This Just Feels Different

Clemson 44 Alabama 16. Yes, the margin of victory makes it feel different. The comprehensiveness of the destruction, well, that is double counting the score. Saban looked old, like he had lost a step or two, his game plan was ossified and clueless, his team was not prepared. Swinney and his staff comprehensively out-coached Saban and his staff.

Clemson's defense on Tua's two-o picks and on Saban's fake field goal seemed the work of mind-readers: They knew exactly what Alabama was going to do. Alabama seemed on those three plays to be blindly following by the "Process." Saban said "we thought we had a really, really good fake". Bama's special teams coordinator, Jeff Banks, said Alabama got the look they wanted from Clemson's defense. But another guy last night saw it completely differently. He posted a shot of the play right before the ball was snapped with the caption, "Clemson's defense on the fake field goal" with some laugh-till-you-cry emojis.

SBNation, under the headline "What the absolute hell was this Bama fake field goal?", explained it this way:

...I think Clemson might have seen it coming...Clemson was in a standard four-down front with seven linebackers and DBs on the field...

In other words Clemson was in the defense standard for a standard offensive play, not in a defense to block a field goal. 

I thought today, "Why did Tua throw the ball on the pick-six when he saw Clemson's guy right up on the Alabama receiver?"; "Why didn't Tua check off on his post-route pick" in the 2Q?; "Why didn't he go through his reads?" QB's have two, three, four different alternatives on a play. If their first option, the called play, isn't available, they are supposed to go through a quick succession of "reads" of the other options. They're not supposed to just run the play no matter what the defense is presenting. To read, you can't be blind. Somebody, I thought today, I thought surely Tua, but if not Tua, then the offensive coordinator or Saban, somebody has to have the authority to check off a disaster about to happen. Unless, that is, it's all about Process: You run the damn play we call until we change it and we ain't changin' it!

You could ask the same question on the fake FG. SBNation did:

I’m not a special teams coach by trade, but I think Clemson might have seen it coming. Was holder Mac Jones responsible for, uh, checking out of the fake call when he noticed Clemson was in a standard four-down front with seven linebackers and DBs on the field? I don’t know whose job it was to say “DON’T DO THIS,” but it should’ve been someone’s.

Except Saban said he was not blind, he did read, and he really saw a "really, really good fake" coming!

That is Nick Saban, January 7, 2019 vintage, and that ain't good enough. I think that's the biggest reason this just feels different.