Alabama football: Jimbo is right, and Jimbo is wrong

Football is ever-changing, ever-evolving. Some coaches — like Alabama football’s Nick Saban — evolve with it and start running out of room on their Walk of Champions. Others? They crumble against North Carolina.

Most Alabama football fans would rather kick their mother than re-live the mere thought of the “Kick Six”, but yesterday’s interesting Fresh Hot Take from Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher couldn’t help but perk the ol’ ears.

Fisher’s assessment that flavor-of-the-month offenses like Auburn’s in 2013 — which favor a running quarterback like Nick Marshall and C. Jerrell Newton before him by letting linemen sneak a couple extra yards downfield — “cost Alabama a national championship” (h/t AL.com) was certainly interesting.

And rather out of left field.

But let’s unpack …

Son Of A Preacher

First, everything that Auburn football could possibly be associated with in 2013 with could in some way be traced back to The Great Scam Of 2010. Anyone who really believes Gene Chizik and Co. didn’t lease their electrifying star quarterback for that season needs to take one step forward right now.

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Not so fast, Rev. Cecil Newton.

Second, how the WarEagleTigers somehow managed to Miracle On The Plains themselves to one of the most improbable game-winning TD passes this side of Kordell Stewart At The Big House (helpfully linked, for you youngsters not aware …) against Georgia could be considered highway robbery in 43 states.

And the hoodwinkery that surrounded the midseason “investigation” into C. Jerrell Newton’s father’s sudden church bounty? That was as much a RICO-worthy interstate wire fraud case as it was an NCAA issue.

So yes, Auburn was illegal in 2010, and in 2013, and likely is now. But let’s move on to the meat of Fisher’s point.

Nouveau Riche Offenses

Jimbo Fisher’s central argument revolves around the recently new phenomenon of multi-faceted quarterbacks pushing defenses to the limit — and beyond — with their maneuverability and last-second run/pass option reads.

“The rules are bent for them,” Fisher said of offenses like the one Gus Malzahn runs at Auburn. “It’s illegal. What you do now on offense is illegal. It should never be a part of football, and I’m an offensive guy. When you can have linemen go 3 yards down the field and it is a pass, something is wrong with that.

“It gives false key reads, and guys are running the ball.”

Which it most certainly did when Marshall duped the Alabama football secondary by stopping just before the line of scrimmage and finding wide open receiver Sammie Coates for a 39-yard touchdown with just 32 seconds remaining. That set up Alabama’s last-dash drive to try for a field goal. We know how that went …

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Betsided

“When we played Auburn for the national championship, they had a lineman 7 yards down the field on the pass to tie it up before the Kick Six,” Fisher continued. “It would’ve never been there. It should’ve been illegal. Last year when (Auburn) played Ole Miss, they had a guy 6 yards down the field.”

On the surface, we can’t argue a single solitary lick with the balding Florida State coach. After all, the guy knows his football.

But just below that nasty garnet-and-gold exterior lies both someone with an ax to grind because his current defense sucks (FSU ranks 11th out of 14 ACC teams in total defense, with FSU allowing 438 yards per game), and that, well, sometimes life just sucks.

Put another way, it’s the big leagues. Wear a cup and adjust to the times.

Adjust Or Perish, Alabama Football Style

Here is where Jimbo Fisher, ultimately, is wrong. The rules are the rules are the rules, my mom used to tell me. You can either kvetch about them, or you can figure out how to use them to your advantage.

Nick Saban certainly has adjusted, likely as he was finding the quickest exit from Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2013. NO ONE knows defense more than Saban (for comparison purposes, 1 Saban = 3.2 Jimbo Fishers on the conversion market) and not only re-tooled his defense to kick the living poo out of Auburn the past two seasons but also went and recruited a mobile quarterback named Jalen Hurts to utilize the current rules to the maximum advantage.

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The current set of on-field rules (let’s not get sidetracked by the byzantine off-field “rules”) allow for unprecedented protection to quarterbacks — as no one wants to see the franchise player being openly quizzed as to the day of the week and what his own name during a concussion protocol. Those rules protect Louisville’s Lamar Jackson (who sliced and diced the Seminoles almost completely out of the Top 25) the same as they protect FSU quarterback Deondre Francois.

So while Jimbo Fisher was dead-on right about Auburn cheating to win in 2013 (it is in their DNA …), he is wrong about how they went about doing it.

Football is ever-changing, ever-evolving. Some coaches evolve with it and start running out of room on their Walk of Champions. Others? They crumble against North Carolina.