaker 2: requires the safeties to be hard run defenders, and then
Speaker 2: they also give a lot of flexibility because the safeties
Speaker 2: are there on sort of either side of the line to
Speaker 2: the linebackers to flow fast and defend the play. So
Speaker 2: that was why Clemson then faked the toss read and
Speaker 2: then ran the counter the other way, and you had
Speaker 2: the linebackers either hesitated or over pursued towards where the
Speaker 2: running back went. And then so when Watson sort of
Speaker 2: took it around end, you actually saw on a couple
Speaker 2: of them the pulling tight end base almost had no
Speaker 2: one to block until he was five, six, seven, eight
Speaker 2: yards downfield. The ended up hooking the safety and resulting
Speaker 2: a big game. So that was where Clemson saw the
Speaker 2: reaction from Ohio State and then stressed the linebackers. A
Speaker 2: fun example from earlier in the years, Ole Miss runs
Speaker 2: this play a little bit, and when they played Alabama
Speaker 2: early on, Alabama had its safeties coming down hill hard
Speaker 2: because they were Savans known for playing sort of Cover
Speaker 2: one with a single safety deep or Cover three, but
Speaker 2: actually against a lot of spread teams, he'll play a
Speaker 2: lot more sort of two safety looks where the safeties
Speaker 2: can get involved in the run game. And they ran
Speaker 2: a play where they faked the toss read, the running
Speaker 2: back ran out wide, the guard pulled, but it was
Speaker 2: a play action pass and they had a sixty three
Speaker 2: yard touchdown wide open because the safety and sort of
Speaker 2: the nickel guy both just came up to try to
Speaker 2: stop the sweep in the quarterback. So that's the fun
Speaker 2: part about it is that it's a cat and mouse
Speaker 2: game sort of on the macro sense, but even in
Speaker 2: the micro you figure out who's overreacting, what are they
Speaker 2: doing to take away the play, and then you come
Speaker 2: back with something else to try to take advantage. I
Speaker 2: do expect to see clems and take a couple of shots,
Speaker 2: maybe faking the toss read or even the toss sort
Speaker 2: of read counter or that they were running, and then
Speaker 2: maybe trying to take a shot to Mike Williams or
Speaker 2: somebody downfield.
Speaker 3: Do you anticipate Alabama being able to adjust quickly? I
Speaker 3: mean we're still talking about about seven to nine days
Speaker 3: to be able to adjust to all of the different
Speaker 3: options that Clemson will have. Or is it simply a
Speaker 3: cat and mouse thing and hope that your talent is
Speaker 3: good enough to play on an island?
Speaker 2: I mean, yes and no. Will Alabama adjusts and alaban
Speaker 2: be prepared? Yes, that team does nothing but adjust and prepare,
Speaker 2: and even within series, between series, between plays, once you
Speaker 2: do something that works, you know the old adage with Alabama,
Speaker 2: and I've heard everybody from Gus malls On to other
Speaker 2: people say, if it worked in you know, one series,
Speaker 2: don't expect it to ever work again, because that team
Speaker 2: adjusts like no other. You know. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: you know, there's there's a limited number of numbers. And
Speaker 2: this is where Clemson now being in the in the playoffs,
Speaker 2: where they're they're sort of using the full talents of Watson,
Speaker 2: understand that they don't want to take him to take
Speaker 2: a bunch of hits, but using his full talents to
Speaker 2: try to stress the defense. So then it does result
Speaker 2: in Okay, if Alabama's going to bring a safety up,
Speaker 2: maybe they don't, you know, fake them out like all
Speaker 2: missed it. But you still have a one on one
Speaker 2: with you know, Mike Williams or somebody and just it's
Speaker 2: just a regular play action pass or some mother traditional
Speaker 2: run or they're able to option a guy or do something.
Speaker 2: But then you know, the other element too, is that
Speaker 2: the play only works if you can block the counter
Speaker 2: or block the power. And as you've seen, you know,
Speaker 2: even Washington, who I thought had a perfectly rational plan
Speaker 2: against Alabama, they might make the right read, but can't
Speaker 2: block Jonathan Allen on the double team, and he splits
Speaker 2: her double team and then you know he was ready
Speaker 2: to tackle the quarterback two years deep in the backfield.
Speaker 2: You had the right scheme, but just didn't get those
Speaker 2: guys blocked. And that's that's a lot of what Alabama's
Speaker 2: just done to people this year, is that you know,
Speaker 2: a scheme destroyers, you have a great plan but can't
Speaker 2: block the front seven.
Speaker 3: Something you've also written about recently is you've looked over
Speaker 3: an older Clemson playbook from a couple of years ago
Speaker 3: and sort of notice certain themes throughout, and it seemed
Speaker 3: like the main thing that jumped out to you was simplicity,
Speaker 3: which has gone a long way obviously for Clemson. I
Speaker 3: think there's something like fifty nine to nine since they
Speaker 3: lost the Orange Bowl. How do you think a sort
Speaker 3: of theme and notion of simplicit city plays to Clemson's
Speaker 3: possible strength against a near impossible defense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a strength until it isn't. So
Speaker 2: it's a strengthen that it gets everywhere on the same page.
Speaker 2: They're able to play with a lot of tempo. Is
Speaker 2: what a lot of that's built around is that they
Speaker 2: have a good number of formations, but they don't They
Speaker 2: don't throw a ton of concepts at you, and then
Speaker 2: they do include things. They include a variety of concepts
Speaker 2: or ideas or different schemes without having to have a
Speaker 2: million ways to do each one. So they have quick passes,
Speaker 2: downfield passes, play action passes, sort of shot sort of
Speaker 2: deep plays. They have base runs, option runs, read runs, screens.
Speaker 2: They have all those different things, but they don't have
Speaker 2: a huge playbook like there's some kind of West Coast offense.
Speaker 2: They have one hundred versions of each and so it
Speaker 2: allows them to play fast, play efficient, and they're very good.
Speaker 2: And I give a credit to Davo at a staff.
Speaker 2: They really think players not plays. They're not. They're not
Speaker 2: trying to say fool you though, they're they're doing soundstf
Speaker 2: up and try to, you know, get advantages. But it's it's,
Speaker 2: you know, recruit really good players and get them the
Speaker 2: ball in their hands and put them in good, good positions.
Speaker 2: But eventually you know there there can be limits, is
Speaker 2: too much simplicity if the other team knows what's coming
Speaker 2: and they can stop it, I mean, and that's sort
Speaker 2: of the ultimate challenge on that is playing an experienced,
Speaker 2: well coached Alabama defense who who their preparation is is unreal.
Speaker 2: You can't tell me that that they didn't spend some
Speaker 2: of the bowl preparation time on Clemson, a team they
Speaker 2: also prepared for last year, so they're very familiar with them.
Speaker 2: And so a question then becomes that they if Alabama
Speaker 2: can get ahead of you, do you have answers, and
Speaker 2: and that's where the challenges if you're too simple, is
Speaker 2: that if they take away sort of option A m
Speaker 2: B and you just don't even have a C. So
Speaker 2: so that's where that that kind of mouse game goes.
Speaker 2: It's also just a matter of the other thing I
Speaker 2: thought was interesting in the playbook was the passing game
Speaker 2: was really really really simple. I mean it was like
Speaker 2: almost so simple. It's like it's kind of a high
Speaker 2: school passing game at times. Now they've grown it a lot.
Speaker 2: That was from twenty thirteen Deshaun Watson. They've really tried
Speaker 2: to expand it to to sort of benefit the sounds,
Speaker 2: but they're not running the West Coast offense over there.
Speaker 2: A lot of it is based on you got to
Speaker 2: defend the run. You got to defend the formations, you
Speaker 2: got to defend the tempo. You got to fend the
Speaker 2: read the read option stuff. And then they'll even do
Speaker 2: the run pass options things for you know, if you
Speaker 2: crash down, the throw a hitchress or a little you know,
Speaker 2: a quick screen or something like that, and then only that,
Speaker 2: and then they'll even do some you know, motions and
Speaker 2: bootlegs and stuff to get the pass game and only
Speaker 2: at that point is that okay, and go drop back
Speaker 2: and read one, two, three, four in a pass progression.
Speaker 2: But I think it's really hard to do that against
Speaker 2: Alabama because they rush you so fast. But it's also
Speaker 2: a team that is going to force you to do
Speaker 2: what you don't feature. And last year in the Bowl,
Speaker 2: in the in the championship game, you know, Watson threw
Speaker 2: the ball really well and the biggest thing was the
Speaker 2: receivers went up and made a bunch of contested catches
Speaker 2: and big plays. And so I think that will be
Speaker 2: the stress on Clemsons playbook, on Watson himself, and then
Speaker 2: on on on the whole Clemson team is can they
Speaker 2: execute in the past game against the defense that I
Speaker 2: mean they're running in an NFL sophisticated defense over there.
Speaker 2: It's like the Bible their playbook. And so I mean,
Speaker 2: I always say, comparing Clemson's offensive playbook to Alabama's defensive playbook,
Speaker 2: there are more pages dedicated to path concepts and offensive
Speaker 2: formations and schemes in Alabama's defensive playbook than they were
Speaker 2: in Clemson's offensive playbook. It is a Bible of defense.
Speaker 2: So so that would be a real challenge and I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, the the group that I'm I think we'll
Speaker 2: know pretty early in the game how how the flow
Speaker 2: of the game is going to go. Because last year
Speaker 2: Clemson's offensive line played outs out really really well. Obviously
Speaker 2: Watson played great and Golman and those guys, but the
Speaker 2: offensive line blocked those guys, and I think that's the
Speaker 2: you know, we'll see in the first few series. Can
Speaker 2: they block Alabama? Because as I said, you can have
Speaker 2: all the great scheme in the world, a lot of that.
