This week’s Crimson & White Roundtable is hosted by Eight In The Box. The roundtable’s question this week:

1. Why do you think the Tide offense had trouble scoring touchdowns inside the red zone the last few seasons?

2. Do you think the Tide’s red zone offense will be improved this season and why?

3.Who is your go to guy on offense when the Tide is inside the 20?

Check out what the best minds in the blogosphere have to say about the Crimson Tide’s offense.

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One thought on “Crimson & White Roundtable #4”

  1. Shula’s ineptitude (that’s a word right?) was the biggest reason. Maybe I’m just being an armchair coach but I imagine Mike Shula as being the kind of person who could memorize coaching mantras about “establishing the run” or “sticking with the run” and not really GET the essence of the concepts. Shula was obviously of the conservative persuasion when it came to offense. As a matter of fact, his entire modus operendi as head coach at Alabama can be summed up with this sentence: “He played not to lose.” I think the Arkansas game last year was the beginning of the end for Shula and it illustrates the problem with last years offense. Given the choice between putting the game in the hands of a relatively inexperienced quarterback albeit one who had totally dissected the Arkansas secondary during the game Shula chose to make the “sound” coaching decision to play it safe at the end of regulation and hold for a winning field goal try (although you can argue that resting the outcome on Leigh Tiffin’s foot was questionable in itself what with his performance during the day). This of course entailed feeding the ball to Ken Darby who proved totally ineffective in the game and indeed the entire season after that. Which reminds me of another couple of questions I’d like to ask little Mikey: “If you felt that the best thing to do was hand the ball off and play for the field goal why didn’t you give the ball to the back that had proven much more effective,at the very least, AT MAKING FORWARD PROGRESS?!! And why not bring in Jamie Christensen who was money in the clutch the season before? I remember he had been nursing an injury but as I recall he was handling kickoff duties during the game. So he was healthy enough to kickoff and possibly make tackles but not healthy enough for a field goal try?” Surely I’m asking rhetorical questions that all of you guys have tormented yourselves with so that’s all I’ll say about Shula’s decision making.

    The next biggest factor in our offensive struggles(and as a matter of fact our defensive ones as well) was the lack of physicality on the offensive line. We couldn’t move anybody off the ball. Eleven sacks given up to Auburn the year before and no change at offensive line coach? And I’m sure it’s been well documented that Chris Capps should’ve been sidelined long before the disastrous games against Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi St. and Auburn.

    Let’s not leave Dave Rader out of the post mortem. Early on I thought that the offensive system was ok but I’ll never understand why we lined up in the so called “jumbo package” in running situations and then ran slow developing counters or even draws. Senseless.

    Well that’s my perception of things.

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