The days of bland, vanilla offenses are indeed becoming more obscure. The biggest equalizer against dominant defenses, other than sheer talent, is hurry-up, no-huddle offenses. We’ve seen it with Alabama and Nick Saban over his dynasty-stricken tenure with the Tide.

The speed of no-huddle offenses like those of Gus Malzahn, Kevin Sumlin and Hugh Freeze have become a defining characteristic in college football. It’s almost a loaded weapon waiting to deploy at anytime. And in a copycat game like football, it’s being displayed even in the country’s best defensive conference, and it’s even been successful at football’s highest level in the NFL.

And that isn’t sitting too well with some current head coaches.

Saban’s Tide lost to the spread-‘em-out, hurry-up Aggies last season in what was the only blemish on Bama’s historic championship run. But the hurry-up offense had Alabama worried long before the Aggies. Alabama seemed invincible early in the year, only to look mortal against seven-win Ole Miss’ style of play. And after the Tide beat the Rebels and after Saban had another refresher against the hurry-up offense, he had a few negative words to say about it during the coaches’ teleconference in the name of player safety.

“I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety,” Saban said. “The team gets in the same formation group. You can’t substitute defensive players. You go on a 14-, 16- or 18-play drive and they’re snapping the ball as fast as you can go, and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can’t even get lined up. That’s when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt … when they’re not ready to play. I think that’s something that can be looked at. It’s obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we’re averaging 49.5 points a game. More and more people are going to do it.”

But it’s not just Saban; he has a new partner in town in Arkansas’ Bret Bielema, who is also lobbying against this style of offense. Bielema told AL.com that he wants to implement a rules change also in the name of player safety to allow a 15-second substitution period after every first down, in an effort to slow down the high-octane offenses and keep guys fresh.

“Not to get on the coattails of some of the other coaches, there is a lot of truth that the way offensive philosophies are driven now, there’s times where you can’t get a defensive substitution in for 8, 10, 12 play drives,” Bielema said. “That has an effect on safety of that student-athlete, especially the bigger defensive linemen, that is really real.”

Will Muschamp and Steve Spurrier were also quoted as being proponents of slowing down the no-huddle attacks, while Gus Malzahn and Hugh Freeze are against it, for obvious reasons.

While Bielema and Saban lobby to slow these sexy offenses down in the name of ‘player safety’, they really only want a remedy that benefits their team. Who can blame ‘em for that?

Rules preventing up-tempo offenses would give any defense an advantage. And the game of football is all about finding a schematic advantage to exploit your opponent. Defenses with tremendous depth like Alabama – with an added rules change – could rotate players at a higher pace, keeping players fresher, and ultimately help swing some momentum back toward their direction by getting more stops.

Hugh Freeze points out that offenses have big uglies who move at a fast-pace, too. Why are we not talking about them? The quantity of plays run also affects the offensive team, which sets the pace in any drive.

“If the offense doesn’t sub, the defense shouldn’t sub, and that’s the way the rules are,” Freeze told AL.com. “Offensive players are playing, too, the same number of snaps. Are they in danger also? … They’re having to play the same number of plays.”

But Saban alluded to the real reason why coaches don’t want to face hurry-up attacks last fall, and it isn’t because of player safety.

“I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking: Is this what we want football to be?”

Fairness.

Just like Les Miles wants to abolish permanent cross-divisional rivalries in the name of ‘fairness’, Saban points that direction, too. Fairness doesn’t belong in the SEC, and it doesn’t belong in lobbying for a rules change to slow down offenses that give your defense trouble.

What’s to stop defenses from having more multiple looks than offenses? In fact, some defenses have just as many looks, if not more, than offenses. Advantage? Defense.

Regardless of whether or not any coach wants to slow down offenses – even the Coaching Czar Saban himself – the college football rules aren’t going to simply change because coaches are hiding behind the veil of player safety in the name of fairness. College football is asymmetrical, and that uneven nature is what makes this sport we love so unique.

The continued evolution of hurry-up, no-huddle offenses is only the latest response to the long and drawn out struggle between offenses and defenses in a game we like to call football.

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Spurrier, 68, has managed to spend 25 years of his life in the SEC in some facet, whether coach or player, and he’s racked up an impressive 122 wins at Florida and South Carolina.

Considered the best coach in SEC history, Bear Bryant still holds the record with 159 conference wins at Alabama and Kentucky. And his Alabama legacy is currently being challenged by one Nick Saban.