Speaker 2: You know, Alabama's made a habit of throwing that out
Speaker 2: the window by just being in your backfield the whole game.
Speaker 3: Final question, it's something you've talked about extensively, not just
Speaker 3: with Nick Saban, but also with some other really noted
Speaker 3: defensive minds like Gary Patterson. Alabama plays a couple of
Speaker 3: different coverages against you know, we're talking about a very
Speaker 3: good quarterback and Deshaun Watson, but against everybody, and the
Speaker 3: thing that you've sort of come back to and explained,
Speaker 3: and if you could just give a cliffs notes, especially
Speaker 3: since Clemson will run some we'll run a lot of
Speaker 3: tempo and a lot of run pass option at times,
Speaker 3: what exactly is pattern matching and how can it help
Speaker 3: to deaden run pass option and some sort of more
Speaker 3: stressful spread option attacks.
Speaker 2: Sure, a couple couple of elements of pattern matching, and
Speaker 2: really at this point it's just becomes sort of a principle,
Speaker 2: and I think it's actually increasingly difficult to find teams
Speaker 2: that don't use some sort of pattern match concept as
Speaker 2: opposed to traditional zone. And so all pattern matching is
Speaker 2: is really it's somewhere between a matchup zone and basketball.
Speaker 2: There another way to think about it is it's just
Speaker 2: mann to man, but instead of just old school backyard
Speaker 2: saying I got him, I got him, I got him,
Speaker 2: and you just play man across the field. It's a
Speaker 2: man to man, but there's some rules and principles, so
Speaker 2: meaning that I have man to man on him if
Speaker 2: he runs ten yards downfield, and then I just play
Speaker 2: man on him everywhere. Or I have man to man
Speaker 2: on him if he runs a short route, but then
Speaker 2: if he doesn't, I'm gonna then become a floating robber player,
Speaker 2: or I'll go double team someone else. And so it's
Speaker 2: just rules. I increasingly just think about it's rules for
Speaker 2: mando man defense, which is one reason why I think
Speaker 2: Alabama is so good at coaching is because they play
Speaker 2: a lot of just true man and then they also
Speaker 2: mix in pattern match concepts. And so the other element
Speaker 2: is that one reason they're so good at pass defense
Speaker 2: is that because they're a pattern match. It's the rules
Speaker 2: for mando man. But then they specifically and as I said,
Speaker 2: their playbook has like one hundred and something pages on
Speaker 2: like passing concepts. Is that Saban teaches them, not just
Speaker 2: you know the old school zone is dropped to your
Speaker 2: zone and you know, watch read the quarterback's eyes and
Speaker 2: break on the ball. And this goes back to saving
Speaker 2: time with Bill Belichick. I mean he's just say, you know,
Speaker 2: you're playing Dan Marino, they will break on the ball.
Speaker 2: Shit don't work. So that's how where a lot of
Speaker 2: this grew out of. So they they have names for them.
Speaker 2: So they they name it's like, you know, one concept
Speaker 2: is poll, another is slugo, another is seam, another is
Speaker 2: is whatever the concept. So they actually teach the defense
Speaker 2: here's the actual passing concept they're running. And so when
Speaker 2: you read their playbook, it looks like a like an
Speaker 2: NFL playbook for an offense because they have every pass
Speaker 2: concept that you could see. So what that does is
Speaker 2: a few things. One a big tenet of Savings defenses
Speaker 2: is he doesn't like to give you easy throws. You know,
Speaker 2: he talks a lot about when you watch one on
Speaker 2: one drills for you know, the defenses that they're playing
Speaker 2: off coverage, it's like eighty percent eighty five percent completions
Speaker 2: for the offense, but all of a sudden you get
Speaker 2: there and press them and challenge receivers, the completion percentage
Speaker 2: drops toll like thirty twenty five percent. Now, most coaches
Speaker 2: are afraid to because they're afraid of getting be deep.
Speaker 2: But a Savan's got great athletes and he personally coaches
Speaker 2: the secondary. They also have a great pass rush. You
Speaker 2: have a lot of time. And then the big thing
Speaker 2: is his theory is that if you just can get
Speaker 2: offensives off schedule. So the other thing was where it
Speaker 2: helps defend on things like run pass options is just
Speaker 2: the fact that they're actually covering all the receivers. They're
Speaker 2: defending them all. The whole point of a run pass
Speaker 2: option is you're either running the ball or you're taking
Speaker 2: some sort of gimme easy throw, like a quick screen
Speaker 2: to the outside. Or like a five yard stop route
Speaker 2: by a receiver and they're just covering those receivers taking
Speaker 2: them away. I will say pattern match, you could argue,
Speaker 2: is at times more vulnerable to run pass options. And
Speaker 2: if you watch you know, like a team like the
Speaker 2: Baylor teams or some of those that sort of were
Speaker 2: very aggressive run pass option teams, a lot of that
Speaker 2: was designed around taking advantage of pattern match teams because
Speaker 2: those teams will often have players who are in sort
Speaker 2: of both run in pass responsibility. So there's still elements
Speaker 2: to that. But I think the biggest thing that Alabama
Speaker 2: does that makes it hard to run and be really
Speaker 2: good at run pass options against them is that they
Speaker 2: just run so many defenses you don't know where they're
Speaker 2: going to be. It's like it's sort of like old
Speaker 2: school option football. If you're you run the triple option,
Speaker 2: you're trying to read the defensive end with the defensive
Speaker 2: tackle or the linebacker. If they're moving defenses and blitzing
Speaker 2: guys and moving stunts and playing I mean say it.
Speaker 2: I mean you talk about coverages. I mean a lot
Speaker 2: of them are variations on the same coverages, but I
Speaker 2: mean they have seventy coverages fifty coverages, you know, all
Speaker 2: these different Seahawks, a solo special clip, cover two buster like,
Speaker 2: you know, cover two cut, like all these different rules
Speaker 2: that just change little subtle things that make it really hard.
Speaker 2: So if you don't know who you're optioning, and in
Speaker 2: this case, a run pass option, it's really hard. And
Speaker 2: then that leads to indecision and either a mistake or
Speaker 2: interception or just a blown out play. So Alan, it
Speaker 2: is really hard. I think Clemson's actually got a shot,
Speaker 2: but I think we'll learn pretty early whether they can
Speaker 2: move the ball. The advantage for Clemson is that they
Speaker 2: can get up Alabama's often. I don't think it's geared
Speaker 2: to throw the ball and come back, though they did
Speaker 2: it against All miss But but it'll be a challenge.
Speaker 4: All right. Again, that is our good friend Chris B.
Speaker 4: Brown from Smart Football dot Com. We didn't just want
Speaker 4: to leave you with one bit of scheme. Yeah, theme
Speaker 4: type stuff. Did we hit on Clemson. We hit on
Speaker 4: some of the Alabama defensive stuff. But there's a whole
Speaker 4: other world in this game. There's a whole other world
Speaker 4: in this game, and we alluded to it a little
Speaker 4: bit earlier. Jalen hurts this year gave Alabama a whole
Speaker 4: different dimension.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 4: We're not used to seeing, you know, a guy who
Speaker 4: can run. Jake Kocher didn't run last year. I think
Speaker 4: back o roy Rad Gallops. Yeah, I mean, this is
Speaker 4: not part of Alabama's offensive game plan, and it's made
Speaker 4: them all the more dangerous. So we wanted to talk
Speaker 4: to somebody who could fill in the gaps and let
Speaker 4: us know how has this changed things? How will it
Speaker 4: changed things in this game?
Speaker 8: Well, I think the best answer is they actually use him,
Speaker 8: and they use him a lot. You know, in previous
Speaker 8: years kind of because of the class of quarterback that
Speaker 8: Nick Saban recruited in that Alabama had, they just didn't
Speaker 8: really they didn't really have guys that were runners. They
Speaker 8: were running a more pro style, kind of bash you
Speaker 8: over the head type of offensive system. But as Nick
Speaker 8: Saban has seen what types of offenses have beaten him
Speaker 8: or at least given him trouble in the past few
Speaker 8: years at Alabama, the Tide have evolved into this and
Speaker 8: this is really really good and really really hard to stop.
Speaker 8: Because Jalen hurts is I don't want to call him
Speaker 8: a glorified running back. That's taking away from his ceiling
Speaker 8: as a passer, which I think is high, although he
Speaker 8: hasn't met it because he's just a freshman, and I
Speaker 8: understand that. But he is the leading ball carrier on
Speaker 8: this team, like he is their best running back and
Speaker 8: their quarterback. And that's what's so so scary about kind
Speaker 8: of this like three now a three headed monster that
Speaker 8: album has.
Speaker 4: And beyond that, they're gonna.
Speaker 8: Use both Scarborough a lot in the National Championship Game
Speaker 8: as well, lane Kiffin said. And this is even in
Speaker 8: the wake of his you know ouster, whatever you want
Speaker 8: to call it. Lane Kiffin has said that the game
Speaker 8: plan was to give Bo Scarborough the ball more than
Speaker 8: any person on Alabama's roster. So in essence, the thing
Speaker 8: might even I don't think it's gonna flip to Jalen
Speaker 8: Hurd's not getting so many carries. I just think Alabama
Speaker 8: in general is going to run the ball a lot
Speaker 8: more in the National Championship Game. It's just going to
Speaker 8: be more from like a two headed thing than it
Speaker 8: is just Jalen or a reliance on just Bo Scarborough.
