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you guys aren't going to believe this, but i may have misjudged the potential floor here.

Part 3: Ethan Burke was a big part of the story of the game for a lot of reasons. But one thing that I noticed early on was that Bama had obviously schemed to attack him with the Zone Read. They ran various plays to put Burke in conflict. But I’m going to try and focus only on ZR. Here’s the first time they ran it against Burke: Burke gives a hard keep read. He’s almost all the way to the center when Milroe pulls the ball: Catalon tries to fill the alley but misses and Burke is fortunately able to get Milroe by the shoe to prevent him from ripping off another 5 or 10 yards. Gain of eleven. The second time they ran zone read was literally the next play: Burke attacks deep and Milroe hands the ball to McClellan. Frankly, I’m not sure he was in a position to make a play on either Milroe or McClellan that play. He chases the RB but his angle is too poor to run him down. Texas pulls Burke after that play for several plays. The next time Bama runs ZR, Sorrell is in at EDGE: Sorrell stays flat, doesn’t chase, and forces a GIVE read. Byron Murphy and Alfred Collins both shitwhip the Bama OL, Jaylon Ford fills the other gap, and the play is snuffed for a loss of 1. That play takes Bama off schedule, Watts breaks up 2nd down in the end zone, Milroe runs for his life on 3rd down, and Texas is able to force a field goal. Bama doesn’t go back to ZR the next drive or for the rest of the first half. The next time they run ZR, it’s 13:16 in the third quarter, and Burke is back at DE: This time, Burke slow-plays it, forcing the GIVE read. Catalon fills from the safety position and slows McClellan, who is then gang-tackled by errbody. Bama runs ZR again against Sorrell in the late 3rd. It doesn’t go great. Here’s the last time they run ZR and the play that stood out to me the most. 2:15 left in the 3rd. 2nd and 9. Bama finally gets the Burke matchup that it has been exploiting all night: Burke plays it perfectly (again). He doesn’t run upfield. He doesn’t crash on the snap. He stays wide, forces the GIVE read, and then attacks straight down the line of scrimmage. Sweat blows up his blocker to force McClellan back to the outside, and Burke is waiting there to make the tackle himself. Turns out, someone is coaching our defensive players on the sideline while the game is ongoing. Weird. For the past 14 years, I was under the impression that wasn’t allowed.

