Offensive Unbalance

One of the most insightful indicators of offensive balance is the play-calling on first down. With first down and ten, head coaches and offensive coordinators can literally do whatever they want without being overly influenced by more extreme down and distance situations. Quite obviously, given freedom to generally do as they please, it becomes of the utmost importance for coaches to find offensive balance on first and ten. By looking at run / pass ratios on first downs, we can see which teams were the most balanced, and moreover, by looking at which plays teams called in the first half on first downs (where they are less influenced by trying to play catch-up late in games with lots of passes, or trying to run out the clock with several runs), we can get an even purer look at offensive balance.

So how did the Crimson Tide stack up in 2006 in terms of offensive balance in first downs?

Unfortunately, not too well. For the entire season, we were very balanced offensively, with 112 running plays and 111 passing plays on 223 first down plays. Statistically speaking, that's 50.2% run, and 49.8% pass. Balanced, anyone?

However, looking more closely at the individual games, the Tide was, generally speaking, unbalanced offensively, and very unbalanced on first downs in the first half. At times, we ran the ball entirely too much, and at others we threw the ball entirely too much; rare was the occasion in which we achieved any real balance.

Against Vanderbilt, we ran 59.26 percent of the time on first down, and 75% of the time on first down in the first half. Two weeks later against Arkansas in Fayetteville, we ran the ball on 70.37% of first downs, and 64.29% of first downs in the first half. Although the total number of runs were inflated by an attempt to grind out the clock late in the game with hand-offs to Ken Darby, the first half numbers show that we were running the ball at almost a 2-1 ratio even then. It was the same story when we played Tennessee in Knoxville, when we ran the ball 72.73% of the time on first down in the first half.

On the other hand, on a couple of occasions we threw the ball entirely too much. Against Florida, on 29 first down plays, we threw the ball 21 times, i.e. 72.41% of the time. More amazingly, in the first half we had 13 first down plays, and threw the ball on 12 of them. Small wonder we managed a net of only six offensive points in that game. Later in the year, against LSU in Baton Rouge, we threw the ball 73.68% of the time on first down. Of the 19 first down plays that occurred in the first half, we ran the ball only 5 times.

Honestly, the only SEC game that we found a good balance on first down was the Ole Miss game. There, in the first half, we had twelve first down plays, and ran the ball six times and threw the ball six times. As an entire game, we ran the ball a good bit more on first down than we threw it, but that was because Ken Darby took over in the second half and found great success. Certainly no blame can be found there for continuing to give the ball to Darby.

At bottom, the point production was atrocious in 2006, and that was due to a large variety of reasons. However, breaking down the run/pass ratios, we can see one of the major problems of the 2006 offense was a complete lack of offensive balance in conference games. Long story short, the offense was just so predictable in terms of play-calling, and that, too, likely had a very negative impact on overall production. It wasn't the only problem, of course, but it was one problem.

Hopefully the new Saban / Applewhite offense will be able to find the play-calling balance that the Shula offense couldn't find in 2006.