Speaker 8: It's gonna be the both of them kind of taking
Speaker 8: cracks at Clemson's at Clemson's defense.
Speaker 3: Schematically, what are the keys for Alabama's success rushing the
Speaker 3: ball successfully in this new formation? In this new strategy, it.
Speaker 8: Is still largely the zone runs inside and outside zone
Speaker 8: that they've always done, the wrinkles that they that they employ.
Speaker 8: You know, they'll do some stuff with some wide receiver sweeps.
Speaker 8: You'll see Alabama do a little bit of mid line
Speaker 8: option where instead of you know, typically in a zone
Speaker 8: read or an option system, you'll see the quarterback read
Speaker 8: the defensive end, but in a mid line option he
Speaker 8: literally will read like the nose tackle. Like he'll read
Speaker 8: a defensive tackle instead of defensive end. So it'll look
Speaker 8: a little bit different on a film and you'll say, oh, well,
Speaker 8: what was that. Well, he's still making a read, it's
Speaker 8: just a different player that he's reading. But they'll also
Speaker 8: use receivers. They send receivers in motion a lot more
Speaker 8: than anything. They do it to get the eye discipline
Speaker 8: of the defense going the wrong way. They want you
Speaker 8: to pay attention to the wide receiver and almost kind
Speaker 8: of use him as a decoy to get you out
Speaker 8: of phase or to move you out of position and
Speaker 8: negate whatever angle you may have. So the blocking angle
Speaker 8: is more advantageous for Alabama, and you know, Jalen Hurts
Speaker 8: as a really really asked athlete, or even Bo Scarborough
Speaker 8: is better suited to blow by you because you, as
Speaker 8: a tackler, do not have the angle that you once did.
Speaker 8: But the bread and butter is still inside and outside zone.
Speaker 8: It's the same thing that your own college football team
Speaker 8: probably runs. If you're a fan of the sport. It
Speaker 8: is what pretty much everybody runs, and Alabama, obviously with
Speaker 8: their horses, just do it better than anybody else.
Speaker 3: How simple do you feel like Alabama's offense has been
Speaker 3: made for a true freshman quarterback?
Speaker 8: I don't know if simple is the word to put it.
Speaker 8: I do think like they've added things that suit him,
Speaker 8: like they've just they've plugged him into a system that
Speaker 8: more suits him. I think as an athlete, as a
Speaker 8: general athlete, even more than just a quarterback. You know,
Speaker 8: I know they don't throw the ball, some of the
Speaker 8: concepts and that kind of stuff in a passing game.
Speaker 8: You know, they're not terribly complex or intricate. But then
Speaker 8: that goes back to the fact that they they run
Speaker 8: the ball a lot, and they run it really, really well.
Speaker 8: So you know it is, like I said, it is
Speaker 8: largely the same Alabama. They've added some things, you know.
Speaker 8: Chris Brown Smart Football wrote about the toss read that
Speaker 8: they have. I hadn't got a chance to read that,
Speaker 8: but like that's one of those like little wrinkles that
Speaker 8: they do that I think people like think, is this
Speaker 8: like really really big thing, But it's it is essentially
Speaker 8: an add in to the general running game concepts that
Speaker 8: they already have in place. Like Alabama's not going to
Speaker 8: reinvent the wheel, really, They're just going to kind of
Speaker 8: tweak what works and continue to do it at a
Speaker 8: very high level.
Speaker 3: With respect to other teams that have been certainly doing
Speaker 3: this longer. How well do you feel like al Alabama
Speaker 3: has executed. How successful does Alabama look running a more wide, open,
Speaker 3: running quarterback friendly offense.
Speaker 8: Oh, they look good, And they look good because.
Speaker 6: Of the personnel more than anything else.
Speaker 8: I mean, like I've already said it, like the personnel,
Speaker 8: it's just really good. Like it's still just really good.
Speaker 8: And if Hurts was a more polished passer at this
Speaker 8: stage in his development, I think they would look even better.
Speaker 8: I mean, if they were able to really I mean
Speaker 8: Calvin Ridley is a guy that and our Darius Stewart
Speaker 8: just really really talented whiteouts. Gar Dieters a tight end
Speaker 8: like these guys are, I don't want to say lost
Speaker 8: in the sauce, but a little bit forgotten about just
Speaker 8: because Alabama doesn't necessarily, like in that Washington game, like
Speaker 8: they didn't really hit one of those like Alabama play
Speaker 8: action bombs that you kind of expect them to hit
Speaker 8: when they run so well. So those other kind of
Speaker 8: like wide receivers like that, they're not even really getting
Speaker 8: used as much as in years past or you know,
Speaker 8: really showing off what they can do.
Speaker 4: All right, That was Richard Johnson. We've got much more
Speaker 4: to discuss here on our layered college football National Championship preview.
Speaker 3: Are we getting to the sour cream?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Is that how that's working?
Speaker 4: A little black beab, that's I think that's sort of
Speaker 4: how it's going. Look, so let's pay some bills. We'll
Speaker 4: come back at you. Oh, speaking of as you know
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Speaker 4: a better way to cook. Daniel. Yes, there is another
Speaker 4: storyline that is being widely reported. As you know, Blank
Speaker 4: Kiffen no longer the offensive coordinator for Alabama. He was
Speaker 4: all year, he was all last year. Yeah, most important
Speaker 4: game of the season. Nick Saban decides, Ah, let's turn
Speaker 4: it over to the understudy.
Speaker 3: Here before that, if I recall correctly as well, Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's turn it over to one Steve Sarkisian. Indeed, So
Speaker 3: started the season out looking like he was going to
Speaker 3: be calling like the number three Fox Sports one Big
Speaker 3: Twelve Game of the Week, finishes the season controlling an
Speaker 3: offense for his first national championship since his run at USC.
Speaker 4: I mean it's a bit of a meteoric rise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say so.
Speaker 4: It'd be more meteoric if he didn't already have some
Speaker 4: prominent head coaching and play calling experience. But nonetheless it
Speaker 4: is notable in the biggest game of the college football season.
Speaker 4: What we wanted to do is figure just how is
Speaker 4: this going to factor in? We needed to find somebody.
Speaker 4: Is there anybody out there that you can think of?
Speaker 4: I don't know, somebody who knows what both these guys
Speaker 4: can do as play callers. Sure, if we can find
Speaker 4: that human being, maybe you could add another layer here.
Speaker 3: I feel like if we could find somebody, perhaps perhaps
Speaker 3: who has followed USC for decades and might know some
Speaker 3: tendencies and per personality quirks of Steve Sarkisian. Maybe somebody
Speaker 3: like Ryan Abraham of USC football dot Com to weigh in.
Speaker 4: Ryan Abraham, he's seen both play callers up close and
Speaker 4: in person. How are these guys like, how are they different?
Speaker 1: How to listen?
Speaker 9: There are certainly some similarities between Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian,
Speaker 9: both coming from that Pete Carroll Tree at USC as
Speaker 9: far as being offensive coordinators and play callers. First, with
Speaker 9: Steve Sarkasian, I think he's actually probably a better play
Speaker 9: caller than Lane. I think a little bit less ego
Speaker 9: gets involved, and I can talk about that in a
Speaker 9: minute with Lane Kiffin, but I don't think he's probably
Speaker 9: like as an original thinker as Lane. Lane's a little
Speaker 9: bit more creative, maybe thinking more outside of the box.
Speaker 9: I think what you saw he ran more of a
Speaker 9: spread system up in Seattle, and I really like the
Speaker 9: way he utilized the tight ends and focused on the
Speaker 9: running game too. It wasn't just a pass happy offense,
Speaker 9: and they kind of got away from that when he
Speaker 9: came to USC. But you know what you saw in Seattle,
Speaker 9: I thought there were some real positive signs there, and
Speaker 9: then you know, coming back down to USC, the offense,
Speaker 9: you know, it wasn't really what a lot of USC
Speaker 9: fans thought it was going to be. Now, he only
Speaker 9: lasted for eighteen games, and I think it's still a
Speaker 9: lot of that was under development, and you saw Cody
Speaker 9: Kussler be a really efficient passer under Steve Starkesian, but
Speaker 9: it really wasn't quite the explosive offense that a lot
Speaker 9: of people would have liked to see. As far as
Speaker 9: Lane Kiffin goes, I do think his ego kind of
Speaker 9: gets in the way sometimes as a play caller. He
Speaker 9: does seem to be a guy that's a lot more
Speaker 9: about the x's and o's of the play than the
Speaker 9: you know, the Jimmies and Joe's. You have a lot
Speaker 9: of great players and a lot of times you're just
Speaker 9: trying to fool somebody or you know, show somebody how
Speaker 9: smart you are. And I think you could see that
Speaker 9: in a lot of the games he called, especially this
Speaker 9: last game in the semi final, when you're talking, you
Speaker 9: have a running back that's just bowling people over and
Speaker 9: you decide to go away from that, and and it's
Speaker 9: just you've seen that before, even like using the util
Speaker 9: of the tight end he waited to all season last
Speaker 9: year until the National Championship Game. There's so many weapons
Speaker 9: there at Alabama, and I think it gets to the
Speaker 9: point where if there's something that's obviously working, he doesn't
Speaker 9: want to use it because it doesn't really give him a.
Speaker 4: Whole lot of credit.
Speaker 9: If you see bos Scarborough just running people over, everyone
Speaker 9: kind of knows that all ray, So he'd rather do
Speaker 9: something else to show you how smart he is.
