Let's Talk Red Zone

[Rocky Style]

While walking a mile and a half back to the car and listening to Bama fans gloating, I had a thought.  We had all offseason knowing that we will be in situations down by the goal line in critical games.  Did we have any cool designs down there?  Was it purely a lack of confidence in BB?

I'm talking about the infamous run up the middle twice (Sterlin Gilbert Iso Y U Bananas?), which we saw a lot of times last year wasting many an offensive series.  I guess we were intentionally turtling there to get a FG to hopefully get the ball back, but other times in the game it also seemed like we didn't have anything ready down there by the goal line.

For example, I saw Atkins do some shallow crossing action on the other side of the field.  I was looking for some cool or interesting concepts to get someone open.  

Did anyone see anything cool in the red zone?  Why do we still run into walls of 8 dudes?

Edited September 8 by Rocky Style

[Triple B]

Solid questions. No problem with the fg but there's got to be some stuff we're not privy to, or I haven't seen, about the 3 plays prior ...

[puc86]

2 minutes ago, Triple B said:

Solid questions. No problem with the fg but there's got to be some stuff we're not privy to, or I haven't seen, about the 3 plays prior ...

We were afraid to lose the points and were happy to keep it close, that’s the story 

[79 Bull]

Inside the Red Zone, especially first and goal from the 8, 9 or 10 gives me the shivers (at my old age) knowing we're going to settle for a FG.  Last night, I believe we did not attempt one fade pass to the corner of the endzone or have BB fake the handoff and run to the wide side to score.

[Rocky Style]

4 minutes ago, puc86 said:

We were afraid to lose the points and were happy to keep it close, that’s the story 

I did say this during the game that maybe his strategy was to just keep us alive long enough to where their defense starts to break down.  It almost happened there on that last good series. Until the run up the middle twice.  Baffling.  I don't know I thought we were in 4 down territory at that point, but we weren't playing to set up a potential 4th down either.

Like if you know you are going for it on 4th, have a check down to get an easy 3 yards.

[00Bull]

4 minutes ago, Rocky Style said:

I did say this during the game that maybe his strategy was to just keep us alive long enough to where their defense starts to break down.  It almost happened there on that last good series. Until the run up the middle twice.  Baffling.  I don't know I thought we were in 4 down territory at that point, but we weren't playing to set up a potential 4th down either.

Like if you know you are going for it on 4th, have a check down to get an easy 3 yards.

I was certain they were going for it on 4th. Thought that 3rd down run looked like what you’d do if you were working with 2 plays left.

 

[Gismo]

We don’t have enough room to get space in the red zone vs a team as fast and talented as Bama. 
 

They decided to test the run game, and going 3 carries to total for 5 or so yards, do you think the 4th Carry would do any better than the prior 3? 
 

I think maybe we should have some sort of edge blocking schemes to try and go outside or something.

to me it looks like we decided our best red one option was simple running. I’ll just have to trust the coaches here. 
 

But on our last time in the red zone  by not going for it on 4th you have to trust the defense to hold them to a FG to keep it a one possession game. 
 

looks like defense checked out in the last 5 minutes. 

Edited September 8 by Gismo

[Bulls On Parade]

It wasn't impressive for sure...might have to give credit to Bama unfortunately. 

Wish we could have had Southern game before this one...would have helped Brown get his touch back maybe before this game. 

 

[Iota97huthut]

Would have been interesting to see them run motion similar to Chiefs at end of Super Bowl on the last 4th to try and counter the bama speed 

[NinjaPenguin777]

We did the same thing against BC in game one. We ran up the middle four times and we couldn't score. Yes the refs messed that situation up but still. 

 

I said it in the game thread. When we ran outside the box we gained yards consistently in the second half. The run up the middle wasn't getting us anything. And yet that's all we did in the red zone. I get Alabama was keyed in on BB running but they gotta get outside the tackle box more with their runs. We are not a power run team. We are a spread it out and speed running team. But we get in the red zone and switch to run up the gut. I don't get it 

 

Also we were playing with house money last night. Where were the trick plays? Let Atkins pass the ball on a jet sweep or something.