Heading into the 2001 season, Florida State had finished each of the prior 14 seasons in the AP top 5. That's a feat above what Alabama has accomplished over a similar period. FSU won 2 titles during that run, which is obviously eclipsed by Bama's 6. If you had a time machine and could go back to the beginning of the 2001 season and argue online with other fans that Florida State would never finish in the top 5 again during Bowden's tenure, and they'd lose 4 games that season, 3 by double digits including once at home, and finish the season ranked a measly #15, people would have pointed at you and laughed. "Florida State just reloads, closetojumping." "It's Bobby Bowden. They'll be fine. He's showing no signs of slowing down." "I'm not betting against FSU and Bobby Bowden." And few folks did bet against FSU and Bobby Bowden. FSU opened the 2001 season ranked #6 in the country. "Only #6, CTJ?" Well, yes. But numerous magazines and pundits had them playing for it all because ... Bobby Bowden. In reality, there were cracks starting to turn into fissures in the foundation of Bowden's program at FSU and they were about to start truly showing for all to see. FSU had to replace a Heisman-winning QB, multiple skill and OL talents taken in the NFL draft, and the majority of their top defensive talent, also taken in the draft the prior spring. Bowden saw long-time OC, Mark Richt, take a prized job at Georgia earlier that year. Instead of going out and finding a talented up and comer to replace the OC, as Bowden had done most of the time when losing an assistant, he did something different this time. He hired his son, Jeff Bowden, because, "hey, he's Bobby Bowden." The talent that FSU needed to simply "reload" didn't appear in the same ways as it previously did. Turns out, while they certainly still had plenty of talent, the recruiting services were bumping recruits regularly by then in FSU's favor because they were giving Bowden the benefit of the doubt. Whoops. All of those recent top 5 classes being stacked up by FSU turned out to produce more like top 20-ish classes, which is how those teams wound up finishing in the AP, if at all, over those final 9 years of Bowden. Bobby Bowden turned 71 during that 2001 season. closetojumping, what does any of that have to do with Alabama and Nick Saban? Well, there is literally zero link between the two regimes. I'm not claiming there is. I'm merely pointing out that the similarities are eerie. Nick Saban enters the 2023 season 71 years old. Alabama this year opened the season in the top 4 of the polls. Many pundits have picked them to win or play for the national title. "Nick Saban and Alabama just reload. " "I'm not betting against Nick Saban. " "It's Nick Saban. He's showing no signs of slowing down." Alabama entered the 2023 season having to replace 16 starters. 10 of those players were drafted in the prior spring's NFL draft. One of those starters in need of replacing was a Heisman-winning QB. Another was the best defensive player in the country. On top of that, Saban had to replace both of his coordinators. While he didn't hire one of his children, he did make two comfort hires. He had the chance to hire Kevin Steele as his DC on two separate occasions when the role was open and Steele was on staff. Saban went in a different direction. Now he's got someone who will do what he's told. On the offensive side, he's hired a younger guy who he's given marching orders in regard to returning the offense to a "murderball" approach in which they just crush less talented teams under the weight of their superior talent in the running game and short passing game. He thought he could do so, and was lauded for doing so by guys like Josh Pate (his murderball segment from this summer, in hindsight to those who weren't paying attention and laughing back then, will give you a laugh now) because "hey, he's Nick Saban." But CTJ, Alabama's still stacking top 3 recruiting classes back to back for cycles on end. Last year's class was #1 in the country, for Christ's sake. All of that is also true. That considered, show me the same ol'dynamic, Heisman-esque players at the skill positions on offense. Malik Becton was being lauded, laughably, as a coup of a pick-up from the juco ranks this summer. I don't even know if he caught a pass on Saturday. The TBs are all highly ranked and all look very pedestrian. If a freshman was good enough, they'd be playing. Look across the sidelines last Saturday and you can see that. Outside of Downs and McKinstry, who stood out on defense in the back 7? Hell, where was Oatis on the DL for most of the game? Tell me what Dallas Turner did that anyone should remember. Did any of that look like a top 5 team to you? It shouldn't, because it isn't. Alabama could very well go 10-2 in the regular season this year, mostly because the SEC looks like 13 dwarves and Georgia. Alabama could also go 8-4 because they're not just going to out-talent UTenn, LSU, or Ole Miss. Gravity gets even the highest flyers and, as we know, it's a shock sometimes when it happens. It's one season, closetojumping. Bama will load up, crush it in the transfer portal, and be right back on top next season. Maybe. But there are significant differences in the college football environment today than in the past, and Saban isn't handling them well. 1) The transfer portal requires significant money. Bama isn't the wealthiest group going after the same players. 2) Transfer players already know what they're looking for in a new team. QBs know what kind of offense they want to run, and it isn't "murderball". WRs can go anywhere. Why would one choose Bama if USC, Texas, Washington, Ohio State or Tennessee wants them? The beat goes on. 3) NIL has leveled the playing field on Saban's magical competitive advantage in high school recruiting. Bama isn't 1 of 10 bidding on the best players. Bama is 1 of 90 going after the same guys and they don't have any more money than most of those 89 other schools. SMU or TCU can outbid them for a DFW guy, let alone Texas or USC. It's harder to flourish when you can't just show up and walk over your opponent. Texas walked into Bryant Denny and took Alabama's soul with it on the way out with a double digit win. They did the same thing when they entered the Big 12 to Nebraska. "You want partial qualifiers or our brand and money?" "Ok, cool, no more PQs, sorry Nebraska." Then the #3 Cornhuskers walked into the Trans World Dome in St. Louis, threw their helmets on the field and said "give us our trophy" before Texas took their soul and beat them by double digits. That was the beginning of the end for Nebraska. Alabama fans should seek a few of those fans out and get some advice from them on how to cope with all of it, because I know it would be sad to see Bama eventually decide the best answer is to just leave the conference.

