Play Tracking: DeBoer's at Bama & Expectations

Tempo won't change much but style and retention matter

Went through DeBeor’s 4 seasons at the FBS level to check out plays per game and game times to square up against Alabama’s last four seasons. Here’s what you get:

What do we learn? Not a lot, except DeBoer had a 6 game season during that covid year, while Saban played 13 games. But the averages are the averages and it comes out to DeBoer’s teams running 71.9, we’ll call it 72, players per game while Saban’s teams ran 69.1, we’ll call it 69 (nice).

Saban’s 2021 team that lost to UGA in the title game in Indy ran 75 plays a game. DeBoers is sitting at 75 in ‘22 and 77 in ‘20. There’s going to be a little more pacing, a little more tempo but largely just more focus in on the offense being how they close things out.

Over the course of 4 years, we’re looking at a 3 play average separation. This year, both makei t to the playoff, 3 play separation between Bama and U-Dub, 63 and 66 respectively. Honestly, they weren’t in our tracking grid but comparing it to what we’ve done all year, here you go:

Regular season and basically we are looking at New Mexico or WKU temp that DeBoer is bringing vs the Michigan and LSU pace that Saban worked at this year. Michael Penix Jr. versus Jalen Milroe. Defense forward, for both Michigan and Alabama, against offense forward Washington.

This move, for Bama, is about cutting ties and buy-in. No one on that roster thinks they’re lucky to play college football. We’ve already seen some big names hit the portal from the Tide post retire/hire. They were all built to play college football and they all wanted to do it for Nick Saban.

DeBoer’s biggest challenge isn’t winning an SEC Championship or a National Title or beating Auburn or LSU. His biggest challenge is the life of a stepdad. Those men who stay can always second guess him and say, “you ain’t my real daddy.” And that’s just the ones who stay, a lot of Tide players are already in the portal, signed recruits looking for new landing spots because they signed up to play for Saban.

The numbers don’t do a ton in terms of showing a drastic change. What shows the change is that Bama went all the way across the country to get a guy they believe in, instead of hiring a Saban analog. New systems for recruiting. New practice setup. New focus. New teaching methods. New approach in general.

They’re not trying to keep the Saban Era going, they’re building something new, and that is going to be interesting.

Cheers!!