this is a great piece.. need more work like this.

really enjoyed the X's and O's. thanks

Good analysis, however it is short sighted. Bama missed the oppurtunities we had to ,figuratively, change the tide. We were not motivated and believed the hype. Smith was a distration and Johnson got injured quickly in the game. two plays dont make a game. Again, we missed signifigant scoring oppurtunities and lost to a better prepared team.
In the end an overachieving tide lost to the number 1 and legitimate number 2 team. Further, I would of loved to see Florida play Utah that night -they were on fire.

jon h
ummm... besides the first over thrown pass by Alabama what scoring opps and that late missed field goal does not count?

Smith's absence matters greatly for two reasons:
1) He was the most physically dominant offensive player in the college football last year, and he was Bama's best player
2) Offensive line play, even at the high school level, consists of blocking assignments that fit together. There are assignments before the play that the linemen then communicate at the line, depending upon the front, look, possibilities, etc. to alert one another of who is doing what. Even if a slant, stunt, blitz, show, etc. goes to one side to lure an offensive player out of position, every gap/man/zone is accounted for, prior to the play, regardless of the scheme. There is nothing, NOTHING, short of Blitzing 12 men, that an offense is not prepared to block. So, the point of this is to state the importance of replacing a key lineman with an inexperienced (or two, once Johnson went down with injury) lineman. I really wonder how many line calls were blown during that game. I wonder how many players didn't get their butt where it needed to be so Utah ran through them cleanly. You plug in Andre Smith, the communication would undoubtedly be better; the left side would be better, the relaying of calls down the line (and keeping all of Bama's players in their normal positions, where they'd been playing all season) would be better, and the amount of thinking going on would be lessened greatly without a hole at left guard (and later, left tackle and right tackle also).
No defensive scheme is so complex that offenses are tricked. The defender must get to a spot before his blocker can get there to block him. Leverage and balance matter, since it's difficult to block someone without your feet properly placed and your weight distributed evenly. Too much lean in any direction will result in a blocker being off balance.
Smith and Caldwell know the line calls better than anyone. I just don't see how you could say Andre Smith's loss wouldn't matter much because of errors being made on the other side. It's one unit...the assignments bounce down depending upon the calls, shifts, slides, reaches, et al.

This is good analysis. I often hear the terms "nickel, weak side, man coverage", etc. It is interesting to see it drawn out. I am interested in learning the terminology and being able to recognize it in the actual game. This type of analysis helps. Thanks a bunch.
As far as the game goes we just got our butt beat. I was there and witnessed every play and sometimes you gotta man up and realize you got whipped and move one. Utah wanted it more on that night. I am however confident this will be a teaching point for future Alabama teams.
ROLL TIDE ROLL

Great breakdown. Very astute.
Jon h - 'Bama was motivated plenty. Georgia brought their A game last year to the Sugar Bowl and it netted them a heralded preseason #1 ranking. Even if it was against a "lesser" opponent. Hard to think it would be different for AL, especially for the Tide's first Sugar Bowl appearance in 16 years. I think Bama got suckered into the thinking that SEC football and traditional teams with 4/5-star recruits could just play their game and bury a non-BCS team.
Bamagrad - I don't disagree with your take on Smith's absence. It made a big difference. A lot of these plays resulted from AL being in a position where they had to throw and Utah knew the pass was coming. From a Utah/MWC perspective, we've heard for so long now that part of the reason why we could never be ranked amongst the big boys was b/c we lacked the depth they had at skilled positions. Some pundits even suggested that the SEC's 2nd teams could beat the non-BCS champions.

No matter how you look at it, analyze it, the UTES kicked the crap out of Alabama and should be #1 in the country. I am so sick of the BCS I want to puke. BCS is a joke.

Good analysis all-round...admittedly, however, if Andre Smith had been in there the first drive Alabama made would have been quite longer, to be sure. Although being in pass situations usually means playing catch-up,with the best lineman in college football in there...look back at the defenses(ranked) that this offense just plain hammered with the run...and tell me again that his presence made no difference...Georgia tried the zone-blitz, too, but with little to no success due to the ability of Smith and Caldwell to block on draw plays..as a rule, when teams blitz from the nickel, draws and screens are the way to make them "fess-up" and play honest to the run....leading to play-pass madness.Kudos to the Utes..they were well coached and ready to play to the level of their competition.