Speaker 4: So that's good info. The other thing we asked Ryan
Speaker 4: is how he thinks Sark is going to handle this
Speaker 4: sudden onslaught of pressure. Because he's been on the sidelines
Speaker 4: since its dismissal from USC This is a big spot
Speaker 4: to just plug and play. How will he deal with
Speaker 4: that kind of pressure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm more curious long term what his situation at
Speaker 3: Alabama is. I think, you know, in a short amount
Speaker 3: of time, Yes, he's being thrust into a big position
Speaker 3: like the National Championship Game, but it's basically a week.
Speaker 3: It is a week, and he will either figure out
Speaker 3: how to make it his own and sort of call
Speaker 3: this game successfully or he won't. I'm curious about the
Speaker 3: weekend week out the recruiting, the meeting, that whole thing.
Speaker 3: What Steve Sarkisian's long term tenure a year, two years,
Speaker 3: three years looks like at Alabama, That's the fascinating thing.
Speaker 9: Here's what Ryan Abraham had to say as far as
Speaker 9: sark taking over for Lanes, Certainly there's going to be
Speaker 9: a lot of pressure there, but there's not a lot
Speaker 9: of time to think about it.
Speaker 4: Five or six days.
Speaker 9: We've seen you know, Sark fold under pressure at usc
Speaker 9: as last game when he played his former team Washington.
Speaker 9: But he's had a lot of time off and I think,
Speaker 9: you know, hopefully his mind is right and he'll be
Speaker 9: able to jump back into the game. But just from
Speaker 9: being on the sidelines all this time, you're thrust into
Speaker 9: the most important game probably of your career. I do
Speaker 9: think there's going to be a lot of pressure there,
Speaker 9: but he's not going to be able to change all
Speaker 9: that much. I do expect it to see. I think
Speaker 9: he's going to recognize probably what works best and where
Speaker 9: the best assets are. I think you're going to see
Speaker 9: Jalen Hurts, you know, run the ball just like you
Speaker 9: normally would, but both Scarborough being able to pound the
Speaker 9: ball of it. Maybe it won't be as easy against
Speaker 9: that Clemson front versus Washington, but I think they're going
Speaker 9: to be committed to the run, and I think you're
Speaker 9: going to utilize the tight end position a little bit more,
Speaker 9: which can be kind of a security blanket for any quarterback,
Speaker 9: especially a freshman one. So I kind of think he's
Speaker 9: going to do okay in that role. You know, it's
Speaker 9: Nick Saban's show and Steve Sarkisian is basically just taking
Speaker 9: over as the show for He's not going to be
Speaker 9: asked to do a lot. Call the plays, get the
Speaker 9: guys out there, you have, you know, superior athletes most
Speaker 9: of the time, put them in a position to win,
Speaker 9: and I think he'll be able.
Speaker 1: To do that.
Speaker 4: All Right, There you go everything you ever wanted to
Speaker 4: know about Steve Sarkisian. Yeah, Link Kiffin, what have you from?
Speaker 4: A guy who would know Ryan Abraham from USC football the.
Speaker 3: Smartest of us all, living in southern California in the sunshine?
Speaker 8: You know it?
Speaker 10: Man?
Speaker 4: All right? You've heard the expression the game within the game. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think it's overused. There are like eight different games
Speaker 4: within this game. And we're doing our best here with
Speaker 4: this preview to try and cover them all the coaches.
Speaker 4: How could we omit the coaches. Let's talk about coaches now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first up as Andy Staples, who has written about
Speaker 3: the process, and the key thing to remember with Nick
Speaker 3: Saban and the process in Alabama is it's not a
Speaker 3: results oriented thing. It is a literal journey to the results.
Speaker 3: That's where the satisfaction comes from. So really interested to
Speaker 3: hear from Andy about where he feels like this year's
Speaker 3: Alabama team ranks or just sort of settles among the
Speaker 3: recent great Alabama teams. And if he feels like Nick
Speaker 3: Nick Saban is in a place where he is he
Speaker 3: is pleased, He is satisfied his happy places. Absolutely.
Speaker 10: I think he's pretty pleased because this is sort of
Speaker 10: his evolution plan coming to Fruition. You know, he started
Speaker 10: this thing probably even before Johnny Football beat them in
Speaker 10: twenty twelve. He was aware that the offense was changing,
Speaker 10: that they were going to have to deal with more
Speaker 10: and more duel threat quarterbacks, that the things that they
Speaker 10: did on defense weren't going to work as well anymore
Speaker 10: as the game evolved. So he started recruiting like the
Speaker 10: class of twenty thirteen, Jonathan Allen, Tim Williams. Those guys
Speaker 10: are not guys that they necessarily would have recruited for
Speaker 10: the same positions in two thousand and eight, because before
Speaker 10: the defense was designed to stop LSU, they had to
Speaker 10: deal with LSU. That was the biggest threat to them.
Speaker 10: And LSU played basically like they did. They were you know,
Speaker 10: could play in a phone booth downhill running. You needed
Speaker 10: to be huge up the middle. You needed Terrence Cody
Speaker 10: three hundred and forty pounds up the middle. You needed
Speaker 10: Rolando McClaine two hundred and sixty five pounds behind him.
Speaker 10: Now you've got Duran Payne at about three fifteen in
Speaker 10: three twenty, and then behind him you've got Reuben Foster
Speaker 10: at like two twenty eight and Jonathan Allen at two ninety,
Speaker 10: where Jesse Williams played at about three twenty. So it's
Speaker 10: it is definitely shrunken the defense, and then offensively, the
Speaker 10: chance is more obvious because they went after the same
Speaker 10: kind of quarterback that they were having trouble with and
Speaker 10: they finally landed one of Jalen Hurts and low and behold,
Speaker 10: he wins the starting job as freshman year. So I
Speaker 10: think this is the result of all the changes that
Speaker 10: he started making around twenty twelve. It's hard to tell
Speaker 10: if it was before or after that season that they
Speaker 10: began in earnest, but the fact that a lot of
Speaker 10: these guys that are in the twenty thirteen class have
Speaker 10: been such big contributors to the changes suggest that he
Speaker 10: already had them in mind even before that season began.
Speaker 3: A lot of times, after either losses or close wins
Speaker 3: shootout type games, whether it's Texas A and M, whether
Speaker 3: it's Ole Mess last year against Clemson, Nick Saban will
Speaker 3: talk about being relieved to sort of escape with a win,
Speaker 3: or you know, being kept up nights. Do you think
Speaker 3: this is all sort of part of his evolution? Has
Speaker 3: he always wanted to be able to feel different types
Speaker 3: of defenses? Do you think he as an a stubbornness
Speaker 3: streak to what kind of defenses he plays? Or is
Speaker 3: it just sort of this is what's necessary, this is
Speaker 3: what he's going to do.
Speaker 10: He's one of the least philosophically stubborn coaches in football.
Speaker 10: He is more inquisitive, more open to adaptation than most
Speaker 10: of his peers, and that's why he beats his peers
Speaker 10: so often. Because the coaches who say this is my system.
Speaker 10: I'm the genius who came up with this. You will
Speaker 10: do what my genius mind came up with, and that's
Speaker 10: all we're going to do. They're the ones who get
Speaker 10: passed by.
Speaker 9: Well.
Speaker 10: Nick Saban is still winning national titles in basically different
Speaker 10: eras of college football. Because you know, the clock rule
Speaker 10: change in two thousand and eight. He's won four national
Speaker 10: titles since then. But I would argue that the first
Speaker 10: three the world hadn't changed all that much. The last
Speaker 10: one was a very different football environment than the first three,
Speaker 10: and so I think that's probably the biggest thing is
Speaker 10: he's willing to chall Like Ohio State beats him, he
Speaker 10: brings in Tom Herman and says, show us how you
Speaker 10: beat us, and then he adapts to it. You know
Speaker 10: when when he brings in a new fortin Angel Kiffany says,
Speaker 10: these are some of the things I want done. I
Speaker 10: want you to up the tempo. I want jet sweeps,
Speaker 10: I want this, I want this, I want this, And
Speaker 10: you know, Lank Kippen had never been enough tempo offensive
Speaker 10: coordinator before he got to Alabama. That was Nick Saban's doing.
Speaker 3: Is there any reason to believe now that Deshaun Watson,
Speaker 3: the Clemson offensive coaching staffs, and now Clemson's offense with
Speaker 3: an added weapon they didn't have last year on Mike Williams.
Speaker 3: Is there any reason to believe playing Alabama's defense already
Speaker 3: on this stage last year gives them an advantage that
Speaker 3: Nick Saban having played Clemson's offense does. Does Clemson have
Speaker 3: any sort of advantage over Nick Saban.
Speaker 10: At this point, It's not an advantage they have over
Speaker 10: Nick Saban. It's a difference between them and most of
Speaker 10: the teams Alabama plays. Most of the teams Alabama plays
Speaker 10: lose to fear before they lose to Alabama's actual defense.
Speaker 10: And Clempton has no reason to fear Alabama's defense because
Speaker 10: they scored forty on them last year for the same
Speaker 10: reason that Ole miss this year did not fear Alabama's
Speaker 10: defense because they meet the Alabama two years in a row.
Speaker 10: So you've got to have some success against them before
Speaker 10: they stop feeding you when they get off the bus.
Speaker 10: For lack of a better term, I mean, part of
Speaker 10: the problem is teams that haven't had success against them
Speaker 10: or have never seen them before. You see them show
Speaker 10: up for warm ups and you're like Oh my lord,
Speaker 10: every one of these people is going to be in
Speaker 10: the NFL. They're so much better than us. How are
Speaker 10: we going to do this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 10: But Clemson has basically the same level of athlete and
Speaker 10: they had such success last year. I don't think they're
Speaker 10: going to come in afraid of Alabama at all. And
Speaker 10: that's one of the biggest advantage that Alabama has in
Speaker 10: most games.
