What adjustments did Alabama make against Vanderbilt?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — ‘Adjustments’ is the hot word around the Alabama football program right now, and with good reason.

After all, the formerly top-ranked Crimson Tide just went on the road and lost to Vanderbilt, a team this program hasn’t lost to in 40 years. The Commodores ran a very specific style of play, aiming to control both the ball and the clock throughout the game with a triple option-centric gameplan.

This was Vanderbilt’s plan from the opening drive of the game, which went for over six minutes and 75 yards and led to a 7-0 Commodore lead. The plan never waivered, as Vanderbilt posted three more scoring drives of at least 4-and-a-half minutes.

So the question has been, what adjustments, if any, did Alabama make to counter this plan?

“Some of the plays they had in the first half were things that we had not seen on film before — some things they were doing out of on-ball tight end pictures, off-ball tight end pictures,” Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said. “We made some adjustments with our front and some things we were doing with our defensive ends, in terms of assignment responsibility. That helped us out on first and second down. Got them to a number of third-down situations, where we didn’t execute and get off the field.”

Vanderbilt’s offense was atypical, for sure. The triple option is a rare offensive style in modern-day college football, but with a quarterback as dynamic, tough and slippery as Diego Pavia, it can become a weapon to unleash against unprepared opponents.

Alabama did limit Vanderbilt’s rushing attack in the second half, albeit slightly. The Commodores ran for 76 yards in the second half compared to 90 in the first. But what killed Alabama was its inability to get off the field on third down, even when it was able to have successful first and second down plays against the run or the option.

“They did a really nice job of holding some things throughout the game, so they would throw new wrinkles in consistently throughout the game, which kept us in a constant pursuit of adjusting to what they were doing. I thought they had a really good game plan in that regard,” Wommack said. “But because we were not able to get off the field on third down, we also gave them more opportunities to keep throwing those wrinkles on us. You could point to probably 8-10 different third-down situations where if we just get off the field right there, we’re having a very different conversation about how we played.”

By game’s end, Vanderbilt had converted on 12-of-18 third down attempts, a mark that plagued Alabama continually throughout the game and limited any chance of a comeback after falling behind 13-0 early on.

Also addressing the media on Monday, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer was asked about his involvement with defensive adjustments, and what level of input he gives considering his background as an offensively-minded coach.

“Yeah, we’re always talking. I’m seeing whether it’s taking a look on the iPad, or just conversations with Coach Wommack, I think the key with anything — and that’s including our team — is to not overreact,” DeBoer said. “Understand exactly why what is happening is happening, and you have adjustments built into your game plan, and so it might be mixing things up. But you also got to make sure you’re executing against what you’re seeing, and sometimes it might be something a little bit different. You just need to have another opportunity against that look with the call you made defensively too, just to be able to execute better.”

DeBoer continued to make a primary emphasis regarding the defensive results of Saturday’s game, and that’s not letting panic set in.

“You’re always gonna look back. Again, everything gets amplified. You’re always going to look back and say, ‘Well, we could have done this earlier,’ or whatever it might be. Offensively you do the same thing. I know we’ve had those conversations, not just during but after,” DeBoer said. “Again, worse thing you can do is panic. We have a defense that has shown a lot of — had a lot of success here, through five games. There’s just little bits and pieces of what we’ve got to do. Really, in the second half, I thought we did a much better job on first down and second down. The game was a first-down game the first half. They put themselves in better situations in the second half, we just had to a do a better job of getting off the field on third down.”