1.) Worthy vs. Burton - a tale of two slot fades? Let’s start with the Burton route. The broadcast did a decent job of breaking this down. By using motion, Bama capitalized on the back-end coverage, although I’m not sure it was simple man coverage like Herbstreit said. Instead, I think the CB (9 - Gavin Holmes) had the first out-breaking route, and the safety (28 - Jerrin Thomspon) had the second man. I.e., a very simple two-man pattern match zone: Is there anything super schematically interesting to take away from this route? Not really. It was play designed for a deep shot all the way. Unfortunately, Thompson got his ass dusted in a footrace, our pass rush left Milroe with an almost spotless pocket, and we had three defenders playing QB contain and not pressuring (compare against Ant Hill’s QB “contain” efforts): And Milroe threw his best ball of the night. Sometimes that happens. As a side-note, I’m not breaking down any of those Anthony Hill plays because they can best be described as “fast, strong guy runs down weaker, slower guy.” All right. That will be the last (only) Bama highlight you see in this report. Let’s check in with our favorite lightning bolt, Xavier Worthy Whew. Watch that again. Then watch it one more time. What a throw. What a catch. That’s full blown Willie Mays shit right there. Is this as simple as Bama’s call? Not by a long shot. Here’s the end-zone view: Here are the routes. Johntay Cook (#2) runs a deep in (i.e., a dig route). Whittington (#13) runs a drag route, Sanders (#0) runs a flat route, and Worthy (#1) runs a post. Even though it looked like a fade/fly route, it wasn’t. It ended up being a skinny post because that’s how he needed to run it to run under the ball. But it was a post all the way. Is there anything interesting about this? Yeah. This is a classic route combination. Sometimes called “Levels,” sometimes called “DDP (dig-drag-post)” and most often just called “NCAA.” The issue with this call is it forces defenders on the opposite side of the field to DEFEND EVERY SINGLE ROUTE. I.e., every route is a crossing route requiring defenders to pass off and pick up players. If you don’t pass off a player and you run with them, what happens? Well, just watch the clip above one more time. There are also several ways to run the NCAA route combos, and offenses usually adjust/address for whether they’re getting a MOFO (middle of the field open) look or a MOFC (middle of the field closed) look from the safeties. In the clips above, Bama is very obviously in a MOFO look (cover 4 it appears?). That creates a high/low conflict for the backside safety. Watch Quinn’s head on the All-22. He’s staring at Johntay on the snap. And watch the reaction of the safety as a result. He turns his body away from Worthy to get ready to engage with Johntay. Once Quinn sees those hips turn, he immediately flips his attention to Worthy, waits for the break, and throws the bomb. You love to see it. I’ll be back with part two later.

We have so much to teach them about arrogance

Whatever else happens this season, damn if this wasn’t cathartic. Like all Sundays, I was a contented and attentive father and husband. I woke up early to clean up the kitchen of all the bourbon and queso so my wife could wake up to a clean house. I played Ninja Turtle “sword fight” with my 6-year-old, played Minecraft with my 10-year-old, and watched terrible anime with my 13-year-old. I mowed. I napped. I was happy to provide, same as always. But goddamn if I wasn’t just a smidge happier and more graceful to my family today. It’s been so long since Texas football was an actual source of pride or happiness. It’s not necessary to my or my family’s wellbeing, but it sure as shit was something I forgot how much I valued the last 15 years. Thank you to the players and boosters who brought the right people together. It’s gonna be a good ride. I feel it.

Part 4: Now to my personal favorite play of the game. But let’s see Sark’s set up first. Here’s the situation. 27-24, Texas is leading. But Bama has Texas backed up at 2nd and 15 in the shadow of their own goalposts. Bama rushes three and drops 8—a look that Quinn struggled mightily against last year. But Quinn stays cool, and the call is (or at least appears to be) 4 verts—a perfect beater for this coverage that just asks folks to run down the field and get open. Whittington “gets open,” Quinn finds him, and Whittington fights his ass off for extra yards. So three plays later, who is the safety worried about? Probably the guy that just made him look like an ass on national TV—Whittington. So what you should you do? I guess you should throw a fucking bomb to Ad Mitchell. It’s a trips formation with Sanders/Whittington/Mitchell. Worthy is the sole receiver isolated at the field side of the formation. Here’s the route combo from Trips: Does it look similar to NCAA? It should (although it’s not identical). This is the O.G. “NCAA” route combo that Steve Spurrier made famous (made perfect) at Florida—the concept is called “Mills”. Like the NCAA/DDP concept above, the key is to put the safety in conflict. Does he take the DIG (a really easy thing to do—especially when the DIG is run RIGHT AT HIM as it was here by Whittington). Or does he stay over the top? It’s like getting a cat to chase movement. The safety can’t help himself from attacking the deep-breaking in-route right in front of him—especially since Whittington had just caught a pass in the exact same spot. But that leaves the post wide open behind him for six. The ball is perfect, and Mitchell does his best Worthy doing his best Willie Mays impression. Ad Mitchell hauling in a 39 yard bomb to prove definitively that our deep attack this year is more than just throwing up prayers to 8 lbs 6 oz. sweet baby Jesus Xavier Worthy. Touchdown Texas. Play the fight song. Make ‘em eat shit.