Speaker 9: It will not have it in this game.
Speaker 3: Is there any reason to believe that Nick Saban now,
Speaker 3: especially if he wins this year, he is sort of
Speaker 3: in uncharted territory high level college pro football in terms
Speaker 3: of how often he's won. Is there any sense that
Speaker 3: there is a point in which Nick Saban will just
Speaker 3: be satisfied with his accomplishments.
Speaker 10: I think he's got a pass Bear Bryant, and if
Speaker 10: he wins this one, he'll tie him, so we would
Speaker 10: still need one more at least. And you know, it's
Speaker 10: sort of like the whole Tiger Wood situation. You assume
Speaker 10: this can go on forever and then all of a
Speaker 10: sudden it just drops off. I don't see a drop
Speaker 10: off coming up for Nick Saban. He's sixty five, but
Speaker 10: he looks like he's forty. This might be his best
Speaker 10: recruiting class in class twenty seventeen that he's had at Alabama,
Speaker 10: which is saying something. So they seem to be set
Speaker 10: up to compete for national titles for at least three
Speaker 10: four more years. So I think he's got a good
Speaker 10: chance of passing Bear Bryant. But it's hard to win
Speaker 10: a national title, and probably nobody knows it more than
Speaker 10: he does because he's won so many of them, and
Speaker 10: it is not easy to get there. It takes some
Speaker 10: good fortune, it takes some breaks, and so if he
Speaker 10: wins this one, I would bet he's gonna go for at.
Speaker 3: Least one more so other guys who have had not
Speaker 3: this level of success but ongoing year over year over
Speaker 3: year over year success recently. So Pete Carroll and Urban
Speaker 3: Meyer are the two big ones that come to mind
Speaker 3: in terms of winning national championships plural. They leave their
Speaker 3: jobs for you know, Urban Meyer for health and burnout reasons.
Speaker 3: Pete Carroll leaves, I mean there's the looming sanctions and
Speaker 3: also the opportunity to succeed again in the NFL, and
Speaker 3: also the he did which he did, and the limitations
Speaker 3: of you can only practice so much you can. You know, well,
Speaker 3: there were certain levels that Pete Carroll didn't want to
Speaker 3: or certain things that he didn't want to deal with
Speaker 3: anymore at usc If not for just being satisfied, what
Speaker 3: is either a positive or negative thing that you could
Speaker 3: see Nick Saban just saying all right, my time in
Speaker 3: Tuscaloosa is over.
Speaker 10: The only thing I think that would would bother him
Speaker 10: enough to chase him out are the expectation that they
Speaker 10: are supposed to win every game in every national title,
Speaker 10: because realistically that's not possible, even though they've come awfully close.
Speaker 10: I think that's probably the biggest knock on that job
Speaker 10: right now. But he's got a better job than most
Speaker 10: of his peers because he can go to the president
Speaker 10: and say this is what I want and he'll get it,
Speaker 10: and not many of the coaches get that. So he's
Speaker 10: in a good spot.
Speaker 6: I don't think.
Speaker 10: I mean, he would have gone back in the NFL already.
Speaker 10: I think if he was going back, I think he's
Speaker 10: going to be a college coach. He's going to be
Speaker 10: a college coach to Alabama. I think the next move
Speaker 10: is to TV. But question is how many more titles
Speaker 10: is he going to win before you go to TV.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's obviously a big storyline going
Speaker 3: in is Steve Sarkasian taking over the offense. Is there
Speaker 3: anything that's known about the relationship between Steve Sarkasian, who
Speaker 3: advances from being an analyst, and Nick Saban? Obviously the
Speaker 3: langkiffn relationship seemed, at least from the outside, pretty contentious.
Speaker 3: Is there anything that's known sort of with sark being
Speaker 3: thrust into this position.
Speaker 10: Not really, not much is emerged in terms of behind
Speaker 10: the scenes stuff. But you know Sarkaty's troubles at USC
Speaker 10: with alcohol, but common sense tells you that he probably
Speaker 10: hasn't had many issues at Alabama because if he did,
Speaker 10: he would have been fired from his thirty five dollars
Speaker 10: a year for analyst job immediately. I mean, this was
Speaker 10: a second chance, zero tolerance kind of deal for him
Speaker 10: when he got brought in. So my guess is he's
Speaker 10: he's been able to do what he's because think about this,
Speaker 10: if there were any froms Nick Saban would know about them,
Speaker 10: and a guy who hates distractions more than anything else,
Speaker 10: if there'd been proms, those would have been distractions and
Speaker 10: a thirty five thousand dollars. Your analyst is not worth distractions,
Speaker 10: So that would have been that. So I don't know
Speaker 10: about in terms of interpersonal relationship, I don't. The question
Speaker 10: is how much into personal contact had they had before
Speaker 10: this week, because obviously Sark was being groomed for this.
Speaker 10: But were they talking every day? Were they talking a
Speaker 10: couple times a week? Where they're talking once a week.
Speaker 10: I mean, it's a pretty big organization that they SAVEN runs.
Speaker 10: How much realistically could he have dealings with one of
Speaker 10: the analyts?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: On that same note that is, what is it about
Speaker 3: Nick Saban's I guess, force of personality or regimen or
Speaker 3: ability to run a program? And mentioning Pete Carroll earlier,
Speaker 3: one of the things that sort of be deviled him
Speaker 3: was attrition coaches, players, whatever. It's just hard to keep
Speaker 3: things up year over year. Nick Saban loses coaches, he
Speaker 3: loses position coaches, coordinators, whatever, and yet from the outside
Speaker 3: the drop off is minimal, if any. What is it
Speaker 3: about Nick Saban specifically that makes him so good at
Speaker 3: just being consistent in hiring the right people, in figuring
Speaker 3: out the right ways to sort of mix people. What
Speaker 3: is it about the sort of the business mind of
Speaker 3: Nick Saban that so consistently works.
Speaker 10: He's willing to be more consistent, and he's more disciplined
Speaker 10: than the rest of us. There are people as disciplined
Speaker 10: as him, but there aren't many, all right, Dan, You
Speaker 10: and I when we were thinking about what we were
Speaker 10: going to eat for lunch, we imagine the entire realm spectrum. Yeah, Taco's,
Speaker 10: pita burgers, sushi, you name it. They say it needs
Speaker 10: the same salad for lunch every day because that's one
Speaker 10: less choice he has to make. He likes it, tastes good,
Speaker 10: gives him what he needs. That's all he needs. And
Speaker 10: you would call that boring. I wouldn't do that, but
Speaker 10: that makes me less consistent than he is. That makes
Speaker 10: me less disciplined than he is. He is disciplined like
Speaker 10: that in every phase of his professional life, which creates
Speaker 10: a very disciplined program. And he hires people that are
Speaker 10: going to adhere to that discipline, and if they aren't,
Speaker 10: they're not going to be around very long.
Speaker 3: Do you think winning football makes him happy or do
Speaker 3: you think working to win at football makes him happy?
Speaker 10: That's a process question right there, and it's a good one.
Speaker 10: The process tells you when football is not the thing
Speaker 10: that will make you happy doing, the things that make
Speaker 10: you whin it's football are the things that should satisfy you.
Speaker 10: And then you reach the ultimate goal because you took
Speaker 10: every step along the way. I always tell people this.
Speaker 10: Do you remember the exercise in kindergartener first grade where
Speaker 10: the teacher says, tell me how to make a peanut
Speaker 10: butter and jelly sandwich. And you say, well, you get
Speaker 10: some bread, and you get some peanut butter, and you
Speaker 10: get some jelly, and you put the peanut butter on
Speaker 10: the bread. And then the teacher goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 10: no no. You have to unscrew the jar of peanut
Speaker 10: butter first, and then you have to dip the knife
Speaker 10: in the peanut butter, and then you have to put
Speaker 10: the peanut butter on the bread. Nick Saban would get
Speaker 10: that right. He wouldn't skip a step. The rest of
Speaker 10: us would skip a step, all right.
Speaker 4: So that's Andy Staples, you know from SI dot com,
Speaker 4: longtime friend of the show. He's like one of the
Speaker 4: first people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were. We were coworkers, colleagues with Andy Staples
Speaker 3: way back when at SI dot com when I was
Speaker 3: doing video and you were writing, shout out to Jimmy trainer,
Speaker 3: shout out to Maggie Gray, shout out to everybody you know.
Speaker 4: Such a great bit there by him. Where you both
Speaker 4: of you guys? Really when you talk about is Nick
Speaker 4: Saban happy? Is he happy with this? And it's it
Speaker 4: comes up from time to time. It's a real question. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you just don't know what makes him tick. I don't
Speaker 4: think he has the same motivating factors as ninety nine
Speaker 4: percent of the other people out there, and he acknowledged
Speaker 4: as much. He's just a different kind of cat.
Speaker 3: He has a different cat. And I would like to
Speaker 3: quote the great and immortal Miley Cyrus. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: the results, it's the climb.
Speaker 4: It's all about the climb, absolutely all right. Well, the
Speaker 4: other coaching element in this game is Daboswinny. Yeah, an
Speaker 4: incredible story. Totally different kind of cat, yeah from Nick Saban,
Speaker 4: much more excitable, just different in so many different ways.