This is a wonderful piece of work. For those who blame it on bama not being sufficiently motivated, believing their own hype or overlooking an "inferior" team, it would be good to remember that Utah was in fact the team with the Bowl and BCS experience, the team with the BCS tradition and post season tradition in players on the field. They were in fact the big boys and bama were the little guys trying to get back to the big time. Yes, bama was this year's Hawaii and they got spanked. No question they were poorly coached and prepared. They were also outmanned in every way a team can be out manned by a veteren team with better coaches and talent, a better scheme and by the way a team in Utah that actually statistically beat teams with an average better ranking than Alabama (read that as Utah played a tougher schedule) based on the final sagarin rankings. Alabama is this year's Hawaii. They dumbed down their schedule had extra home games, their apparent big wins against Clemson and Georgia faded as these two teams faded and their regular season in conference skips really made a difference to pad the schedule. Perhaps the real problem is not Alabama drinking their own Kool-aid, it is the media feeding everybody Kool-aide on the SEC and Big 12 south from the beginning of the season when it was not warranted. End of year, certainly Florida was good but Utah and USC might have been better. Certainly the Pac 10 demonstrated that it was the best conference of the year at the end going 5-0 against an average 24 ranked competition while the Big 12 went 4-3 against an average 41 ranked group of teams and the SEC went 6-2 against an average ranked 27 group which included a couple of wins against a terribly overrated group of Big 12 south teams. Yes Alabama needs to go back to the drawing board and one day perhaps they can grow up to be like Utah.

Just a couple of additional observations. If an offensive lineman is bama's best player, they're in trouble. I don't think an offensive lineman would have been on the field to stop Utah's offense which had no trouble against a very second rate defense. Alabama is big and slow and very slow to react and frankly a poor fundamental team right down to the tackling and the very weak defensive back plan. On offense Alabama had a very simple and easy to counter scheme. Frankly, Alabama was outmanned all across the line because they were big and slow. This killed the run because Utah were in the gaps before the running backs.
One more thing. Alabama played weaker competition than Utah (statistically true, check sagarin) and the schedule in the SEC was way overblown and hyped this year. Definately not the top conference by far. The entire conference only went 2-3 against top 30 non-conference competition during the season and played an average ranked 95th place team in 48 games mostly at home. Best win was Florida beating FSU. Utah by them selves had two better wins than the entire SEC. Perhaps being on the east coast and not watching games west of the mississippi makes fans less savvy about college football. It's understandable for fans. But when coaches like Saban make such mistakes they should hang their heads and hide. No this was not a missing O lineman. It was an overhyped team in a overrated conference getting the snot beat out of them at every position and because they are big and slow and their offensive schemes were simple and their defense was poor in fundamentals and talent they lost. The fact is when you play games against teams in the SEC all year that look like you it is easy to think you're something when you are not.

