17 minutes and 52 seconds.
That’s the amount of time Alabama was on offense in last year’s gutting 40-35 defeat at Vanderbilt. The stat flipped in this year’s win over the Commodores in a big way.
The Crimson Tide, behind a strong ground attack and a consistent day from quarterback Ty Simpson, held the ball for over 37 minutes to the Commodores’ lowly 22.
Winning time of possession to keep the ball away from Diego Pavia and the Commodores became the game plan for Grubb and the offense in the second half, putting the game on ice with a 16-play, 69-yard drive capped off with a Conor Talty field goal to give Alabama a nine-point lead.
This is becoming a trend for the Crimson Tide this season.
In the road win over then-No. 5 Georgia, Alabama held the ball for over 35 minutes compared to 24 for the Bulldogs.
A major part of this shift in the last two games has been third-down efficiency.
The Crimson Tide offense is 20-of-34 on third down in its last two outings, both against AP Top-20 opponents.
Signal-caller Ty Simpson, who has completed 14 of 22 passes for 166 yards on third down in that span, has been the catalyst to the offense’s third-down efficiency.
The trust the coaching staff has in Simpson allows them to open up the playbook and be much more aggressive in these moments.
“You can feel it in the calls that we’re making,” head coach Kalen DeBoer said. “We’re aggressive.”
The Crimson Tide now ranks 15th in FBS in time of possession, holding the ball on offense for over 33 minutes per game.
Saturday, Alabama will face the nation’s No. 1 average time of possession team — the Missouri Tigers, who have the ball an average of 39 minutes per game.
To put this into perspective, Army, a service academy whose starting quarterback has thrown just 33 passes on the season, is second with 35 minutes per game.
Mizzou uses a strong ground attack, headlined by ULM transfer Ahmad Hardy.
Hardy leads the nation in rushing yards at the midpoint, even with a bye week under his belt. He is currently the only player in the nation with over 700 yards on the ground.
The Tigers have also converted an efficient 61% of third downs this year, allowing them to extend drives and drain even more clock.
Getting off the field on third down and not letting Mizzou extend drives will be extremely important for coordinator Kane Wommack’s Alabama defense Saturday.
The evolution of the Crimson Tide offense from shot-play to clock management has been exciting to see over the last two weeks. Keeping this trend alive is important to Alabama’s chances of winning Saturday versus Missouri.