Speaker 4: We could do eight different podcasts talking about it. We
Speaker 4: had the good fortune of stumbling across our good friendship Patterson.
Speaker 4: Oh incredibly sports mister acc. We've had him on this
Speaker 4: program countless time to talk about all things ACC football,
Speaker 4: Who better to talk about Dabo Swiney than Ship Patterson.
Speaker 4: So we asked him a couple of things about Dabo.
Speaker 4: First and foremost, what did he learn from a year
Speaker 4: ago in that heartbreaking five point loss.
Speaker 11: I think that with each of the big non conference wins,
Speaker 11: which include two against Oklahoma, which go all the way
Speaker 11: back to that tight, tight LSU game the Ohio State
Speaker 11: in the Orange Bowl a few years back, I think
Speaker 11: that was like a forty to thirty five game, another
Speaker 11: very tight game. I think that he understands that the
Speaker 11: building has to take these cons like there's got to
Speaker 11: be some confidence to it. Like in twenty eleven, here
Speaker 11: we go. Twenty eleven, Clemson beat Virginia Tech. It was
Speaker 11: their first ACC championship in thirty years, and Dabo Sweeney
Speaker 11: told us he was like listen, man, like we're not
Speaker 11: just gonna rock it up. We are building something to last.
Speaker 11: And that was in twenty eleven. Then they got stalled
Speaker 11: by Daniel Holgerson in West Virginia. They hung seventy on him,
Speaker 11: and there was something in that experience where every single
Speaker 11: time that Clemson has come back and had another big
Speaker 11: time game against a power conference opponent, there's been a
Speaker 11: little bit of an extra confidence and a little bit
Speaker 11: of extra experience.
Speaker 4: No longer going up against Alabama.
Speaker 11: Are they a team that is continuing to build up
Speaker 11: that resume of experience.
Speaker 4: Now he's got it down to a format.
Speaker 11: He knows what it takes to coach fifteen games, how
Speaker 11: to work these guys up, how to revt down. And
Speaker 11: I might even say that that contributes to how comfortable
Speaker 11: these Clemson players were in their own skin while everybody
Speaker 11: else earlier this season was freaking out that they weren't
Speaker 11: as good as Big old Air quotes here for the podcast,
Speaker 11: but they weren't as good as last year's seen it.
Speaker 4: So when you look at this matchup again from a
Speaker 4: coaching perspective, it seems to be widely assumed that Nick
Speaker 4: Saban is the one with some kind advantage. He is
Speaker 4: the one where does Dabo have an advantage?
Speaker 11: Dabo's advantage probably lies in the unknown, in the fact
Speaker 11: that the book on him is still being written, and
Speaker 11: it's not much of an advantage, you know, Like I
Speaker 11: think Clemson's advantage in this game is the fact that
Speaker 11: they have a phenomenal defensive line and a game plan
Speaker 11: from the LSU game that they can apply, and I
Speaker 11: think Dabosweeney and his staff are smart enough to look
Speaker 11: for advantages and exploit them.
Speaker 4: But like Sheer coaching advantages.
Speaker 11: Like Dabosweeney is he has gone up against Alabama on
Speaker 11: the recruiting trail and been able to, you know, give
Speaker 11: Clemson a fight here. He has been able to go
Speaker 11: out and make Clemson a recognized brand. He has been
Speaker 11: able to be the salesman that Clemson needed him to be.
Speaker 11: But he doesn't have a coaching advantage against Nick Saban.
Speaker 4: But there is some value, as he said, to being
Speaker 4: the crazy guy in the fight, no doubt, being the
Speaker 4: Carrie Sheffield out to not have a book on you
Speaker 4: is something that you can use.
Speaker 11: I think that uh, you know what he learned from
Speaker 11: last year. He's gonna be looking for that onside kick.
Speaker 11: They're not going to leave that thing wide open again,
Speaker 11: because that's like we're reviewing the tape. Alabama had it
Speaker 11: three times, two times before they finally hit it on
Speaker 11: the third. I guarantee you Clemson will not have that
Speaker 11: spot of the field open again on.
Speaker 4: Kickoffs, all right again. His name Chip Patterson cbssports dot com.
Speaker 4: The layers just keep coming to like that all the
Speaker 4: time here, stacking them on top of each other. We
Speaker 4: are nearing the final stretch where yes, we add up
Speaker 4: all the data here. Yeah, I mean if you crack
Speaker 4: out the slide rule and make our selections.
Speaker 3: I feel like we've almost jammed backed. Too much information
Speaker 3: and too much relevant football. Nugget try Okay that nugget Tree, Yeah,
Speaker 3: nugget Tree. I think it's time to take a half
Speaker 3: step back and sort of really honor what this show
Speaker 3: is all about in the first place, and that is
Speaker 3: total mindlessness, mindlessness, fried food, and Florida recommendation. So the
Speaker 3: Tampa in tangible factor, the Tampa is very important that
Speaker 3: people here.
Speaker 4: An audio or what is the audio an I actually
Speaker 4: know this. They're not talking about the Tampa and Tangibles.
Speaker 3: No, they're not, absolutely not. They're talking too much football.
Speaker 3: So we have Ryan Anny of Estipination to to sort
Speaker 3: of pull back the camera a little bit and talk
Speaker 3: about the game as a TV show, just what he
Speaker 3: wants to see it from a peer entertainment spectacle. And
Speaker 3: then his I mean, Tampa's first son, what to do
Speaker 3: if you're coming into town, what to do for this game?
Speaker 12: So I think I'm looking forward to the game going
Speaker 12: long because the it always goes long, and people are
Speaker 12: going to be unhappy about it. I guess you're gonna
Speaker 12: be like.
Speaker 4: Oh, why don't we always do this on a Monday?
Speaker 12: Gotta take the kids to school, Jesus, stupid Clinton. Now,
Speaker 12: long games are usually good games, but there's always some
Speaker 12: people and I'm not I'm not necessarily criticizing them for that,
Speaker 12: but they're just like, Oh, you gotta be kidding, you
Speaker 12: gotta be what.
Speaker 4: No, run the ball, Just take a knee.
Speaker 12: I don't care that it's tied on.
Speaker 3: The Alabama side. What would make you laugh the most
Speaker 3: if you were to see blank happen from Alabama either
Speaker 3: with the ball defensively outcome of this game sark related.
Speaker 12: I think the funniest thing that could happen on Alabama
Speaker 12: side of the ball is if they unveiled this just
Speaker 12: deadly passing attack. If you're like, wow, Jalen hurts through
Speaker 12: four three hundred and eighty yards, completed eighty percent of
Speaker 12: his passes. Clearly, Lane Kiffen had no idea what he
Speaker 12: was doing with this kid.
Speaker 3: On Clemson side, anything specifically from Dabo, from Deshaun Watson
Speaker 3: from ben Ben Bowlwaer, we're on the record right now,
Speaker 3: right four fingers deep is an actual life talk.
Speaker 12: So we talked about this on Shutdown Full Cast. Yeah,
Speaker 12: four fingers is not a measure of depth. It's a
Speaker 12: measure of width. You know, all your fingers are mostly
Speaker 12: the same length. So what you're gonna want to watch
Speaker 12: for entertainment value from Clemson is Rabbo is obviously prone
Speaker 12: to weird postgame or halftime interviews when he's agitated in
Speaker 12: some way. And I really I think winning the national
Speaker 12: championship would take Dabo to an emotional place that I
Speaker 12: don't think any of us can contemplate. I think he
Speaker 12: would cry, but I think more importantly, he will just
Speaker 12: start speaking in gibberish and then like a week later,
Speaker 12: we'll realize that if you play it backwards, it actually
Speaker 12: made perfect sense in English, but only if you play
Speaker 12: it backwards.
Speaker 3: What should people know about Tampa, Florida? What should they
Speaker 3: do in Tampa? And what defines the city of Tampa.
Speaker 12: Here are the important facts you need to know. Yes,
Speaker 12: Tampa has a bunch of strip clubs. B These strip
Speaker 12: clubs are not like kept off in some Oh. This
Speaker 12: is the CD part of No, they're on an industrial
Speaker 12: they're on a main thoroughfare. When Tampa got its first
Speaker 12: Whole Foods, it's walking distance to these strip clubs. Third,
Speaker 12: the man who started the most prominent strip clubs is
Speaker 12: a man named Joe Redner. Okay, he has run for
Speaker 12: mayor city council. He's run for a bunch of things
Speaker 12: in Tampa. Never one has never won. But I believe
Speaker 12: his son is co owner of a micro brewery in
Speaker 12: Tampa called Cigar City, which makes really excellent beer.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you can drink.
Speaker 12: You can go there and say you've drink strip club
Speaker 12: air beer, strip club air HgI R.
Speaker 4: Not ai R.
Speaker 12: That's an important anymore. But the airport's great.
Speaker 3: Airport's fantastic. Have they recently redone it their FI?
Speaker 12: No, it's always it's I mean, they have done improvements
Speaker 12: to it over the last five years or so, but
Speaker 12: it's always been a really solid airport. And of course
Speaker 12: Tampa is home to Outback Steakhouse, the Australian themed restaurant
Speaker 12: founded by people who had never been to Australia.
Speaker 3: After seeing Crocodile Dundee.
Speaker 4: Apparently, I think that's what it was.
Speaker 12: I think they thought that they could capitalize on the.
Speaker 4: Ossi field at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, fair enough. And by the way, I don't
Speaker 3: know if this is if this is something you want
Speaker 3: to publish, is okay, let me use the stage as
Speaker 3: we conclude and move on with the show to say,
Speaker 3: anybody from the Outback Bowl or anybody who just feels
Speaker 3: like tweeting at the Outback Bowl, we are desperate to
Speaker 3: make Ryan Bloomy the bloomin Onion for the twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: out Back Bowl and whatever responsibilities that that may entail.
