Film study: How Alabama unleashed the beast in Tim Williams

As the saying goes, Alabama doesn’t rebuild, it reloads.

Last year the Crimson Tide sported one of the most talented defenses in recent college football history. Their defensive front starred endless NFL talent, and their pass-rushing sub-package was the most effective in the nation. Behind their front was a group of hyper-athletic linebackers, and a secondary that featured multiple future draft choices.

The defense produced four second-round picks — Jarran Reed, A’Shawn Robinson, Reggie Ragland and Cyrus Jones. Jonathan Allen, Reuben Foster and Ryan Anderson added star-power, game-changers and depth.

Nick Saban and his staff did an outstanding job of putting their best players in the best position to play at their peak level.

None more so than pass-rushing specialist Tim Williams.

The Skill Set

Williams is an elite edge-rusher, right there battling for the top overall pass-rusher in the league, and nation, alongside Myles Garrett, Carl Lawson and Derek Barnett.

At 6-4, 230, he used his vicious blend of initial explosiveness, length, sudden quickness, and power to total 10.5 sacks in 2015. His speed of the line is jarring, and he converts speed-to-power about as well as any young pass-rusher in the past five years.

The first and most important thing when looking at a young pass-rusher is how he uses his hands.

Win the hand battle and you win the rep.

Many young edge-rushers rely solely on explosiveness, the ability to bend the edge and dip to the quarterback. Usually only using outside pass-rushing moves, traditionally a rip move. We call those “dip-and-rip” rushers; they rely on their natural athletic ability, and while it’s certainly no fatal flaw, it makes them less than a complete pass rusher.

Williams can win by exploding out of his stance and beating lineman before they’re even set.

And he will also consistently go to the dip-and-rip.

However, he is smarter than most rushers. He will press and keep linemen of his pads using his hands, maintaining leverage and freeing him up to attack inside or outside.

See above, Williams gets senior lineman Korren Kirven to overplay, lose balance, and sticks one arm into his chest, before ripping and arriving at the quarterback.

Although hand-placement and precision is stressed, being active and violent with your hands on every rep is a must. Williams is constantly battling and fighting at the point of attack.

Despite being an explosive athlete, a lot of what Williams does relies on converting that speed to power. There are many great athletes who profile as edge-rushers but lack production because unless they win with their first step, they get into trouble. See Leonard Floyd last year.

Converting speed to power means generating power from your lower half of the body to upper body power, converting first-step quickness into a powerful punch in a lineman’s chest. To do so, a rusher must naturally play low, and rise through a lineman’s pads.

See below, He explodes off the ball, delivers a powerful blow to the lineman to keep him off his pads, then dips and runs the arc to the quarterback.

That’s Williams at his best.

When he comes off the ball high, he loses that power, leverage, and is much easier to stop.

In many ways, Williams is reminiscent of a young Dwight Freeney.

Freeney is famous for his smarts as a rusher; religiously setting up the outside move, getting an offensive tackles over-commit to the outside, before spinning back toward the quarterback. And doing it all with a powerful upper body, and a great motor.

Throughout his young career Williams has shown that he’s more than just a great athlete, but that he’s a willing and intelligent rusher. He’s ready to set up moves in the first quarter that pay dividends in the fourth.

Bama puts Williams in ideal situations

In 2015 Williams played just 178 snaps and was the most efficient pass-rusher in the country. He played a part-time role as a third-down weapon and in the Tide’s pass-rushing sub-package in obvious passing situations.

He was lethal, generating more total pressures than any other player in the country on a per-down basis, per ProFootballFocus

It was a great example of Alabama’s embarrassment of riches, as well as getting the most out of every player.

There is no doubt that Williams was the Tide’s best and most natural pass-rusher. But Saban, Kirby Smart and company did not overuse the weapon who relies heavily on his explosion and motor. Instead they limited his snaps and allowed him to flourish within those snaps.