Excuse me sir, I'll have you know I was in Vancouver India all last week with no internet coverage.

Anthony Hill became one of my favorite players the moment he sacked Milroe, ran into the Bama end zone and proceeded to taunt the Bama fans with horns down. Thank you Jimbo Fisher, for being such an unlikeable, hateful narcissist that your own players blew up what should have been a sure thing.

Went back a few pages to share a walk down memory lane with the aggie braintrust. They were really riding high after the New Mexico win. The trash talk and predictions of a ass kicking (from a group 1-6 in last 7 games against power 5 competition--now 1-7) are chef's kiss.

I fucking love Cook's reaction , he knew way before the catch it was 6. Kinda like Blaylock celebrating when he sees Vince go by on 4th and 5

SIAP, but I was at the game and noticed two things that made me smile. The first was the fact that Bama featured Marcell Dareus on field before kickoff. That was a total troll job by them, as Marcell was obviously the one that put Colt out of the National Championship game. The second was during the TV timeout after Bama took the lead for the first time, they played a hype/highlight video on the jumbo-trons. That video very clearly featured a close-up, slow-mo replay of the play that injured Quinn in last year's game. It was plain as day. Both pretty lame moves; especially the replay of the Quinn injury, but it just made it that much sweeter that we kicked their ass.

Cool film.

Is football fun again? Yes. Yes, it is. As a throwback that I hope folks will enjoy (and because I have some unexpected downtime), I wanted to put together a quick recap of some of the plays that I found noteworthy during the game. This is mostly going to include an analysis of big plays, because they’re the ones you remember, they obviously matter, and it’s more fun than analyzing why we got three yards on inside zone instead of five. I unfortunately don’t expect that this is going to turn into an opportunity for me to be an all-the-time shitposter as in years’ past. But hopefully if y’all enjoy this, I can do a few of these a year if there’s interest. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s watch some football gifs. I’m going to break down four things in this post: (1) a comparison of the Xavier Worthy 44 yard TD pass with Bama’s 49 yard throw to Jermaine Burton. Is it a tale of two slot-fade routes? (2) A look at Jahdae Barron’s interception, which may be a true Boom/Bust play on further review. (3) A look at Ethan Burke’s evolution against the zone read as the game went on. Really interesting stuff for those who were watching scheme live. (4) The 39 yard bomb to AD Mitchell. I'll roll these out over the course of the day as I have time to get it out the door.

user name checks out

If a Texas head coach won 6 football championships in a 10 year period, I wouldn't care if he didn't field a team, showed up every Saturday, walked to the middle of the field by himself and took a giant shit before passing out with his pants around his ankles for 5 years straight.

Some reactions from former players

No you haven’t.

This pic always cracks me up

Elko does have a massive buyout, they reworked his contract before this season. Duke is private, but the rumor is $50mm.

With that OL? We might have had 10 sacks on a less mobile QB.

Aggy rolled up in a shitty old maroon pickup smelling like cow shit with hay blowing out the back. We're pulling up in a Lambo, handing them the keys and our luggage, and telling them to park it close and don't scratch it.

Hook ‘em. Hope y’all enjoyed this. Let’s not fuck it up against Wyoming this week.

Negs probably have less to do with "wokeness" and more to do with the fact that on a thread about explicit racist taunts directed towards our players, you jumped in with, "actually, it is I, the white man, who is the real victim here."