Speaker 12: I think the hashtag we're still talking about it. The
Speaker 12: one I like best so far is fran Nanny. Fryan
Speaker 12: Nanny's good.
Speaker 3: That's kind of a winner to make.
Speaker 12: Have you ever eaten a blumin onion?
Speaker 2: I have?
Speaker 3: You know what I used to this is this is
Speaker 3: the most disgusting thing. I guarante this is the most
Speaker 3: disgusting thing you'll hear about food today.
Speaker 1: In college.
Speaker 3: This was in Eugene, Organ maybe.
Speaker 12: Springfield or like a first year move first or second.
Speaker 3: You would think, but it was all throughout. Okay, I
Speaker 3: don't remember like the terminology that we called it, but
Speaker 3: in Springfield, Organ, which is sort of like Eugene but
Speaker 3: for shady people. Next to do Or we would go
Speaker 3: to outback steakhouse and Jack in the Box and I
Speaker 3: would get like six like disgusting grease envelopes that they
Speaker 3: call tacos, a jack in the box and split a
Speaker 3: bloomin onion and just annihilate my insights. Wow, this is
Speaker 3: totally unrelated. Though I was a larger person in college.
Speaker 3: I wow, Yeah, it's real bad. I do like the
Speaker 3: bloomin onion, though I haven't had in a long time.
Speaker 10: Wow.
Speaker 3: One was the last time you had a bloomin onion?
Speaker 1: It's been a long Yeah.
Speaker 12: It's not something. Once you hit a certain age, you're like, man,
Speaker 12: I can't Well, you.
Speaker 3: Also can't do anything after what you have a bloomin onion?
Speaker 3: Play a couple. No, you're done.
Speaker 12: That one's accepted. If it will you know what if
Speaker 12: I have to eat a bloomin onion and play play
Speaker 12: two set pro SATs, right, play two pro sets and
Speaker 12: that'll get me bloomy, I'll do it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you will, all right?
Speaker 4: Ryan Anny first Son, Yeah, of the Tampa Saint Pete
Speaker 4: metro area.
Speaker 3: This is true.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: He supposedly has a uh a picture or a name
Speaker 3: on a debate trophy at his high school. So if
Speaker 3: you can piece together where he went to high school,
Speaker 3: go check it out.
Speaker 4: All right, that does it for the layers. It does
Speaker 4: so many layers here. Do you have enough information now
Speaker 4: at hand to make.
Speaker 3: Because I need to hear from you the most need
Speaker 3: to hear from me.
Speaker 4: You're gonna let me influence your.
Speaker 3: Pick, Absolutely, I am, because you have figured out, you've
Speaker 3: tapped into a winning formula this year of deep dive research,
Speaker 3: figure out how everything sort of dances with your gut
Speaker 3: and then you just go the other way. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's been a pretty successful formula for you this.
Speaker 4: Year through bull season. I didn't quite adhere to that
Speaker 4: the same way I did during the regular season.
Speaker 3: Bull season is a different animal. But this is a
Speaker 3: game with huge stakes, not unlike regular season games that
Speaker 3: week to week there are stakes, and this is a
Speaker 3: game that much in the way you've done with the
Speaker 3: bigger games in the regular season, You've researched, you've thought
Speaker 3: about you, You've weighed different factors in your head that
Speaker 3: are important to you. I've done the same, and yes,
Speaker 3: am I the surest thing in college football picking.
Speaker 4: Of course, one hundred percent of the time, right or wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right or wrong one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 3: That's mathematics people. But no, that's that's what I'm waiting for.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for your thoughts, right.
Speaker 4: So, well, I have a couple. I have a couple
Speaker 4: of things that I'm chewing on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The first is, I'm not sure I know what this
Speaker 4: offensive game plan looks like for Steve Sarkisian Now, yep,
Speaker 4: with Alabama. You heard Ryan allude to it a little
Speaker 4: bit in his bit, But he thinks sark is more
Speaker 4: devoted to what works and less devoted to his own ego,
Speaker 4: doesn't care so much about looking like the smartest guy
Speaker 4: in the room, just wants to trot plays out there
Speaker 4: that he knows are going to work. I think in
Speaker 4: the case of Alabama, we know what would work. We
Speaker 4: know what works best for them. Anyway, what has throughout
Speaker 4: the course of the season. That is the running game. Yep,
Speaker 4: they want to run the football. I fear a little bit,
Speaker 4: because it's his first game as offensive coordinator, that it
Speaker 4: might be super conservative, that if there's a spot where
Speaker 4: he needs to stretch the field vertically, maybe he will
Speaker 4: be a little bit apprehensive about doing that. I don't know,
Speaker 4: just something I've been chewing on all week. The other
Speaker 4: thing that conservatism, in this early conservative conservatism, excuse me,
Speaker 4: probably favors Clemson because Clemson I don't think is going
Speaker 4: to have any conservatism at all. That's just not their style, right.
Speaker 4: The other thing that's bouncing around for me is Deshaun Watson.
Speaker 4: And you could cut this thing one hundred different ways
Speaker 4: if you want to. But what we saw towards the
Speaker 4: end of last season, what we've seen a little bit
Speaker 4: though not to the same extent, but a little bit
Speaker 4: again this season is that in the biggest spots to Sean,
Speaker 4: Watson gets the ball more. Sometimes he throws more, more often,
Speaker 4: he runs more. But pretty much one hundred percent of
Speaker 4: the time, they're leaning on him heavily to try and
Speaker 4: win this game. Last year, look at what he did
Speaker 4: in the championship game. He ran it at least twenty
Speaker 4: times in each of his final four games win the championship.
Speaker 4: In particular, four hundred and seventy eight total yards, four touchdowns,
Speaker 4: four or five passing. That's the most in National Championship history.
Speaker 4: So I think what I'm getting at here is how
Speaker 4: far can he take them as one singular man against
Speaker 4: this incredible defense? How far can one guy take BA
Speaker 4: or can one guy take Clemson. I have a hard
Speaker 4: time believing he can take them all the way to
Speaker 4: the Promised Land alone alone. He needs help, and he's
Speaker 4: got the big receivers, and I think maybe they can
Speaker 4: channel some you know, modest running game here and there
Speaker 4: in spots, in situations, but as a whole, I don't
Speaker 4: think there's enough balance. So for as much as I
Speaker 4: want to see Clemson win, and for as much as
Speaker 4: I'd like to see something different, I'm going to go
Speaker 4: Alabama to win this game. I'm going to say something
Speaker 4: in the ballpark a twenty seven to twenty three, twenty
Speaker 4: seven to twenty four very similar but lower scoring, similar
Speaker 4: but lower scoring? Is Bill Connolly mentioned earlier? I think
Speaker 4: Alabama wins another national championship, But but I would not
Speaker 4: be surprised if Clemson pulled up. You Hedger, Well, I
Speaker 4: wouldn't be surprised. I think Clemson covers, but Alabama wins.
Speaker 3: Okay, My question to you as a follow up is
Speaker 3: what is it about Jalen Hurts specifically? And it may
Speaker 3: may be a matter of the fact that the combination
Speaker 3: of Alabama's defense, I believe leading the nation in touchdowns defense,
Speaker 3: in touchdowns scoring defenses, going against a Clemson offense that
Speaker 3: has been a little bit too careless this year, has
Speaker 3: turned the ball over more than we expected. That's not
Speaker 3: a great hat to hat combination. What is it about
Speaker 3: if there isn't Alabama defensive touchdowns? About Jalen Hurts that
Speaker 3: you feel like against this Clemson defense, coming off of
Speaker 3: a shoutout, coming off of some very impressive defensive performances,
Speaker 3: it makes you feel like he can lead to twenty
Speaker 3: seven points against a very good defense.
Speaker 4: I feel like he's got.
Speaker 3: After struggling with Washington too. I should mention through the.
Speaker 4: Air after struggling, and he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean that's another factor that we could certainly consider.
Speaker 4: I have more confidence in the pieces that he has
Speaker 4: alongside him in the rushing game. I think, then I
Speaker 4: do the pieces alongside the Shaw Watson. So as we've seen,
Speaker 4: the formula at Alabama is you don't always need to
Speaker 4: have a premier quarterback to win, right. You need to
Speaker 4: have good pieces around that quarterback, but you don't need
Speaker 4: to have a guy who does a whole lot. You
Speaker 4: just need to find somebody doesn't turn the ball over.
Speaker 4: Kurtz gives them an extra dimension with his legs. I
Speaker 4: think that combined with the fact that he's got some
Speaker 4: really good pieces in the running game, too, reliable pieces
Speaker 4: Damien Harris Boscarborough. We saw what he did. I feel
Speaker 4: really good about some combination of those guys against anybody,
Speaker 4: let alone Clemson.
Speaker 3: If Clemson is forcing third and sevens consistently, how much
Speaker 3: more worried are you about your Alabama pick consistently? Yeah,
Speaker 3: if they're consistently like, okay, it's third and seven, like
Speaker 3: if they're forcing passing downs over and over and over again.
Speaker 3: And one of the differences, Jake Koker threw the ball
Speaker 3: down field really well last year in big games. That
Speaker 3: Michigan State game, he had a huge Sorry, he had
Speaker 3: multiple huge bombs, notably to Calvin Ridley. But Ardarius Stewart
Speaker 3: is still there. If Clemson, I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: if they make them one dimensional, but if Clemson is
Speaker 3: able to force some single dimensional activity from Alabama, is
Speaker 3: it does it become a toss up sort of situation too.