That is just simply amazing Clark W. Amazing! I don't know whether to applaud you more for the effort you put into those comments or the passion with which you delivered them. You know, I was sitting around the other day with friends commenting on how I couldn't wait for Alabama to be just like Utah and for them to get a coach as good as Whitingham, who is in fact Ed Orgeron's Mini Me. The great thing is, if you keep repeating all that stuff over and over maybe someone other than you might start to believe it. I can see how a squeaker against a 4-6 New Mexico team would qualify as a quality win. It also makes sense that the Mountain West is an overall better conference than the SEC. I'll just have to wait till draft day to see all that talent flood into the NFL. You've got more rodeo fans out there than football fans, and yes we do watch some of what y'all call football. I personally watched the Lobo game and also the OSU game. Utah was lucky to win both and should have lost to TCU.
The '09 Sugar was the biggest game in the history of the Utah program. I didn't say that, one of the Ute players did. This was less than a consolation game to Alabama. None of the fans cared (tickets were readily available for a game five hours away and no one really was discussing it) and I can't speak for the players, but they sure played like they didn't care. The fact is, Alabama lost its shot at the national title game and playing the Utes was something nobody wanted becasue there is no glory in beating Utah despite what people in the Wasatch might believe. Keep winning like that for the next 5-7 years and you might start to get noticed.
You did get a few things right. Utah did outplay and outcoach Alabama, but you didn't get the best shot from Alabama's "big and slow" players. It might not have made a difference but don't crow too loudly because with all that nonsense your spouting you sound like a banty rooster.
So congratulations if you are in fact a Utah fan. Your team played a great game and had a great season. I'd just be glad that there wasn't a playoff and you didn't get exposed by a team that was actually playing for something. In the mean time, we'll keep hoping that we can be like you.
To the commenter that compared Alabama's motivation to Georgia's last season; while there are some parallels I don't believe that is entirely accurate. Georgia didn't play in the SEC championship prior to the Sugar Bowl appearance and were coming off a great winning streak following the pantsing by Tennessee and trying to prove the deserved a to be playing in the BCS game (similar to Utah). Alabama had just lost a legitimate shot at the title and were getting the season ending privilege of playing Utah. Yes, Utah, the bastion of BCS tradition and success. I hope no team ever plays for a pre-season ranking. A lot of good it will do them, just ask the '08 Bulldogs. Mind you, I still don't believe that it is an excuse, because Alabama should have been ready to play but make no mistake, the glory in those games is reserved for the underdog.

I guess if you go 13-0 that makes you the best team in the country.Sorry folks but that's just not the way it works Utah was good and I'll give them that. But anywhere near number one,NOT! Fla, Ok, Tx, USC any one of these teams would have beaten Utah. But that we will never know. As for Bama not being ready to play, obvious to anyone who has watched them at all this season. As for our best player being an offensive lineman, not true either. He was to be sure our most highly rated. Offensive lineman play with a lot of synchronization and when you tamper with that you throw the entire offense out of synch. First off, you take your starting left tackle out and the line then becomes out of synch. Secondly, you move you right tackle over to that position and he becomes off balance. thirdly, you now have to put a second stringer in to this right tackle slot and since he is not a starter, he does not mesh real well. Then the right tackle who had moved to left tackle goes out . Now he has to be replaced with another non-starter. Then you throw a true freshman in to this line and what you have is a recipe for disaster. Which is exactly what you got. JPW is not the most mobile QB I have ever seen but he had only been sacked 8 times the whole year . This whole scenario of playing musical lineman put our offense at a great disadvantage. One they could never recover from. Then you add insult to injury with our defense deciding not to tackle very well and giving up a quick 21 points and the beatdown was on. Atleast in the first half. We didn't have the QB or the offensive line to protect him to play catch up. When we finally did make some adjustments they only scored 10 more points to our 17 but it was too late.

Hey rollin, I noticed you didn't agrue with the facts because you can't. Yes do look at the last 5-7 years where Utah has done it and Alabama has not. Of course no one will argue with that fact. There is also no question that Alabama has one of the top five football traditions in the country and Utah isn't even close to that kind of tradition. But in the last 10 years Alabama fans would have died to have Utah's bowl invites and that ain't too bad. I'm not against bama. In fact, as a USC alum I have great respect for the select few programs who have been up there for 50+ years even if they go through an occasional period of down. USC certainly did in the 90's and Alabama has off and on since the bear left the sideline. However, regardless of the excuses, Alabama embarassed their program and their conference in the sugar. I know it is hard to swallow but there are only 9 teams that have been to more BCS bowls than Utah and Alabama isn't one of them. The real challenge with the SEC against spread and pro offense teams that have good defenses like Utah had this year is the same challenge most SEC teams have against Florida. They just can't get there from here. The current crop of SEC teams outside of Florida look a lot more like the Big 10 than anything else. You have got to have DB's that can cover and look for the ball at the same time, you have to have corners that can man up against the sophisticated offenses, you have to have a pass game that is more challenging to cover. Too many SEC games turn on defensive take aways and points off. Yes bama had their close calls this year as well (8-5 LSU in OT for example). Like the Big 10 the SEC will feel really happy when they play with themselves or get those 48 mostly home walkovers or skip regular season contests that might be better games for the fans but when they play tested teams it ain't so pretty. I believe you could ask the last 7 SEC opponents of USC for example.
There is a big world of football out there and I hope Alabama can continue the run to get back to it. College football is always better when the Alabama's and Notre Dames of the world are in the race. I know Saban had a good track record at LSU and has turned around a pretty dismal bama program quickly but he did get caught up in the hype and let you'all down big time as did your team.
Of course Utah was very good this year, just as it will take a couple of years until they get back there again. Of course the MWC is terrible and I would never compare it to a real conference. However, the fact is that Utah's wins were over a tougher total schedule than Alabama's. That is the truth and it was certainly helped by teams like Oregon State and TCU but it was also helped by the dismal performance of Alabama's opponents. Nevertheless, it was the truth. Finally, a lot of people seemed to disagree with you about Whittingham in the post bowl coaching awards. Talk all you want, its a lot easier when you dance around the facts.

