Offenses continue to become more efficient, while defense focuses on limiting possessions rather than points

Alabama’s defense hadn’t been this bad in 17 years. The last time it sunk to such depths, Mike Shula was coach and had just lost the second-most games in program history (nine). That’s one way to look at Alabama’s 2020 national championship.

Here’s another. Nick Saban spent a season doubling down on five words that changed the game: Good offense beats good defense. That’s the best way to summarize the 2020 season as we wrap up the year-end statistics.

For a coach who made his bones intimidating quarterbacks, that statement was shocking. Alabama’s offense has broken its season scoring average record each of the last three years. The need for those points reached an extreme in 2020.

The Crimson Tide won it all despite their worst defensive effort, statistically, since 2003. They won with the third-worst defense of any national champion in history (352.2 yards per game). That dates back to 1936, the so-called “wire-service era” when national championships were officially measured. Alabama’s total defense in 2020 ranked only behind Auburn (368.4 yards in 2010) and Penn State (364.9 yards in 1982) for most allowed by a national champion. Alabama bumped LSU’s 2019 defense (344.2 yards) from third to fourth on the list.  

It’s not that Alabama’s defense was bad. It’s all relative to what is good enough to win. In 2003, Shula’s squad went 4-9 giving up more than 360 yards per game. That mark stands as Alabama’s second-worst record since 1957, the year before Bear Bryant arrived. But it was a different game back then. That was the last year Alabama gave up more yards than it gained. In 2020, it averaged its most yards ever (542).

So you can see defense doesn’t matter — as much — these days. Defensively, the game has become more about forcing turnovers and getting stops. Both cut down opponents’ possessions. Fewer possessions, fewer opportunities to score. Alabama finished tied for third in turnover margin at +10 this season. That’s the third time in four years Bama has ranked in the top five nationally in that category.

“You have to defend how you pick players to play certain positions,” Saban said, “because the game is so much more a perimeter game now than it used to be.”

Saban

t can be argued with confidence that Alabama had the best perimeter players in the game. Wide receiver DeVonta Smith won the Heisman Trophy. Jaylen Waddle may have been headed that way when he suffered a season-ending injury Oct. 24. Running back Najee Harris is the 14th Alabama rusher to average at least 5 yards per carry in a season since 2009 (minimum 46 carries).

All three players were part of Saban’s 2017 recruiting class that were rostered for the best defense in the College Football Playoff era (260.4 yards, 2017) and the worst (352.2 yards, 2020).

Yes, the game is evolving fast. Since 2010, we’ve witnessed three of the worst defenses to win a national championship, two of them in the last two seasons.

“I don’t think there’s any question about the fact college football has changed dramatically in the last 10, 12 years,” Saban said.

Full Article: Read Here | By Dennis Dodd