Speaker 4: Let's put it this way. Alabama averaged five point seven
Speaker 4: yards per carry this year, Yes, all right, if they
Speaker 4: are continually finding themselves in third and long situations, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's bad. Yeah, that's not a good situation.
Speaker 3: So put up five yards per carry, not against exter
Speaker 3: Lawrence and Christian Wilkins.
Speaker 4: That is correct. Yes, However, for the entirety of their season,
Speaker 4: being that consistent in the rushing game has absolutely made
Speaker 4: them what they are.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So if in fact, Clemson could find a way to
Speaker 4: put a cap on that, maybe make it four yards carry,
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know, get some tackles for loss.
Speaker 4: If they're doing that reliably consistently, that changes this game
Speaker 4: all of a sudden. Then I think that tips things
Speaker 4: in favor perhaps of Deshaun Watson. What can he do
Speaker 4: with the pieces around him? How much can he run for?
Speaker 4: If we see that situation develop time and time again,
Speaker 4: then yeah, yeah, that's the situation I think that Alabama's
Speaker 4: afraid of.
Speaker 3: I'm going to fairelessly pick Clemson. I'm gonna tell you why.
Speaker 3: I am not going to hedge. Of course, none of
Speaker 3: us would be surprised if Alabama wins this game. But
Speaker 3: I am saying Clemson wins this game period, without a
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if Clemson and I think it's
Speaker 3: a pretty equal game. Clemson has the sort of advantage
Speaker 3: of their coming off of a year in which they
Speaker 3: know they cannot just hang with Alabama, but they can
Speaker 3: beat Alabama. They're not losing this game, like Andy Staples
Speaker 3: said before they even play, which is the case with
Speaker 3: a lot of Alabama opponents. You have a true freshman quarterback.
Speaker 3: We've seen first year quarterbacks succeed in the National Championship Game.
Speaker 3: Nick Marshall had a pretty nice game against Florida State,
Speaker 3: Cam Newton won, Jameis Winston. These were red shid freshmen.
Speaker 3: Jalen Hurts true freshman, although he's been there since January
Speaker 3: and played Deshaun Watson as a scout teamer this past
Speaker 3: January year ago. But I think because things seem to
Speaker 3: me to be so equal, I think Alabama's big advantages.
Speaker 3: I think they have a much better secondary than Clemson's secondary.
Speaker 3: I think without Mackenzie Alexander, they don't have that true
Speaker 3: lockdown guy. But I also don't think Jalen Hurts is
Speaker 3: a quarterback that can expose really good secondaries. It's not elite,
Speaker 3: whatever that word has come to me in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: But if you are going to give me a relatively
Speaker 3: neutral field, I expect it to be about fifty to
Speaker 3: fifty because I mean, we're not far from Clemson, We're
Speaker 3: not far from Alabama. It's going to it's it's not
Speaker 3: going to be a decided crowd. You're gonna give me.
Speaker 3: And Alabama does have a running back and a running
Speaker 3: game advantage, and that's big. But I think Deshaun Watson
Speaker 3: is a true star and is a true game changer
Speaker 3: in a way that Alabama. I don't think that they have.
Speaker 3: I just they have it on defense. I don't think
Speaker 3: offensively they have somebody who can take over a game.
Speaker 4: So the counter question, yeah, counterpoint, what have you? Let's
Speaker 4: say hypothetically that the true teeth of this Alabama defense,
Speaker 4: it's a linebacking corps, is able to confuse Sure, Deshaun Watson.
Speaker 4: We've seen it countless times this year. Deshaun Watson doesn't
Speaker 4: see a linebacker, doesn't see somebody lurking in a short
Speaker 4: zone coverage, something like that and frozen interception. Let's say
Speaker 4: through half of this game, Deshaun Watson's having a hard time.
Speaker 4: I'm dissecting that portion of the Alabama defense. The passing
Speaker 4: game isn't coming as naturally sure a rhythm three hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty eight yards per game, seventh nationally in terms
Speaker 4: of passing offense. Let's say it's.
Speaker 3: Nowhere near that reasonable to guess, Yeah, he Clemson still
Speaker 3: win the game. Yes, because I don't think he's going
Speaker 3: to go into a shell. We're talking about somebody who
Speaker 3: is I think we're pretty sure as a first round
Speaker 3: NFL quarterback, and not in a Jared goffway, in a
Speaker 3: we've seen him beat really good teams really recently kind
Speaker 3: of way. I think we're positive of his talent. We've
Speaker 3: seen him have. I think it's pretty clearly the best
Speaker 3: and biggest game of his career on the best and
Speaker 3: biggest stage. So I don't think if he throws a
Speaker 3: pick early he is going to become tentative. He throws
Speaker 3: a ball downfield, he throwed like even the interception, it
Speaker 3: took an out of this world Malik Hooker play to
Speaker 3: pick him off in the end zone. That's what it
Speaker 3: takes at times when he is when he is operating,
Speaker 3: I think they're going to be creative. You know, we
Speaker 3: talked to Chris Brown about the sort of wrinkles that
Speaker 3: they've added to the run game that what is it
Speaker 3: that the toss read? So I think Clemson is constantly evolving.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be a great cat mouse game.
Speaker 3: I love the Alabama defense, but on a stage like this,
Speaker 3: what did they What did Alabama need last year? They
Speaker 3: needed a herculean effort from Oj Howard after Clemson was
Speaker 3: beat up. That, I mean, that's a reality. Clemson defense
Speaker 3: doesn't rush the past or maybe as well as they
Speaker 3: did last year. But to me, it's hard for me
Speaker 3: to find to pick. Like, Okay, Alabama is going to
Speaker 3: get a crazy game from Calvin Ridley or Darius Stewart
Speaker 3: bo Scarboro maybe, but I'm more sure of Deshaun Watson
Speaker 3: than any one of those players breaking out. So I'm
Speaker 3: going with Clemson. I have it twenty eight twenty seven
Speaker 3: in my head. Twenty eight twenty seven, nail bier. And
Speaker 3: you ready, if we're gonna get very specific Alabama wide
Speaker 3: rights in the closing seconds, how about.
Speaker 4: That wide right closing seconds?
Speaker 3: Because okay, so what would be I wouldn't be unforeseen,
Speaker 3: would not be unforeseend what would be the most prizing
Speaker 3: outcome Clemson big ten to seven.
Speaker 4: What Clemson big would be would be surprising.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be nobody comfortably beats Alabama.
Speaker 4: No, No, I mean it's it's always by the hair
Speaker 4: on your chin, right, it's not.
Speaker 3: You could argue Ohio State sort of did a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago.
Speaker 4: Zeke, Yeah, that was that would be. That would be
Speaker 4: a surprise, I think, in the same way, probably a
Speaker 4: much bigger way than what we saw in the semifinal
Speaker 4: with cumps and shutting out Ohio State because that was
Speaker 4: a bit unexpected.
Speaker 3: To I think to me, a bigger surprise would be
Speaker 3: Clemson winning this game with Deshaun Watson not having a
Speaker 3: great game.
Speaker 4: It's like Wayne Goleman rips off like free hundred.
Speaker 3: Yards, Wayne Goleman going for two oh eight and the
Speaker 3: defense scoring two touchdowns, slipping the field. Something like that,
Speaker 3: Like Clemson winning sixteen to thirteen with a pedestrian offensive
Speaker 3: effort would be kind of a shocker to make.
Speaker 4: All Right, So you're all in on Clemson twenty yearly
Speaker 4: seven time, fearlessly. Okay, I'm gonna go Alabama. I'm going
Speaker 4: to be the boring old man.
Speaker 3: That's okay.
Speaker 4: Twenty seven, twenty four is my finally very.
Speaker 3: Exciting when people pick Alabama and Alabama wins, that's always the.
Speaker 4: Best we do have. Yeah, thank you. We do have
Speaker 4: a consensus though we're both like Clemson plus.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, we're gonna gobble those points up.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, we do thank everybody who chimed in,
Speaker 4: from Bill Connolly to Bud Elliott, Chris Brown, Richard Johnson
Speaker 4: still seated at the table here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: We've also had Ryan Abraham on this show, Andy Staples,
Speaker 4: Chip Patterson, and of course our good friend the first
Speaker 4: Sun Now of Tampa, Ryan is. Oh yes, all right, there,
Speaker 4: we go, enjoy the game. We'll be here all weekend.
Speaker 4: We'll be doing interviews. We'll hear those interviews at some
Speaker 4: point in the future. We'll be doing Facebook Live you.
Speaker 3: Facebook, dot Com, slash Solid Verbal, YouTube dot Com slash vs.
Speaker 3: Solid Verbal, all.
Speaker 4: Sorts of cool stuff. So if you're a fan, if
Speaker 4: you like the show, do stay tuned to our Twitter,
Speaker 4: to our Facebook, to our Snapchat, to our Instagram. Everywhere
Speaker 4: you can find the verbal.
Speaker 3: If you really search, you can find our porn hub channel.
Speaker 3: That's you really search, and it is it's g rated.
Speaker 3: It is very clean. But you know we have to
Speaker 3: we have to hit every audience.
Speaker 4: On that note. For the fine gentlemen seated directly across
Speaker 4: from me, mister Dan Rubinsteveh, from myself, Tie hilden Brand,
Speaker 4: thanks again for joining us. Enjoy the football game. We'll
Speaker 4: talk to you all on Tuesday. In the meantime, stay solid, peace,