How Lane Kiffin has changed Alabama's offense
In one particular statistical category, the 2013 Alabama football team was most closely aligned with UConn, a team that struggled so much that it fired its coach four games into the season.
This season, in the same statistical category, the Crimson Tide's closest analog is Oregon — quite an improvement in peer group.
The category in question is plays per game, a statistic that doesn't always correlate to offensive success but can have a number of positive offensive effects, such as increased scoring opportunities and reduced rest for opposing defenses.
In 2013, Alabama ran 826 plays in 13 games, the same number Connecticut ran in 12. That total ranked 99th out of 125 FBS teams. This season, through 12 games, Alabama has run 872, the same as Oregon, one of the most prominent and successful fast-paced offensive teams.
The shift is notable for many reasons, including the fact that two years ago Alabama coach Nick Saban questioned the quickening pace of college football, saying, "Is this what we want football to be?" But less than a week after outscoring Auburn to win the SEC West division, Alabama's offense has become a leading practitioner of what he once decried: one that relies as much on speed and tempo as it does pure physicality.
Why the change? First, the style suits Alabama's first-time starting quarterback, Blake Sims. And it's been expertly deployed by the Tide's first-year offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin.
"I think that's one of the biggest things that Coach Kiffin has brought to our offense," Alabama center Ryan Kelly said this week. "Any time you can get up to the ball and get set a little bit faster, it gives the quarterback more options to check out of things if he doesn't like what he sees on defense. And it forces the defense you're going against to play more basic fronts and doesn't give them a lot of time to check out of things that they can see as well.
"So I think it gives us the advantage on both sides that we can get up and get set and play with a lot of speed. I think Coach Kiffin is really trying to utilize that as an offense."
Kiffin, who like the other assistant coaches on the Alabama staff is prohibited from speaking to the media during the regular season, is the third coordinator Kelly has played under with the Tide, following Jim McElwain and Doug Nussmeier. He said Kiffin's approach was "kind of foreign to a lot of guys at first. I think he knew that. So he was really patient with us."
Even if the Tide's new style is not.
The shift to a faster pace has reduced Alabama's average time between offensive plays by more than four seconds. Multiplied out per play, that means opposing defenses have had 3,610 fewer seconds — five minutes per game — to rest when on the field between plays.
And Sims, who is seventh in FBS in pass efficiency, has been the beneficiary.
"I think I just play better as a whole because I'm not thinking as much and just reacting off of what people do," Sims said. "I think that's what I'm best at."
Alabama's scoring has decreased this season without AJ McCarron at quarterback, but its red zone success percentage, third down conversion and fourth down conversion percentages are up with Kiffin calling the plays.
"I think he's done just a phenomenal job," Kelly said. "All the guys really want to play for him and really love playing for him."