But the ever-quotable Spurrier maintains he’s not chasing Bryant as a means to an end, but rather, he wants to win a championship at South Carolina, via AL.

“If that was a record that I really wanted to shoot for, I would’ve stayed at Florida as long as I could have,” he told Smashmouth Radio on ESPN 97.3 The Zone.

“That’s not anything I’m trying to achieve. I’m trying to win the SEC at South Carolina. If we could do that, it would be the ultimate, I think.”

Winning an SEC Championship at Carolina would come close to the ultimate. But don’t you think deep down inside Spurrier’s competitive heart of hearts that he wants Bryant’s record? How could he not? It would be the ultimate for any SEC coach to pass the stalwart Bryant’s win record.

As Kevin Scarbinsky points out, it would take Spurrier winning an average of six SEC games per year for seven more years to get there. He reached an extension that keeps him at USC through at least 2017.

What’s so impressive about Spurrier is the way he’s evolved his coaching style.

Spurrier is partly responsible for the SEC becoming the behemoth it is today, in the midst of seven championship runs.

When Spurrier left Florida for the NFL and came back to South Carolina, he saw a different league, dominated by defense and an ever-ruling defensive mindset.

So, he changed his game.

His 44-14-type sexy wins at Florida have turned into 24-21 defensive grudge matches, with Carolina scratching and clawing for every yard, every win and every blotch of fresh ink in the record book.

Spurrier’s tweaking of his overall high-flying offense to winning games by limiting turnovers and great defense is truly magnificent.

I hope he coaches for another 100 years.

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“We have a system on offense,” Saban said Wednesday. “You would like to always be able to recruit players that fit your system. But sometimes that’s not always possible.

“If there’s a great player or a great athlete somewhere that’s not quite the fit but he has a great ability to make plays, then I think it’s up to us to have the kind of offense that has enough flexibility that we can utilize those kinds of talents in a different way.

“If you’ve got good players, you’ve got to get them the ball,” Saban said, “and you’ve got to have enough flexibility in your system to be able to do that.”

Saban doesn’t sound like he’s going to jump off the pro-style ledge and go all Kevin Sumlin on us anytime soon, but he’s covering all the bases.

And there’s a certain five-star quarterback who has Alabama in his top three named Brandon Harris. In fact, Harris is the top dual-threat signal caller in the country, according to 247Sports Player Rankings. Harris has Alabama, Auburn and LSU in his top three, and most say Auburn leads.

Since Saban’s arrival at Alabama in 2007, the Tide have featured a pro-style quarterback every year. Saban inherited John Parker Wilson (2007-2008), who gave way to Greg McElroy (2009-2010), and now, the Tide roll with AJ McCarron, who happens to be a two-time national champion gunning for his third straight title. Neither of the three were anything close to elite athletes.

Saban is 68-13 as the Tide’s head coach and winner of two of the last three national championships. Forget fixing it – if it ain’t broke, why bother even tweaking it?

But Saban knows first hand how difficult stopping dual-threat quarterbacks can be. If you look at all the teams that have beaten Saban post-2007, they all feature dual-threat quarterbacks, except for South Carolina and Stephen Garcia. Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton and Tim Tebow come to mind.

Despite some struggles against dual-threat quarterbacks, NFL coaches still tapped into Saban’s brain to help corral them at the highest level.

Saban sounds open for a dual-threat quarterback to run the Tide’s offense, especially if that means keeping the best one away from in-state rival Auburn and Gus Malzahn.

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The SEC ADs could vote on the proposal today.

Under such a policy, the penalties for a first, second or third positive test would not be determined by the universities, but rather, it would be the same for each SEC school. According to ESPN, 10 SEC schools dismiss after a third positive test, while Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and LSU dismiss only after a fourth positive test.

Georgia and AD Greg McGarity are leading the charge. He told ESPN Thursday that the SEC ADs and presidents are once again having discussions about a SEC-wide substance abuse policy.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to get down into the weeds as far as how many times you test, what are the measurements, what are the minimum [levels for a positive test],” McGarity said, “but we believe there should be some type of consistent penalty [for each positive test].”

However, McGarity may be in the minority. Other ADs and coaches have spoken out against such a policy. Texas A&M AD Eric Hyman wants to continue letting the individual institutions determine their policies, via ESPN.