Limiting Williams reps allowed for several things:

• Williams could concentrate on his opposing lineman’s third-down/passing situation tendencies: Williams’ weeks of film study would have looked at each lineman’s passing downs, giving him the chance to systematically study their tendencies and the best avenue to attack each individual. X has a large kick-step and is vulnerable to counter-moves, Y seals the inside and can’t place in space, etc. Of course, all players are looking for these tendencies, but having a week to focus on one aspect of an opponent’s play is a major advantage.

• Conserving energy: Williams is a high energy and highly explosive player. Having his reps limited allowed him to be fresh enough to be at full capacity for each passing down, rather than tiring out down-to-down defending the run.

• Alabama’s dominant front put the sub-package in great positions: When Williams stepped on the field with the sole purpose of hunting the quarterback, he often did so with extremely favorable down and distance situations. Alabama’s defensive front was so special that many, many downs were played in third and long situations. Tide opponents threw on 3rd-and-7 or longer 99 times last season. Georgia, for instance, faced just 63 passes in those situations.

• Playing the pass and timing the snap count: The only goal for Williams in 2015 was to decapitate as many quarterbacks as possible. He would time the snap count and launch out of his stance as quickly as possible. There was barely a thought of option plays or defending the run (except in blowouts when he would be on the field throughout) and as a result he was able to sell out on the pass on every snap.

All that combined got the most out of Williams.

Whether the tactic was by design — getting the best out of the Tide’s down linemen and their sub-package rushers by rotating them and playing to their strengths — or by happenstance, Alabama had so many talented players in their front that they had to rotate. It was a deadly strategy.

Not only did ‘Bama’s coaching staff maximize Williams’ production by keeping him fresh, they also got creative in where he aligned in order to generate better matchups and distort the offense.

In one game he would shift all over the defensive front. He stood up or played with his hand in the ground, inside or outside, and as the point man on stunts.

Given the amount of talent up front, opposing offenses were tasked with deducing each matchup pre-snap, as well as locating one of the best pass-rushers in the nation, with ‘Bama showing very few tendencies, as well as having more talent than anyone in the country.

Alabama has streamlined what its scheme on the back-end of its defense. It used to be much more versatile and creative, but given the advent of the spread offense and tempo based no-huddle attacks, Saban and company implemented the pattern-match defensive system first instituted by Pat Narduzzi while the defensive coordinator at Michigan State.

To supplement the changing approach to how they use their linebackers and secondary, they have become much more creative in how they generate good one-on-one matchups for their defensive line. It starts with big, lengthy two-gapping lineman — Robinson, Reed and Allen, et al. — before unleashing a one-gap and go sub-package to end drives.

Moving Williams all over the front to generate better matchups is a prime example of coaching accentuating the talents of a great player.

What to expect in 2016

Moving forward, the Tide’s staff will have to look at the best way to use Williams and his sub-package running mate Ryan Anderson.

Rather than being a specialist, Williams will be an every-down player. He has yet to show he can effectively play the run, and how that impacts his ability to relentlessly chase the passer is also unknown.

It will be interesting to see whether Saban and his new defensive staff will look at once again limiting Williams’ reps in order to maximize those he does play in.

Whether Williams will be comfortable being a “specialist” will also be interesting. He’ll head to the NFL next year in an era in which teams are begging for as many pass-rushers as possible. Does it matter whether that guy plays the first couple of downs if he dominates on the money down?

It will be an interesting trade. For Williams’ future it will be important for him to develop into a three-down player (given his relentlessness and motor I have no doubt he can do this at a high-level), but is it more beneficial to slot in an average run-defender in place of Williams on first downs, before unleashing him as a fresh and dominant pass-rusher in the biggest spots?

Of course, he may just become a dominant overall player, willing to battle it out as a run defender, while maintaining his explosiveness as an edge-rusher.

But his 2015 season will remain forever, as a reminder that putting your best players in the best spot to succeed is bred by depth, and is the best way to maximize the top players, prioritizing what players do within the snaps they play, rather than their overall snap count.