4th and Goal Every Day by Phil Savage

Author:Phil Savage
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

8

THE FULL TOOLBOX

SABAN HAS ALL THE DEVICES AND GADGETS TO WIN

Nick Saban has big, fast, skilled players. But that’s not all he has. Nick has an ace up his sleeve, a rabbit in his hat, and can pull a quarter from behind your ear. Saban’s teams have talent, but they also have the capacity to adjust and surprise.

It’s not as easy as you think to hack into Nick Saban’s mind.

He has the ability to call any scheme, or any play, on offense, defense, and special teams at any time. In ten years, Saban has built volume into the Alabama roster, that is, players of every style. He has all the tools needed to win.

But it’s one thing to have tools, it is another to have the resolution to use them.

So rewind to Alabama versus Clemson for the 2015 national championship and the wholly unexpected onside kick in the fourth quarter. In my estimation, it is the signature play of the Saban Era because skill and daring were summoned from the Toolbox and combined to take a national championship, the fourth in eight years.

Here is the backstory. Ohio State was the inspiration, in case you didn’t know.

The Clemson offense with quarterback Deshaun Watson had plundered the Alabama defense for three quarters. It was 24–24 and Nick had to steal a possession from Watson.

Saban gave the okay for an onside kick, a “pop” kick, as in pop fly.

Linebacker and special teams ace Dillon Lee said the kick was set up because, for the 2015 season, Alabama had changed its traditional spacing on kickoffs. In the 2014 College Football Playoff, the Crimson Tide had watched Ohio State bring its far-right kickoff coverage player all the way to the hash mark, squeezing eleven players into 33 yards of a 53-yard-wide field. The Buckeyes’ idea was to cut off a quarter of the field from the kick return team and pin the returner to one side.

Alabama started doing the same thing in 2015, using its exceptional athletic ability to its advantage by pinning the opponent into 75 percent of the gridiron, left or right.

“The way we were lining up, everyone’s kick return teams started cheating in because they were saying, ‘Why would we stand way out there when the last person on the Alabama kickoff team is so far inside,’” Lee said. “They are thinking, ‘Okay, Marlon Humphrey is really fast, so I have to move in from the sidelines and get as close to him as I can to block him.’”

Alabama’s formation—squeezed in 20 yards from the sideline—opened a 20-yard window on the right side of the field because Clemson’s kick return team mirrored the alignment to match the Tide, head up. The Tigers’ outside guy on the front line of the kick return, Jayron Kearse, could retreat and then turn and cut off a speedster such as Humphrey (4.40-second 40) and not let him jet right down the field to cover a kick.

Kearse was a six-foot-four strong safety, who ran a 4.62-second 40-yard dash.

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