FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – It didn’t exactly look bright for Alabama’s offense after the 2011 season.
The Crimson Tide lost running back and Heisman Trophy finalist Trent Richardson after last season’s national championship victory. It lost its top three wide receivers and H-back. Its offensive coordinator Jim McElwain left to take a head coaching job at Colorado State.
Naturally, Alabama responded with one of the most prolific offensive seasons in Crimson Tide history.
Despite losing starters at nearly every skill position, Alabama has already set single-season records for points scored (500) and offensive touchdowns (62) in 2012. Quarterback AJ McCarron set the program record for touchdown passes in a season and is three away from breaking the career mark. And Alabama saw its first pair of 1,000-yard rushers.
The offense is also just 65 yards short of the school record for yards in a season.
At the center of the Tide’s offensive explosion is the mostly-anonymous offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier, hired in January to run head coach Nick Saban’s offense. Because of Saban’s strict media policy – freshmen and assistant coaches do not speak publicly during the season – Nussmeier usually stays behind the scenes.
But Thursday, Nussmeier held court with reporters in Ft. Lauderdale and discussed his whirlwind first season calling the shots for the Tide’s attack.
“Pleasant surprises,” he said of the season. “Working with the group of coaches we have on offense has been an outstanding experience, great, great coaches, a lot of experience. Working with Coach Saban, the way he structures everything, the attention to detail, you just can’t say enough about it. Everything is process-oriented.”
Nussmeier’s offense, which, while prolific has had its share of ups and downs, is built around an efficient quarterback, a pair of stud freshmen and an offensive line with a terrifying combination of size, speed and smarts.
But scheme-wise, it isn’t much different from the same formula that has worked for Saban since his arrival in Tuscaloosa – a steady diet of a physical running game, mixed in with short throws and deep patterns usually set-up by the play-action.
“As far as the handprint that I personally put on the offense, when I got here at the end of last year and coach hired me, it was very important for me to really dive into the offense that was here,” Nussmeier said. “And look at the things that our players had done and done well, and then find things that maybe I had done in the past that I could bring to help fit into this system, so to say.”
The biggest change Nussmeier has brought is a faster tempo to Alabama’s attack at times. In its last two games – Auburn in the season finale and Georgia in the SEC Championship Game – the Crimson Tide opened with a no-huddle look, featuring a three wide receiver set. It also likes to sprinkle in the hurry-up style when the offense hits a lull.
It’s a literal change of pace from the grind-it-out, wear-you-down offense of Alabama’s past.
“I think if you look at college football in general, that’s a growing trend, no-huddle offense, speed, hurry-up,” Nussmeier said. “As any game you play, the ability to change the tempo of the game offensively or defensively can create a competitive advantage for you, if it’s useful in the game you’re playing.”
The problem facing Nussmeier when he installed his system certainly wasn’t talent. But most of that talent didn’t have experience playing week in, week out. Ultimately, it was two freshmen that stepped up and gave Nussmeier the speed and skill he needed to run his offense.
Eddie Lacy was entrenched as the No. 1 starter at running back but the field behind him was wide open. A series of injuries opened up an opportunity to T.J. Yeldon, who enrolled in January 2012. Yeldon took full advantage of his opportunity, going over 100 yards in the season-opener, the first time an Alabama freshman had done so.
Yeldon finished with 11 touchdowns and exactly 1,000 yards rushing.
“He grew old early,” Nussmeier said of Yeldon.
His presence beside Lacy lets Nussmeier swap the two out interchangeably without losing a step. When one gets tired the other comes in as a fresh spell, while the defense tires away trying to stop the pounding.
The second freshman is wide receiver Amari Cooper, who gives Nussmeier a dynamic wideout that can burn a defensive back down the field on a fly route, make a spectacular leaping catch over an unsuspecting defender, or make a catch over the middle and hold on while being hit.
Cooper leads Alabama in receiving by over 400 yards and his nine touchdowns are five ahead of the next-closest receiver.
“You know, when you get a wide receiver of his caliber, and to have the big-play capability he has, obviously the big challenge early on is not to give him too much to where he’s playing slow,” Nussmeier said. “So we really started with a small package for Coop, and it’s kind of evolved as it’s gone, and now he has the ability to do a lot of different things for us.
“And that’s just any young player getting into a system, learning, but obviously his ability to create big plays in the passing game for us this season, it’s been a huge part of our success.”
Running the ball has been and continues to be Alabama’s bread and butter, but the passing game has seen the most strides under Nussmeier. McCarron showed flashes of brilliance in the 2011 National Championship Game and Nussmeier has played off of that success and sustained it into 2012.
Through 13 games, he’s thrown for almost the same amount of yards as he did in his 13 games last year, but his passer rating is up by almost 30 points. He didn’t throw his first interception until the Texas A&M game in week 10, ending a school-record streak of 289 passes without an interception.
“He’s brought a bunch of different plays, also a different type of mindset to this offense than we had last year,” McCarron said of Nussmeier. “But I know personally he’s helped me tremendously. I was actually talking to my dad the other day, and it was kind of crazy, I have less pass attempts than what I did last year, but better numbers all the way around, and I think that shows a big part of his coaching ability and the way he’s helped me grow, not only as a leader but as a quarterback this year.”
But it was also Texas A&M that provided Nussmeier with a glimpse of what can happen if he became too reliant on the pass. With the ball six yards away from the end zone, and needing a touchdown to take a late lead, three of Alabama’s four plays were called passes, the third of which was intercepted, sealing the Crimson Tide’s fate.
Three weeks later, facing an 11-point deficit in the SEC Championship Game, Nussmeier all but abandoned the pass, going almost exclusively to the run. 12 offensive plays later – 11 of which were runs – Alabama had a four-point lead.
And when the Crimson Tide needed one more score, Nussmeier cooked up a formula that looked all too familiar for Saban’s teams. With the Georgia defense almost completely selling out to stop the run, McCarron faked the handoff instead and hit Cooper over the top for the game-winning score.
The running game wore down the Bulldog front, and with one-on-one coverage, Nussmeier trusted his play-maker to make a play.
“We were able to create big, explosive plays in the running game, and there was really not a need to do anything else at that point in time,” Nussmeier said. “So we’re going to have a balanced game plan. We’re going to go into every game with the ability not only to run it but to throw it, have play actions that come off our runs, all those type of things”
His last challenge of the 2012 season will come Monday in the BCS National Championship Game against Notre Dame, where his powerful offense will match-up against one of the top defenses in the country.
Nussmeier was hired to add an extra dimension to the Crimson Tide offense. He’s done just that, while learning to stick with the game plan that has brought Alabama so much success in the past.
“It’s been an outstanding experience,” he said. “You can anticipate what it’s going to be like, but I don’t think you ever really know until you’re there. This place is really special, and I just feel very fortunate that we’ve been able to be a part of this.”