“Even if nobody else does it [testing], we’re going to do what we think is the right thing to do,” Texas A&M athletic director Eric Hyman said. “If another school wants to do it a certain way and regulate it a certain way, that’s their prerogative. What are we trying to do anyway? We’re trying to help young people. I don’t want another school to tell me how to do it.”

Coaches are control freaks as it is, and if there are any more ways to have more control of their teams, coaches are in favor of it.

Nick Saban said ‘it was pretty unanimous’ that all coaches want to keep testing in-house, via AL.

Punishments vary from first or second offenses among the member institutions, and that phrase ‘competitive advantages’ has been brought up in conjunction with letting the universities determine their own policies.

“If you look at it through a straw and how it affects you and you’re self-absorbed about it, nobody’s going to be for it,” Saban said. “I shouldn’t be for it. We have a better chance to be successful if we don’t do it. But I think it’s best for the game and the league.”

Nick Saban is saying that he wants to do what is best for the league and college football as a whole even if it is bad for Alabama. Does anybody really believe this?

I believe that Saban only cares about what’s best for the league if what is in question can impact Alabama from getting into the BCS and the future playoff. It is true that moving to a nine game conference schedule could help Alabama in those situations like it found itself in two years ago when it got in to the BCS Championship Game against LSU despite having a loss earlier in the year. Perhaps, Saban is trying to set up Alabama to get a 2nd SEC slot in the 4-team playoff down the road?

Or, Saban could be trying to shift attention away from Alabama’s extremely easy schedule for the 2013 season (easy for SEC schedules; not easy when compared nationally with other programs). By having the media run with Saban’s comments on moving to a nine game conference schedule and run with the SEC coaches 13-1 vote, the media is not talking about Alabama’s favorable schedule in 2013. It doesn’t mean the media hasn’t blasted Alabama’s schedule, however. Some have. But, currently, the focus is on the nine game SEC schedule “controversy.”

Does it matter? It does matter if Alabama ends the season with a loss. It definitely does if Alabama loses to the Aggies, and they’re vying for a spot against Texas A&M in the BCS Championship. In college football, perception is big because it influences the polls. In the future, perception will also impact the selection committee. With something as widely debated as the college football postseason, it’s safe for voters and selection committee members to vote and select along the lines of public perception. It’s riskier to go against the consensus view.

Right now, perception is working in favor of Alabama and the SEC. The SEC finished the 2012 season owning half the top ten. It also ended with Alabama embarrassing an undefeated Notre Dame team. If Nick Saban is indeed working to deflect criticism of a soft SEC schedule for his Crimson Tide, it’s very smart. Saban’s the most influential coach in college football. Why not use the voice you have to steer the media’s conversation?

Alabama’s 2013 schedule is what it is. It’s not Saban’s fault. He’s in control of how his team navigates that schedule during the upcoming fall, but he can also use his voice to help guide the national perception of the Crimson Tide. Smart coaches like Saban do this effectively all the time. My guess is that Saban’s love of the nine game conference schedule is not much more than him doing just that.

Not based on the coaches’ vote alone, the SEC will stick with eight conference games through at least 2014 and likely 2015. That was the consensus entering this week, and it’s the reality exiting this week. Coaches were about evenly split in another vote cast to maintain or eliminate permanent cross-divisional opponents.

Alabama’s Nick Saban remains the only SEC coach bullish on nine conference games, and it’s only inevitable he’ll get his wish.

Will Muschamp, like some coaches, administrators and other suits, agree that nine games is inevitable, via AL.

“Personally, I think we’ll end up moving to nine games eventually,” Florida coach Will Muschamp said. “You create an SEC Network. At the end of the day, it’s going to be driven by the dollar and having those games are going to be important. Having enough quality games on television promoting for a nine-game SEC regular season in my opinion will eventually happen.”

Mike Slive has stated the 2014 schedule release for this week is doubtful, and he has pleaded the fifth every time asked if he prefers eight or nine conference games. Slive stressed to the coaches to schedule better non-conference games in the future.

Slive sees the pure domination by the SEC, and he wants to carefully and articulately preserve that success, not just jump to any rash decisions.

Steve Spurrier raises a valid question about non-conference opponents: Can the SEC find enough quality opponents to get at least 10 ‘good’ games per year, and why would another conference game be deemed more important than a top non-conference game?

“Anything can happen when television starts telling you what to do,” Spurrier said. “My thought is this: Would television people rather televise Texas-Texas A&M or Texas A&M-Kentucky? Why are the conference games supposed to be bigger? They’re not bigger than some rivalry games like that.”

