What did we learn from Alabama vs. LSU?

Saturday’s Alabama-LSU game was fairly standard in terms of its place within the series over this decade. The Tigers have never looked totally overmatched against Alabama, just incapable of really denting the Crimson Tide defense. The scoreboard this round suggested the Tigers were much closer and they even outgained Alabama 306-299. LSU also 9-for-19 on third down as opposed to 5-14 for Alabama, and outrushed the Tide 151-116.

Some of that was because Alabama enjoyed shorter fields after winning a field position exchange early and picking off LSU quarterback Danny Etling at the end of the first quarter. Alabama took advantage in each instance with touchdown drives that effectively put the game out of reach. Another factor was that LSU got 54 yards in one chunk on a Darrell Williams wildcat run.

In other words, when the game was on the line Alabama tended to significantly outplay LSU. Here’s what we can glean about these two seasons and these two programs from that contest.

LSU’s advantage needs to come from quarterback

The Tigers generally seem pretty capable of matching the Tide athlete for athlete and brute for brute when Alabama’s offense faces LSU’s defense. There were moments where the Tigers got beaten up in the trenches, which wasn’t unexpected, but it wasn’t egregious and it rarely is enough to knock LSU out of a game in this series.

Overall it’s pretty hard to be a one-dimensional offense against either defense, particularly when that offense mostly relies on its running game. Alabama matched the jet sweep combinations by playing wide contain with their defensive ends and outside linebackers. That made LSU go inside where the Tigers featured youth and inexperience against a typical cast of big, upperclass, blue-chippers in the trenches for the Tide.

Where the Tide can often be beaten, and where they’ve almost exclusively been beaten, is in the passing game. LSU had some chances and took shots but had very little to show for it. Early on the Tigers took this deep shot to D.J. Chark:

Chark had his man beat inside and the safety bit on the run and trailed helplessly. Etling just missed him. Forgivable, but costly. It’s very difficult to sustain drives and score touchdowns pushing up against the Crimson wall every snap without some chunk plays.

On the next drive, LSU came back with an aim to spread the Tide out and hurt them on the perimeter:

That’s not really LSU’s game this year and it showed on this play. The Tigers were in a two-by-two spread set with an H-back left in the box as an obvious adjunct to the protection scheme. Alabama was playing Cover 1 with a nickel on the field slot and safety Hootie Jones down over the boundary slot. Etling threw quickly without really setting his feet well, partly because the isolated H-back failed to block Isaiah Buggs particularly well and partly because Etling isn’t terrific under pressure. Jones was all over the route and the poor placement and timing resulted in the sole turnover of the game.

Good spread teams work hard to figure out how to set protections to guarantee they don’t get bad matchups that create easy, quick pressure for the defense. They’d typically cut the defensive end on a play like that. Their quarterbacks read things faster and are more accurate as a result of countless reps spent reading defenses and making throws.

It takes a lot of time and coordination to master the kind of passing attack that teams have used to take down Alabama; that’s not really LSU’s game under offensive coordinator Matt Canada and it wasn’t under former coach Les Miles either. The Tigers are not pursuing a terrible offensive system, but it’s just hard to beat Alabama without going after their only vulnerable spot.

The Tide even played much of this game without star defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick, but they started dropping into two-deep coverage more and choking the life out of LSU’s offense without him and there wasn’t much the Tigers could do about it. LSU tried true freshman QB Myles Brennan but that’s not going to do it against Alabama, not this year at least.

Alabama is vulnerable this season

The Tide looked much like they have throughout the season. They have another very stout defense but not an impregnable one and they took a few hits here and there from LSU on the ground. Alabama’s offense has some elite features, such as the outside zone run game:

Big right tackle Matt Womack helped shove LSU’s Christian LaCouture down the field while right guard Lester Cotton reached him and took him out of the play. Center Bradley Bozeman prevented any penetration from nose tackle Greg Gilmore, allowing left guard Ross Pierschbacher to reach his shoulder and turn him out of the play as well. Then Bozeman and Womack advanced to take out more targets downfield; the play ended with Bozeman and RB Bo Scarbrough lying on top of LSU’s middle linebacker.

It would take a really stout defense to shut this run game down, but teams can do so against Alabama’s passing game. The Tide set up Jalen Hurts to pretty much stare down receivers and either throw it to them or scramble for what he could. They did early damage with a double post combo on which Hurts was well protected on; he got a chance to make a big play without reading too much:

Hurts and the Alabama line proved vulnerable to LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda’s clever blitz designs, such as this one where they brought inside backers before dropping them back, then snuck in an outside linebacker after he initially showed coverage:

LSU’s problem, of course, was that its couldn’t put enough pressure on Alabama’s offense with early scores to force Hurts out of his comfort zone.

What happens when Alabama plays a team whose quarterback can can pry open its defense, particularly early, then force Hurts to match him against a higher level pressure package? We should find out in the next four weeks.