Nick Saban Once Again Showed Adaptability in Win over Kiffin, Ole Miss
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — If Alabama's bruising style of football with 50 rushes compared to 26 passes against Ole Miss made you reminiscent for old school Alabama football, don't get too excited just yet. It's not going to stick around.
But that's part of what makes Nick Saban so great.
"It's not really how we want to play," Saban said about the Crimson Tide's run-heavy offense on Saturday. "It's not how we played all year. And it’s not going to be the style we want to continue to play. We’ve got to do the things we have to do to try to win the game. Playing the way we played today on offense was the way we needed to play to win the game."
Because of the style of defense Ole Miss plays, Alabama adapted to combat that style. The Rebels often drop eight guys into coverage which can make it difficult to throw but opens up the rushing game.
"It’s not really the personality of this offense," Saban said. "I just think that it was a combination of we wanted to keep the ball away from them and the way their defensive structure is with a 32 defense with 6 defensive backs.
"So it was a combination of this is how they line up, as well as this is the type of game that needs to be."
Even though Alabama did rush more, quarterback Bryce Young still finished 20-26 for 241 yards and two touchdowns. He did throw an interception for the second game in a row.
"There's always going to be throws you want back, but you have to understand that you have to play each play as a new play," Young said.
After the game, running back Brain Robinson Jr., who finished with career highs of 171 yards on 36 carries with four touchdowns, said he never expected to run the ball that many times. For a guy that grew up in Tuscaloosa, it felt like those old school Alabama offenses from the early Saban era.
As much success as Alabama had offense, it was heavily driven by the Crimson Tide defense getting stops on fourth down and stopping the Ole Miss offensive attack.
Last season, Alabama gave up nearly 650 yards of total offense to the Rebels. On Saturday, Ole Miss didn't even reach 300 yards. This was another one of the way's Saban adapted to the game.
Learning from last year's game where the defense struggled with substituting effectively because of the Rebels' speed on offense, Saban had the defense subbing in and out of the same personnel group all night.
"We played the whole game from the same personnel group, so we didn't get all the substituting and stuff that was a problem for us last year," Saban said. "So the players did a good job of executing."
Some of the other results around college football and the SEC on Saturday (Mississippi State beating Texas A&M, Auburn beating LSU, Georgia blowing out Arkansas) made Alabama's journey throughout the rest of the regular season look a little different.
Even with the potentially disappointing news about Jase McClellan, Alabama has other offensive weapons in place to help carry them through the regular season. They are also led by a head coach who has shown time and time again that he will adapt and adjust to whatever it takes for his team to win.