Les Miles won’t get his wish to permanently eliminate cross-divisional opponents and have two rotating opponents yet, but that could happen when the SEC moves to nine games. Miles isn’t much on tradition, but keeping the Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia rivalries alive screams tradition.

“The hard thing is tradition, and the hard thing is financial considerations,” Miles said. “But if you get back to how college football has changed, (Oklahoma) is not playing Nebraska. Nebraska is now in the Big Ten. Colorado is suddenly in the Pac-12. You’re looking at a recent addition to our conference, Texas A&M, and they don’t play Texas anymore.

“So tradition is giving way, hopefully, to a fairer and right way to pick a champion.”

The move to nine is only inevitable because of SEC Network programming inventory and strength of schedule. It’s still unclear how much strength of schedule will weigh on the committee’s minds, and we may not know that until 2014, when one full season plays out with the new selection committee.

By 2016, the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac 12 all will play nine conference games, and the SEC should then follow.

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Kevin Sumlin and Johnny Manziel’s Aggies were the only team to beat the Tide in the midst of their championship run to win back-to-back national championships. The Aggies upset the Tide 29-24 in front of the Alabama faithful in 2012 in very dramatic fashion, handing the Tide their sole loss.

Yesterday, Saban was asked about Manziel and the difficulty of preparing for and stopping him, via the Anniston Star.

“A fantastic player is a fantastic player,” Saban said. “We thought he was a fantastic player last year, and we really tried to prepare for him. But he has such a good instinctive feel for scrambling and making plays and ad libbing and making something happen when there’s nothing there. That’s kind of hard to prepare for. … I’m not sure you stop a guy like that, but to keep him from making big plays and allowing him to break down the defense, that’s something we’re going to have to continue to work and do a better job of.”

Saban also added that in order to stop Manziel, defenses have to be ‘extremely disciplined’, via My San Antonio.

“The players just have to play with extreme discipline in terms of doing their job and paying attention to leverage and containing and all kinds of things,” Saban said of the best way to slow Manziel, who’s at least as dangerous with his feet as his right arm. “That’s something that we’re going to have to continue to work on and do a better job of.

“We did a better job as the game went on (last November), but it’s hard to simulate in practice – to get a guy to do what he does.”

Manziel racked up 345 total yards and threw two touchdown passes against Saban’s defense, the last one being the game winner to Malcome Kennedy to put the Aggies up 29-17. Mr. Football has also been working on his blindfold passing this offseason, trying to take his game to the next level.

Don’t think for a second that Saban hasn’t watched more film than anyone in the country on Johnny Manziel. I would bet he has even watched as much as Manziel’s own coach Kevin Sumlin post-spring.

September 14th can’t get here quick enough.

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Saban said today that if the SEC doesn’t improve its schedules, ‘one of these days fans are going to quit coming to the games’. And he added that, “If we all played good teams it would be easier to quantify who the best teams are.”

And he’s right. Think about it. When your favorite team clubs a baby seal in a non-conference garbage game, what motivation do you have to be there? It’s a better experience sitting at home witnessing the blowout while watching other top games from around the SEC.

Saban is reportedly the only coach in the SEC in favor of moving to a nine-game SEC schedule. All other coaches would like to keep the SEC to eight conference games, and some even want to eliminate permanent cross-divisional games like Les Miles.

On Ohio State and the SEC

Just last Friday, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer speculated that Alabama should have lost three games last season.

“You look at [2012], [Alabama] should have lost three games. Georgia had them beat. LSU, I watched that one, it was over. Obviously they ended up beating them. I thought they’d be really good. I think there are some really good teams in the conference.”

Saban was asked today about Ohio State competing with the top six SEC teams last year in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina and Texas A&M.

“How many would Ohio State have beaten? Would they have won three? I don’t know.”

Saban and Alabama won two of the three games against the top six teams. Missouri played the most top six teams and went 0-5. Florida finished 3-1 against the top six.

On Tim Davis’ ‘the devil himself’ comments

Saban said that both Florida AD Jeremy Foley and Will Muschamp called and apologized for Gator offensive line coach Tim Davis’ comments.

Two weeks ago in an effort to pump up his own coach at Saban’s expense, Davis called Saban ‘the devil himself’.

That didn’t sit too well with Saban, who called the comments terribly disappointing.

