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ESPN staff
What an epic weekend.
Not just Jim Harbaugh finally beat Ohio State, but he helped Michigan advance to the Big Ten title game in the process. Alabama went goalless in three-quarters of the game and needed last-minute heroics and four extra time to win the Iron Bowl. And despite losing six straight encounters to the Sooners, Oklahoma State fired Caleb Williams six times en route to a 37-33 win.
The regular season is over and the grand finale is coming up. Our reporters break down the college football scene, from play-off hopefuls to candidate Heisman.
Alabama was exposed
For 58 minutes and 25 seconds, Alabama was a mess.
On the road in Auburn, nothing goes in the right direction. Midfielder Bryce YoungThe Heisman Trophy’s hope went around the drain and ran again Brian Robinson Jr. Struggling to move the chain.
The defense has played well, but the foul is threatening to score three or less for the first time in the Nick Saban era.
And while Young rallied the army in the final 1:35, threw the match that ended the game with just 24 seconds and then won the game in the fourth overtime with a 2 point conversion, that didn’t change. the fact that Auburn exposed a vulnerable Alabama team a week before the SEC championship game against Georgia.
The real problem: offensive line, has seven sacks and a total of 17 plays for 0 or negative.
It continues a trend we’ve seen throughout the season. Alabama’s roster, which typically enjoys success in the second half of the season, has continued to stumble, putting pressure on 28.3% of dropouts, a number that ranks 9th in the SEC.
On Saturday, Saban forced to pull the center Darrian Dalcourt because the Seth McLaughlin, who isn’t even on the two-dimensional depth chart when entering the game and is instead dealing properly Damion George with Chris Owens throughout the second half. It only helps enough to win the game, but what will it mean against Georgia? The Tigers’ defensive front is good, but it’s not as good as the Bulldogs’, the team have six more sacks and have missed 58 fewer tackles this season.
Whether it’s Dalcourt, who is playing on a miserly ankle, or McLaughlin, who played meager for two years at school, it’s fair to wonder how they will handle the all-American protective nose in the future weighs 340 pounds Jordan Davis.
If they can’t protect Young and generate some runs for Robinson, there may not be enough time left in the world to beat Georgia, win the SEC and make it to the playoffs. – Alex Scarborough
How can someone beat Georgia
There’s a good argument to be made that, if you had to dig into the advanced stats to make a case against Georgia, it’s probably not worth making the case. Indeed, you won’t hear Bulldogs slander here. Kirby Smart has the nation’s best team.
But suppose we are given a message from the future, and it tells us that Georgia is not going to win the national championship. In that universe, what could have happened?
For most of this season, the conventional wisdom was that an offensive swashbuckler would face off against Georgia’s overwhelming defence, and more often than not, that swashbuckler’s name was Ohio State. As the great Lee Corso would say… Not so fast, my friend.
Michigan’s pass exposed the holes of Ohio State, and the duo of Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo made the Buckeyes’ talented offense look deadly. It’s not hard to see how Georgia will do the same.
And all of that suggests we might have been completely wrong about the blueprint to beat Dawgs, and in retrospect, that’s clear.
Using the added offense and defense expected score (EPA) for each of the 10 Georgia Power 5 opponents, the Bulldogs played four offensive units above average: Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky. Georgia dominated all three games.
However, Dawgs played only an above average defense. It’s Clemson, in the opening sequence. Georgia failed to score an attacking touch. Or consider a much more involved metric: yards per drop. The three best defenses that Georgia faces with this measure are Clemson, Florida, and South Carolina. The top three offenses are Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky. Against the top offenses, Georgia’s defensive EPA fell about 10 points from its Power 5 average. Against the top defense, its offensive ability dropped by almost 14 points.
In other words, Georgia is more likely to struggle with a great defense than a great attack.
This is not a surprise, as Georgia’s best talent resides. In terms of defense, Dawgs is fully equipped with green chippers at all levels. Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Derion Kendrick – has a long list of potential defensive MVPs. Offensively, however, Georgia looks human. Stetson Bennett awesome, but he’s not a future NFL star. Backyard of White Zamir, James Cook, Kendall Milton and the crew are all talented, but none of them are American. Beyond the tight end Brock Bowers, there’s not a single true five-star superstar on that side of the ball. So which unit is always more likely to have a worse match: Blue-chip D or temporary O?
All of this leads to another interesting point: With Oklahoma State and Ohio losing in Week 13 (and Alabama struggling to Auburn), it’s highly likely that the best offenses in the country won’t be in the mix. playoffs this year, but some really impressive defense (Oklahoma State, Michigan, and Cincinnati all rank in the EPA adjusted defensive top 10) could be.
