1-Force bama to live off the intermediate passing game. Commit a heavy box to the run, but keep coverage deep. JM has hurt teams two ways, running and hitting the deep ball. His touch and accuracy in the 7-12 yard range still leaves a lot of be desired. 5 man run blitzes rolling the dice and playing a “void” coverage underneath while keeping safeties deep in a Cover 2-man concept or quarters from the boundary voiding the weak/short side hook. On long yardage downs bring pressure opposite McCallister and let him shadow contain the opposite edge; less likely he loses the edge and could slow the movement of pocket enough to let blitzers get home.
2-Offensively revert the strength with motion often. Shift and force Moore to roll from his $tar/Nickel to a weakside deep safety, then attack extended front side of the formation with the run game and the backside seam with glance or slant routes off the RPO. Make the safeties play out of their positional comfort and normality.
3-Run at their speed on 3rd and medium downs. Motion a TE or H from outside the formation to inside and run at Turner when he and Braswell are the two edge defenders in the 4 man front personnel groupings, or lead directly at the edge/force pressure defender that Saban likes to send so much on high pass frequency downs.
4-Keep Thorn moving. Auburn doesn’t fare well trying to keep a traditional pocket, nor does Thorn fare well when it breaks down. Sprint outs, play action roll outs, half rolls with slide protection to the field, make his legs be accounted for while not letting the defense tee of on him in a weak pocket.
***I expect Steele/Saban to throw a ton of pattern match zone coverage at AU today. PT struggles to read that and most of his mistakes come from that. He’s done much better against man coverage variants. Hopefully AU is prepared enough to know what motions trigger man coverage checks, or have intersecting route concepts that will break the zone rules, dialed up and ready.
It’s not an impossible task, but it’s damn sure improbable. Hopefully the JHS crowd has a short memory, shakes off last week, and brings the damn juice today. I think Saban will try hard to put Freezd in his place, AU will have to play above and beyond anything we’ve seen to keep this one close.
WDE
2-Offensively revert the strength with motion often. Shift and force Moore to roll from his $tar/Nickel to a weakside deep safety, then attack extended front side of the formation with the run game and the backside seam with glance or slant routes off the RPO. Make the safeties play out of their positional comfort and normality.
3-Run at their speed on 3rd and medium downs. Motion a TE or H from outside the formation to inside and run at Turner when he and Braswell are the two edge defenders in the 4 man front personnel groupings, or lead directly at the edge/force pressure defender that Saban likes to send so much on high pass frequency downs.
4-Keep Thorn moving. Auburn doesn’t fare well trying to keep a traditional pocket, nor does Thorn fare well when it breaks down. Sprint outs, play action roll outs, half rolls with slide protection to the field, make his legs be accounted for while not letting the defense tee of on him in a weak pocket.
***I expect Steele/Saban to throw a ton of pattern match zone coverage at AU today. PT struggles to read that and most of his mistakes come from that. He’s done much better against man coverage variants. Hopefully AU is prepared enough to know what motions trigger man coverage checks, or have intersecting route concepts that will break the zone rules, dialed up and ready.
It’s not an impossible task, but it’s damn sure improbable. Hopefully the JHS crowd has a short memory, shakes off last week, and brings the damn juice today. I think Saban will try hard to put Freezd in his place, AU will have to play above and beyond anything we’ve seen to keep this one close.
WDE
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