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1. Future SEC football scheduling

The future of SEC scheduling as it pertains to football will be the hot topic button of the week. The league is expected to finalize the 2014 football schedule soon, which will be the first year of the new College Football Playoff. The ’14 schedule will still likely be exactly what it is right now – the 6-1-1 model, meaning six division games, one permanent cross-divisional opponent and one rotating cross-divisional opponent.

However, the biggest topic within future scheduling is when – or if – the SEC will move away from an eight-game to a nine-game conference schedule. There shouldn’t be a vote this week, but it will be discussed at length, and every coach has an opinion on it. Most coaches and administrators – except Nick Saban – are against a nine-game schedule for multiple reasons.

Another topic you’ll hear within the future scheduling is strength of schedule. It’s still unknown how big of factor SOS will be with the coming playoff, but it will be a factor. It could help force the SEC’s hand to move to a nine-game SEC schedule.

2. Les Miles and fairness

The big talk surrounding scheduling talk is fairness. LSU’s Les Miles doesn’t want to play Florida every year as the Tigers’ permanent cross-divisional opponent, and he doesn’t think it’s fair that Alabama plays a weaker Tennessee every year.

Expect Les Miles to be the center of attention when talking about cross-divisional games. He seems like a man on a mission heading into Destin.

3. SEC Network planning and nuggets

The SEC Network launches in 2014, and there’s much to be planned and accomplished before that happens. ESPN’s Justin Connolly, who’s head of the SEC Network, will be in Destin. Yes, viewers care about how the network’s footprint expands into other states, but the bigger issue is the entertainment quality within the network itself. The SEC and ESPN have already hired Paul Finebaum, and if that’s any indication of the type of programming, it will be tilted toward being entertainment based. We’ll probably get some more nuggets regarding the network itself this week.

4. Slive and retirement

Mike Slive has one year left on his contract as the most important and powerful man in college football. At 72, the SEC Network is Slive’s crowning achievement. Could Slive end his run as commish next year?

5. ‘Paying players’

Mike Slive is in favor of a $2,000 stipend to cover a player’s full cost of attendance, while Steve Spurrier wants to give a little money to players out of coaches’ pockets and has for years. I’m sure on more than one occasion the coaches and suits will speak of ‘paying players’ this week.

This really isn’t a pertinent issue, but it’s a hot topic about which everyone has an opinion.

Slive added this nugget about the NCAA and stipends earlier this spring:

“When there are certain things that many of us would like to come into play, it’s our hope that those things can all occur in the current system. Obviously, if things like that [player stipends] don’t get accomplished, then it may be appropriate to talk about some alternative or division or something like that. But that’s not our desire. That’s not our goal and that’s not something we’re trying to get to.”

Slive may elaborate on rattling the NCAA’s cage.

6. Bowls in 2014 and beyond

With the coming playoff, the Cotton Bowl and Chick-fil-A Bowl will no longer have automatic SEC tie-ins, because both will be part of the playoff rotation host sites. The Capital One, Outback, Gator and Music City Bowls should remain as is.

So, which bowls will the SEC get instead of the Cotton and Chick-fil-A, and how many bowls will the SEC even want to include in 2014? That will be a big discussion point this week.

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The Tide have one of the deepest receiving corps of anyone in the SEC, and playing time would have been slim for Woodson, even if he was allowed to come back from his suspension for violating team rules. And it was expected he would transfer.

With Woodson’s transfer, Alabama is hovering around the 85-scholarship limit. The 85-player limit doesn’t have to be finalized until the start of fall camp, per NCAA rules.

The Tide signed 26 players in the 2013 recruiting cycle, which put the total number of scholarship players at 95, 10 over the maximum, according to CBSSports’ Oversigning Index.

Naturally, there would be offseason attrition, and that certainly has been the case for an event-filled – nightmarish for Nick Saban – Alabama offseason.

Alabama has lost nine scholarship players since February:

• DJ Pettway (dismissed)
• Tyler Hayes (dismissed)
• Brent Calloway (dismissed)
• Eddie Williams (dismissed)
• Jonathan Atchison (not on spring roster)
• William Ming (not on spring roster)
• Chris Bonds (not on spring roster)
• Marvin Shinn (opted not to practice this spring)
• Danny Woodson Jr. (transfer)

The oversigning zealots were out in full force last February, but Alabama looks to be sitting at 86 scholarship players, just one away from the limit. And we still have roughly 69 days until fall camp starts.

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