Again, none of this suggests that Georgia shouldn’t be a banned opponent if the Dawgs make it to the knockout stages. But if they did, the road to the national championship might actually be a little tougher without Alabama, Oklahoma, and Ohio State standing in their way. – David Hale
Mission Impossible of a Perfect Overtime Format
The 86th edition of the Iron Bowl got its first extra time on Saturday (four games in total), rekindling the debate over the new overtime format in college football after Penn State and Illinois added nine. frame in October.
For those who haven’t caught up with the new rules, teams must make a two-point swap after encounters that start in second overtime instead of third overtime. And now, if the game goes into the third overtime, the teams only need to take turns making two instead of the entire fortune like the first two innings.
The previous iteration of college football’s overtime rules was interesting. Trading assets from the 25-yard line until someone gets ahead feels like a fair way to end a game. However, as evidenced by Texas A&M’s 74-72 victory over LSU in a seven-round game in 2018, it’s rare that these could last so long, even though we may have made the most of it. How much do you enjoy the game?
Along with game time, playing around 200 snaps like the Aggies and Tigers did in 2018 also increases the odds of sloppy play due to fatigue and often leads to more injuries. Any time we can help protect players – who have yet to be adequately compensated – the better.
It is understandable that traditionalists will have a hard time accepting this new format, no matter who it benefits or not. In general, people like the things they know and hate to see them change.
Regardless of how people feel, the new overtime is working as intended, with the 2018 game between Texas A&M and LSU the impetus for change. Although Penn State-Illinois passed nine times and made it into the books as the first game of its kind, the length from that game and the 2018 Texas A&M-LSU competition wasn’t equal. There were 23 plays performed in the first two rounds of Penn State-Illinois, and a total of 14 plays in rounds 3-9. You can’t say that about the 2018 marathon.
Aside from the old format, I’m not sure what overtime rules will work for most fans. For now, the format maintains the spirit of the old format; it was just a little more fanfare when they got to the third extra time.
At the very least, the current form of college overtime is still better than the NFL’s, allowing the team that won the coin a chance of a surprise win. Both teams are guaranteed ownership at the university will make more sense than placing much more weight on a coin toss.
One thing the NFL should get more credit for, though, is its willingness to draw in regular games of the season. Because we’ve almost never finished an NFL season outside of regular hours and said to ourselves, “I just want one more service to this stalemate.” – Harry Lyles Jr.
A defensive player will win the Heisman Trophy
One thing remained consistent at the end of the college football season: The Heisman Cup, the sport’s illustrious statue, was awarded. There are usually two or three candidates separating themselves in the second half of the season, securing their seats in New York. But over the past two decades, differentiated recognition has been essentially a quarterback award.
Since 2000, 17 of the 20 winners have been center (ignore Reggie Bush’s 2005 award, which was vacated). Lonely signalless callers have Mark Ingram II (2009), Derrick Henry (2015) and DeVonta Smith (In 2020).
In an irregular event, no player could win this year’s award. Alabama’s Bryce Young and the State of Ohio CJ Stroud were supposed to be the leaders, but the lackluster regular-season finale for both has left pole positions on the ballots wide open.
With no attacking player truly dominating, it could be argued that this year’s title should go to a defensive player. The only defensive player to take home this award was Charles Woodson in 1997. Staying in Ann Arbor, Michigan defensive back Aidan Hutchinson is one of the strong contenders. In Michigan’s 42-27 win over Ohio State, he completely destroyed the Buckeyes’ offensive line from start to finish. The 265-pound, 6-foot-6 side-mounted plow came complete with seven hits and three sacks.
However, if I had a Heisman vote today, my winner would be the one who paved the way outside of Alabama. Will Anderson Jr. In his 24-22 overtime Iron Bowl win, Anderson caused constant havoc. Auburn has no one to hold out against the number 31 – something that has become the norm in every attacking front he has faced this season. National leader in strokes (14.5), Anderson is the best defensive player Nick Saban has ever had in his defence. Anderson continuously finished in midfield.
The closest a seven-goal player has won against Heisman was when Ndamukong Suh finished fourth in 2009. It can be difficult to pin down a player in a position to win an award, but both Hutchinson and Anderson have strong backgrounds, and both asserted even more clearly during Rivals Week. . Heisman is awarded the most valuable player in a particular season, and Anderson and Hutchinson are the two national players of the year 2021, regardless of position. – Jordan Reid
