Can LSU's defense save the day against Alabama?

The question for LSU every season always seems to be “can our defense save the day against Alabama?” It’s a pretty safe assumption in a given year that the offense isn’t going to make much headway against the Tide defense. They’re trying out a more multiple scheme this season, designed to try and prevent Alabama from keying their inside run game, but an attack that has struggled against lesser opponents in the SEC West than Alabama doesn’t seem quite ready to meet that challenge.

So in 2017 LSU probably needs its defense to produce major results and “save the day” by carrying the Tigers to success. The biggest challenge with this approach is that winning a game on defense generally requires forcing turnovers, and Alabama doesn’t turn the ball over. It has five, the fewest in the SEC, tied for second-fewest in the nation.

Here’s how LSU will have to approach Alabama’s offense in order to try and generate some results that could help its offense get on the board and produce a win.

The formula for attacking Alabama’s offense

The Tide just want to run the ball and maybe flip it outside for easy yardage to Calvin Ridley if teams get too nosy in the box. Their plan on passing downs is to run something to give Jalen Hurts an easy read and then releasing him to scramble if his first read or two aren’t open enough to guarantee a risk-averse throw.

Hurts has only thrown one intercepton this year and has fumbled twice, both of which Alabama recovered, so turning over the Alabama offense is difficult even if you force them into third down regularly and then keep Hurts well contained.

That said, it is possible to severely limit the Tide offensive output and put pressure on Hurts to start making plays and overriding the Saban protocol downloaded into his brain that short circuits him if he considers throwing into coverage.

So the plan for LSU has to center around stopping the run, which is arguably easier than a year ago because there is less QB option and variety to the scheme, then making as much as possible out of third down.

Stemming the Tide on standard downs

Although the Tide don’t maximize it by using one of their better runners (Hurts) more in their run schemes, Alabama has one of its best OLs this decade. The right side of Lester Cotton and Matt Womack is a pretty mauling pair while the left side combo of LT Jonah Williams, LG Ross Pierschbacher, and then center Bradley Bozeman is an exceptional grouping. The Tide can regularly get off double teams quickly because Cotton, Pierschbacher and Bozeman can all handle a DT solo without giving up a negative play.

Alabama is just bodying up the Tennessee front and then taking them for a ride here.

This is probably the biggest concern for LSU as its defensive front has been vulnerable to getting pushed around. Auburn went right at the Tigers with double teams on their nose tackle Greg Gilmore and made steady gains taking the ball up the middle.

On this play you see Auburn’s star center Austin Golson turn Gilmore’s shoulder and then pass him off to right guard Braden Smith to be pancaked before moving on to pancake LSU’s middle linebacker Devin White himself. Those two are an amazing tandem, but so are the big boys up front for Alabama.

There’s not much to be done about it for LSU but to outnumber the run and try to hit Alabama with some negative plays via the blitz and hope they don’t just get mauled regardless.

Maximizing opportunities on passing downs

LSU’s blitz package and coverages present some real challenges to Alabama and could be its saving grace Saturday. The trick with Hurts is that you want him to execute from the pocket, even a clean-ish pocket, rather than seeing him get loose into open grass. (Remember, Hurts scored the only touchdown in last year’s game when he broke containment.)

He’s simply not a particularly accurate passer, even when throwing with set feet to his first read:

The path on defense for LSU is pretty straightforward. On standard downs they’ll want to play tight man coverage and load the box, forcing Alabama to out-execute them up front with the OL or on the perimeter with Hurts’ accuracy. Alabama will choose the former, and if they can do it, that’s that.

Then on passing downs the Tigers will want to play contain on the edges while perhaps shooting an interior gap with the linebacker and then move around their secondary in various ways to try and trap Hurts into throwing where he shouldn’t or else capitalizing on his accuracy issues.

How hard is it to picture Hurts missing Ridley and a nearby safety picking up the scraps? Not very.

The Tigers could bracket Ridley regularly on passing downs and then rely on playing contain up front and tackling Hurts to force punts but they could also try to set traps for him with late shifts and disguised coverages to encourage an INT.

The former would achieve what LSU has always tended to do in this series, limiting Alabama’s offense but failing to get points on the board. The latter could finally allow the Tigers’ D to carry their offense to victory. We’ll just have to wait and see what DC Dave Aranda and the Bayou Bengals have cooked up for this one.