The University of Alabama football team hoped that having a schedule predominately full of teams using no-huddle, hurry-up offenses would be helpful when facing those types of schemes, and for the most part it did.

Now it hopes for something similar when playing Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

While Nick Saban and some of the other Alabama coaches are familiar with Urban Meyer’s offense from his days at Florida, when the Crimson Tide and Gators played in back-to-back SEC Championships (2008-09) and met during the 2010 regular season, the same can’t be true of the UA players.

“If I had to compare them to anybody, I’d say their offense is similar to Mississippi State,” sophomore defensive end Jonathan Allen said.

That’s not a coincidence. Before he took over as the head coach at Mississippi State, Dan Mullen was Meyer’s offensive coordinator at Florida (2005-08).

So as part of its preparation Alabama has been looking at film of Ohio State, a little bit of Mississippi State, and even Florida.

“Mostly the up-tempo, kind of the run game,” senior safety Nick Perry said was the biggest comparison. “They like to incorporate the quarterback into the run game more, similar to what they used to do with Tim Tebow back in the day. They are a physical team.”

Statistically, Ohio State is similar to Florida with Tebow in that it uses the spread to run the ball effectively. The Buckeyes are 10th in the nation in rushing offense, averaging 5.78 yards per carry and 260.8 per game.

Meanwhile, OSU is 50th in passing, but the big unknown is how third-year sophomore Cardale Jones (6 foot 5, 250 pounds) will do making just his second career start after the two players ahead of him on the depth chart were lost to injuries.

In the Big Ten Championship Game against Wisconsin he completed 12 of 17 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns, to go with eight carries for nine rushing yards. Perhaps most importantly the Buckeyes didn’t have a turnover while the Badgers had four.

With running back Ezekial Elliott amassing 220 yards on 20 carries as Ohio State tallied 301 rushing yards and 558 total yards, the Buckeyes won in a rout, 59-0. In the days to follow, Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen would leave for Oregon State.

So between Wisconsin’s questionable play and the limited number of plays for Jones, there’s not a whole lot for Alabama to go on.

“I really don’t have enough information with the one game to pinpoint him with somebody else,” Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart said when asked for a comparison on Sunday. “I’ll tell you what he’s got, he’s got great poise. Played in a great high school program. Very intelligent. Very good leader. You can tell he’s well prepared.”

But how will he react to a good pass rush? Will he make adjustments when Alabama shows one thing and does another? How might he handle being behind in a big game like this? Can he get rattled on third down.

Those are things Alabama can only guess at, along with trends, preferences and other indicators.

Meanwhile, Mullen’s quarterback, Dak Prescott, came into this season with 23 games of experience including a 4-3 record as a starter. The junior had helped lead the Bulldogs to their first-ever No. 1 ranking before they visited Bryant-Denny Stadium on Nov. 15.

In his first career start against Alabama, Prescott completed 27 of 48 passes for 290 yards and two touchdowns, but also had three interceptions.

His running game tallied 40 carries for 138 rushing yards, with Prescott leading the way with 82 yards on 22 carries. But after falling into a 19-0 hole Mississippi State actually outgained Alabama 428-335 as the Crimson Tide was finally able to put the game away, 25-20.

“There are similarities, they certainly have different kinds of players, very good skill players, very good running back, you know, we’re not sure about how much we’ve seen of the quarterback but their quarterback has done a really good job the past two years whether it was Braxton Miller when he played or (J.T.) Barrett when he played because they were great runners and great athletes and that combination was very, very difficult on a lot of people and difficult for us when we played a team like that.

“Dan and Urban were together at Florida, but I think the way they do it, they have their own style of doing it, and I think they’ve progressed. This is a very, very good offensive team that has been very, very productive and they’ve got really good players and they do a great job with them and this is going to be a real big challenge for us in this game.”

So that’s the challenge for Alabama’s defense, against a talent offense that has good speed for a Big Ten team and according to Smart features receiving corps that’s deeper than Auburn’s. Granted the Buckeyes faced only three ranked teams this season, the highest being No. 8 (a 49-37 victory over Michigan State), but they also scored 42 points or more nine times – the last with the third-starting quarterback.

“It’s hard. He’s a mystery,” Perry said about the prep work. “We really don’t know what we’re going to get from that team, so we have to prepare for everything.”