Good analysis and great sampling of the zone blitz. Utah had a stellar team this year with a lot of speed and heart, especially on defense. That always helps a zone blitz.
Its interesting that Saban is renowned for his zone blitzing and his defense and a great example of effective zone blitzing comes against him. His defense will always be tough because of his use of the zone blitz, though.
Good season, Utes. Good season, Tide. Hopefully the BCS goes away soon...

At the end of the evening on Jan. 2nd, all the Alabama players wished they were Utah, except maybe the ones who broke team rules and didn't make the trip. Statistically, John Parker Wilson may be the greatest Alabama quarterback ever, but the Tide fans are saying the team didn't have any motivation. Guys like Joe Namath, Stabler and Richard Todd wanted to win every game and motivated their team to do so no matter what had occured during the previous game or season. I would think JPW is in that mold as well. Alabama lost because they played a team that was better on Jan. 2nd and during the whole season.

i agree that the loss of andre smith is being overrated by 'bama fans and apologists. but although he wouldn't have stopped these big plays from happening, he could've helped the run game and hopefully extended drives. but once the utah offense hit the field, it wouldn't have really mattered. they couldn't stop them early and running the ball would not have been a big help.
and as weird as it sounds, clark is right that alabama wishes they had utah's success (in this decade only obviously.)
bama in the bcs era has had poor coaching, coaching scandals, sanctions and losing records prior to saban's presence.
in that time utah has had 8 bowl wins in a row (2 bcs bowl wins) and urban meyer (who is known as, ya know, kind've a good coach.)
clark's not (i hope) talking about the 70's here.
and in the end, this game came down to the fact that as soon as a team put bama in a situation where jpw had to win the game, alabama was gonna lose. he is a terrible error-prone qb who was masked by a great running game and good defense.