If CTJ didn't already convince you, the fact that Helobious is saying tap the brakes makes me even more certain that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Bama's dominance under Saban. Nick will quit long before he slides into Mack territory. Bama will 100% fire him the minute he's no longer useful to them. No, Sark wouldn't leave Texas for Bama. He knows exactly why Bama is regressing and he knows he has basically EVERYTHING he needs to win bigly in Austin.

Haha Klatt truth bombed aggy...1-7 in last 8 power 5 games.

I am shocked he got the names right.

I laughed.

Fwiw.

thanks for posting that. Yeah, when the move to the SEC was announced, I generally felt like it's a young man's game, and that I'd gladly watch from afar. I have zero interest in the internet bullshit nor the in person harassment simply because you like a different team, or frankly, in this day and age because you're different or just because people are assholes. Let's stay friendly on our side please.

First off, this is bullshit. You're in no local JC class and there's no discussion about going against the woke mindset. I know this is true because I've seen this exact paragraph written before by other trolls who got their asses handed to them. You came into a thread where there was clear racism thrown at our black players and did the "well, actually" stupid shit. Accept your punishment like a man, you dumb old fuck.

You know, I want Texas to be elite because I want Texas to be elite. Period. That said, Sarkisian seems to be a really good man who’s owned his fuckups and is thankful for what he has and is thankful for the people who helped him get there. It would be nice to see someone like that have success with his approach and with the guys he’s helped make better on and off the field. It also doesn’t hurt that he doesn’t seem big on being a punching bag or surviving surges but wants the guys in burnt orange not only to be highly talented but to take the game to the other team. Stay focused and keep raising the bar and things could get really good here sooner than later.

Stupid debate is stupid. What is not stupid is the offense that we're running. Now that Ewers has command and all the parts around him range anywhere from competent to elite, this thing should be humming. Sark's scheming and play calling is next level at manipulating and exploiting a defense. He had Saban's defense completely discombobulated Saturday. And Saban knows that offense from the inside-out. Sark just fucking handed Nick Saban his ass on a chalkboard. What is really going to be fun is if this line takes the next step in run blocking. We won't see a front as big and as physical as Alabama's again unless we are fortunate enough to make the playoff. We start mauling people in the run game and it's going to be like watching a video game.

Dude, we've been through this. There is never an appropriate time to root for OU. Ever. The rest of your post is fine and your avatar is A+.

Oh! That's what happened to all the evidence. Liz Cheney destroyed it. Edit: Which is odd, because a few weeks ago he was going to present all of the evidence, until his attorneys told him it might help put him in prison. He must have found the destroyed evidence. Then it was destroyed again. People take this person seriously. 72 million people voted for him for president.

Not sure where to post this, but here's a breakdown of my personal experience with their miserable fucking fans this past weekend. I've spoilered it for the TL;DR crowd.

They think we'll be like aggy and just be thrilled to be in the precious conference. They don't really get that we're doing this to get away from the Big 12, to get paid a lot more money, and to nullify their recruiting advantage. We're not a bunch of conference totting fans. We only care about our school and don't give two shits about how the conference does. We're not the Borg like aggy is.

Bullshit. Unless we’re in some Tenet-like inverse timeline, It was early in the year for us, too…

NSIAP not mine….just badass

"Huge. The University of Alabama, Nick Saban, Tuscaloosa — changed my life. At a moment of my life when things were not going great, he extended me an olive branch and everybody here was so supportive of me coming here. Then bringing me back a second time to then having had open-heart surgery while I was here. These people here mean a lot to me. I'm very grateful for everybody at Alabama and in Tuscaloosa for what they showed myself, my family, my wife, so to come here and to play them and to play the way that we played, it's humbling. Life kind of goes full circle on that kind of stuff. Not to get overly emotional about it, but it means a lot." Man I love Sark's story so far. I love a flawed person who owns and accepted their failings and moves past it. What a great redemption story so far, seriously inspirational shit.

they could always just extend Jimbo again to alleviate those fears.

Person, Ice Cream, Corvette, Malarkey, TV

Momma Finkley is great!

That dude might be the best position coach in the country. He’s Tim Brewster on the recruiting trail.

Am I the only person who’s read the entire internet the past 24 hours?