ROSE BOWL/CFP: Tight ends could be the key to Irish offense
DJ Dale (94) and the Alabama defense expect Notre Dame to utilize the tight ends in Friday’s Rose Bowl game. (Alabama Media Relations)
By TIM GAYLE
There’s a point where you want to compare the Notre Dame offense to a traditional-type team, not the dangerous wide-open spread attacks that often seem to frustrate the Alabama defense.
That, safety Jordan Battle says, would be a mistake.
“I don’t really see any comparisons,” he said. “Notre Dame is different. They use three great tight ends in their offense, (Tommy Tremble, Michael Mayer and Brock Wright). They all play a significant role in their offense. Their quarterback, very mobile. Running back, very mobile. Two running backs. Their receivers are great on the outside.
“This team is probably going to be a hard matchup for us, one of the hardest matchups of the year because this is a semifinal. And this team is different from all the other teams we've played.”
Top-ranked Alabama (11-0) and fourth-ranked Notre Dame (10-1) meet in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game on Friday in Arlington, Texas, and the challenge facing the Crimson Tide this week, as it has been for most of the season, is figuring out how to contain talented playmakers at unconventional playmaker positions. And it starts with a trio of Fighting Irish tight ends that require a little extra attention.
Mayer, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound freshman from Independence, Ky., has caught 35 passes for 388 yards, while Tremble, a 6-4, 248-pound junior from Johns Creek, Ga., has 35 receptions for 388 yards. Wright, from Cypress, Texas, is the blocker in the group that has just three receptions this season.
But as Alabama discovered in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game against Florida, it is that versatile tight end that creates problems for any defense.
“It used to be, back in the day, the tight end was always in the ‘C’ area,” Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding said. “And there's certain plays and patterns they ran out with them. But I think everybody is doing a really nice job of aligning these guys all over the place.
“That's what these guys do. They'll both be in the ‘C’ area. They're going to flex out, be the outside receivers, isolated in the boundary corner. If you leave a corner over there, if you worry about the size, then obviously you're going to try to match him up with a safety. They look for the isolation route. I think the multiplicity that people are doing with the tight ends, obviously from a coverage standpoint, they make you dictate what you're going to play. And so whether you're playing man or zone, they're going to know based on who is lined up on these guys.”
In the SEC Championship Game, Florida quarterback Kyle Trask exploited that knowledge to burn Alabama’s defense repeatedly on third down, not to mention seven receptions from tight end Kyle Pitts for 129 yards and a touchdown in Alabama’s 52-46 win.
“I'm not saying they're the same as what we saw in Pitts,” Golding said. “I think he’s a little different athlete. Obviously, he has receiver speed. But, again, they do a really nice job formationally of moving these guys around, creating extra gaps in the run game and then complement it with the pass game. Obviously, we’ve got to change the picture for the quarterback, got to have different ways to be able to bracket these guys and take them away and be able to get these (cover) guys some help.”
The first tight end to showcase his talents against the Alabama defense this season was Texas A&M’s Jalen Wydermyer, but it wasn’t until the next week when Kenny Yeboah had 181 yards and a pair of touchdowns on seven receptions that everyone realized the Tide’s Achilles’ heel.
“After the Ole Miss game, I think it was a come to Jesus because we put a lot of things on tape and a lot of things that weren’t good,” Golding said. “But I think it was good from our kids' standpoint that they could see it.”
Alabama cornerback Patrick Surtain, like most Tide defenders, can point to that week of practice following a narrow win over Ole Miss while preparing for Georgia, as the turning point of the season for the Alabama defense.
“It humbled us a lot,” Surtain said. “We learned that we must be on the same page. And throughout the course of the season we've gotten better and we've improved on those fundamental techniques, even communicating defensive play calls and just flying around to the ball. As a unit we put our heads high and kept on working.”
Over the next seven games, the Alabama defense steadily improved as fans quit calling for the firing of Golding and started believing their defense was a championship-caliber unit. In reality, no one with the possible exception of LSU and talented tight end Arik Gilbert could exploit the Tide’s weakness.
“I think the biggest thing (was) we tackled better,” Golding said. “You look at the Ole Miss game, they had 250 yards after contact. You can’t play good football teams and not eliminate the yards after contact. And then on top of that, whether it was that game or whether it was Florida, if you don't get off the field on third down versus good football teams and you give them another set of downs, it's going to be tough to stop these guys. They've got too many weapons. They do too many good things offensively.”
Starting with the second half of the Georgia game, Alabama’s defense started looking like Alabama. Against Florida, the Tide got away from some things it had done well in the previous seven games.
“When we had the opportunity to make a play we did it,” Golding said. “And what I mean by that is when the ball was on the ground in those other games, we scoop and scored it or we fell on it. We had three opportunities in the Florida game. It's right there. We don't get it. It's third and 17. And we're in an eight-drop zone. They get it. When you keep allowing them to be able to move the chains, when you have an opportunity to get off the field, you're going to kill yourself. We're going to give them some things by coverages that we call -- there's a weakness and strength to all of them -- but we've got to be able to minimize the game. I thought when we played good defense we did that. I think that's something we'll have to do in this game.”
Tackling better and seizing opportunities will be crucial, he added, because Notre Dame will do a good job of creating mismatches.
“I think what offenses have gone to is making you account for all 11 players,” Golding said. “Once you start trying to take away matchups because there's a really good player that we need to double because we probably can't cover him one-on-one, well, now you're down a guy. If you're not gaming the front and somebody doesn't win up front, well, you're a gap short. They make you cover the width of the field horizontally and vertically, and then they make you account for the quarterback in the run game, which is tough to do. There's only so many coverages you can play and be sound versus all those. I think a lot of times now you've got to win on one-on-one. I think that's what defense has come to.”