Alright Clark, I'll give you facts, and only because your response wasn't as trollish as I thought it would be.
I'm afraid Sagarin doesn't agree with you. In the final rankings Alabama's schedule is listed as 28th toughest compared to 56th for Utah. Alabama went 12-2 versus teams with a combined record of 96-90 that included seven bowls teams with a combined record of 6-1 in those bowls. Utah went 13-0 (kudos to them for that) against teams with a combined record of 88-77, six of which played in bowls going 3-3 in those. Furthermore, Alabama won more games against the top 30 than Utah played, going 4-2 in those contest versus 3-0 to Utah in those games. To give a better comparison, use only the regular season, in which case UA went 12-0 against a combined 70-79, five bowl teams (4-1 in those bowls). Alabama had wins against three ranked teams, two in the top ten. Utah also went 12-0 but against a combined record of 76-75 (five bowl teams, 3-2 in those bowls). That looks a little better from one angle until you look at the win over FCS opponent Weber State (from the guy talking about dumbing down schedules and games that aren't good for the fans - although I will give big props to Utah for interesting scheduling. Michigan just happened to suck this year). If you take out that game that makes it 11-0 over teams with a record of 66-71. Not nearly as impressive. If you remove former FCS opponent Western Kentucky from Alabama's schedule, for the sake of comparison, then they went 11-0 against teams with a combined record of 68-69, which is certainly better than Utah's eleven. For the record, LSU was 6-2 and ranked #16 when Alabama beat them in overtime compared with the 4-5 Lobos who Utah took to the wire.
The Mountain West, by your own admission is not a good conference. It is then illogical to your argument that Utah, who plays in that conference plays a tougher schedule than Alabama.TCU, who also plays in the MW and is the second best team in the conference lost by 25 to Oklahoma. BYU, the Utes third or fourth best win, lost to Arizona in their bowl game. OSU, won by three (3-0) over Pitt. Compare those to the bowl wins of the SEC who went 6-2 in bowls.
Continuing with facts that you missed. There may be nine teams that have been to more BCS games than Utah and Alabama is tied with them (Utah that is). The Tide ('00 Orange, '09 Sugar) has been to just as many as Utah ('05 Fiesta, '09 Sugar). The players on the field have been to the same amount, which is one. Barring medical hardships Seniors for Utah were Redshirt freshman at best when the Myers' Utes beat Pitt. Otherwise the players have been to the same amount of bowls for both programs, Cotton vs. Texas Tech, Independence vs. Oklahoma State, Independence vs. Colorado, and Sugar for Alabama, compared to Emerald vs. Georgia Tech, Armed Forces vs. Tulsa, and Poinsettia vs. Navy for the Utes. Utah does have a better record in BCS games and the last four bowls (2-0 vs 0-2 and 2-2 vs. 4-0) and that is certainly enviable, but the three seasons prior to this one were not what you would call an enviable bowl slate for either team with the possible exception of the Cotton.
As far as scheme, there are no facts to prove that but I wholeheartedly disagree with your premise. Florida, who is in what you call the highly overrated SEC (again your friend Sagarin disagrees with you and ranks the SEC on top, compared with a 4th place for the Pac 10 and 7th for the MW) is winning because they have more talent than anybody else coupled with a tremendous defense. Arkansas State runs a similar scheme and they got shut-out by Alabama.
I'll wrap this up by praising Utah. They did absolutely have a great game plan and they executed it to perfection. They jumped on Alabama early and made them play from behind. They did a great job of taking away the run - which Florida had a really hard time with. We've been saying all year that Alabama is not built to come from behind and Utah went out and proved it.The early turnover that led to a short field and a touchdown was a staggering blow that probably won them the game. Despite the early momentum, (Utah scored 21 points on three consecutive drives in the first quarter) Alabama made adjustments and held them to 10 points for the rest of the game. At one point in the third quarter it was a four point game. Alabama's missed field goals (2) and points from turnovers (10) made it certain that the first quarter barrage could not be overcome. Was it embarrassing? Absolutely, but I'd take that one over any day. Is Utah more talented? They were more motivated and played with more heart for certain, but I think that recruiting services (if you put any stock in that whatsoever) and future NFL drafts and rosters all will side with Alabama.
In closing, Utah was much better team, all the way around, on January 2nd. But other than that, Clark, your facts just don't stand up to scrutiny. In fact, in some instances I think you need to check your facts. You certainly have a valid opinion and I don't expect to sway you from it one bit. God knows that I believe the Pac-10 with the exception of USC plays a miserable brand of football.
Then again knowing your a USC fan makes a lot more sense; OSU beat USC, and Utah beat OSU, so therefore Utah has to be the best team in the country, right? I guess I could make an argument for the Trojans being out-manned, out-schemed, and out-coached in Corvalis that night, but then again I know enough about football to not give that too much credence despite my deep South bias and there has been enough football played to prove that wasn't the case. That's probably the worst thing about a bowl loss; seven months to ponder it...

Forget alabama war eagle!

Great piece. Please do more of these--both of how badly Utah beat Alabama (cover the O?), and of schematic breakdowns in general.

Sure, I could read this, but then how would I stop the uncontrollable dry heaves? Congrats Utah. Stupid Sugar Bowl.