I love “what-if” strategy questions like this:
Love to hear somebody ask him about that at his next presser.
Although Dabo Swinney said Alabama sort of tried that.
Swinney said Tuesday that there was defensive pass interference on Clemson receiver Artavis Scott, who made contact with Alabama cornerback Marlon Humphrey and created some traffic that another Alabama defensive back got caught in on Hunter Renfrow‘s 2-yard TD catch with a second left Monday night…
“Yes, it’s a rub play, it’s a pick play,” Swinney said Tuesday. “Artavis was actually trying to go pick the guy, but he couldn’t get there because he got tackled. I mean, literally, the guy tackles him.”
Boy, it must suck when you’re trying to run an illegal play and the other team commits a penalty to thwart that. At least they got the winning touchdown out of it.
Get The Picture 
Wouldn’t the penalty, if at all, be defensive holding, not pass interference?
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Block ’em and knock ’em to the ground before the ball is thrown–that’s what they should have done.. Watson would have had to eat it. And that is not a penalty.
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There was similar sentiment why we didn’t discreetly pants Jauan Jennings on a certain play in the UT game. GRRRRRRR.
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Now that would have been funny as Hell.
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That was NOT an illegal play. Humphrey did take 3 to the ground when he should have just stood him up to minimize the disruption. Humphery did not have to give as much ground as he did and that made his teammates job that much harder.
Had Bama employed the “tackle everyone” approach and they lost in OT then they’d say how dumb it was to have tackled everyone. “They had the best defense. They would have stopped them, Paul!!!”
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Your last paragraph x 1K. Ifs and buts. Don’t we all know?
But it’s better this way for (a lot of ) ‘Bama fans. They can tell one another how they got screwed for a long time.
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@Uglydawg:. And they are and they will. Incapable of admitting, you got beat. 99 offensive plays and 21 points in the last quarter, you got beat. All around me, I hear, we got screwed and do these folks get pissed, when one points out you got beat.
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Wouldn’t Watson have just walked into the end zone for the TD?
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Probably. The long jump ball to Williams was the real key play. Once they got down that close, Bama was in a lot of trouble.
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Maybe – but I think it was far more likely that Watson would have thrown the ball away to save time for the game tying field goal. There was only six seconds left and the winning play took 5.
I can’t remember but wasn’t Clemson out of timeouts and the break in the action before the play was due to the pass interference/defensive holding on the previous play. Telling all the DB’s/LB’s to tackle the Clemson receivers without a full timeout seems difficult.
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Clemson still had a TO in their pocket.
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The game would not end on a defensive penalty. So, even if the clock had reached 00:00, Clemson would’ve got to run one untimed down.
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Yeah, but that untimed down would most likely have been used to kick the tying FG.
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Yup
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Looked like it to me. Run in, looked open.
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Clemson ran picks on several plays including 2 of their TDs. This like holding and pass interference can be called or not on several plays throughout a game.
For some reason if Georgia had of been Clemson I think penalties would have been called. Why do I feel this way……..History.
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..and I don’t really know if it’s justified or not, but a lot of us feel that way Dawgy1. We’re Pavlov’s Dawgs…it’s our “conditioned response”.
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While it worked, it was a little risky to call al play that took so long. If the ball gets tipped, time runs out before the ball hits the ground. And no chance for a tying FG.
Also, the onside kick to end the game seemed risky too. While Bama was clearly caught off guard, had they recovered it while on the ground, there would have been 1 sec left from their own 45. Hail mary to win.
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So is Dabo the new Mad Hatter?
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Gutsy call on the onside kick, I think I would have taken my chances kicking a squib kick or kicking it out of bounds to give Bama the ball on the 35.
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“if the ball gets tipped…”
Seriously? We all know that only happens to one team.
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OUCH! Dang-it, Aus Dawg..raking that scab off hurts!
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After the first pick play wasn’t called, I am surprised that Pruitt didn’t go to a zone to make the “hand off” in coverage easier for his DBs.
The onside kick after the winning TD was exciting but an unnecessary risk that could have ended badly. I would hope Dabo eliminates that strategy for any situation like that. Crazy, and they were inches from giving Bama a shot.
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Correct, Mac. The onside kick on the ensuing kick-off was a needless gamble. We have all seen onside kicks go wrong and the receiving team run the ball back for a TD. I can easily see how an alert Bama defender could have knifed through the Clemson kick-off team, picked up the ball and taken it to the house while the Clemson players were all standing around waiting for the ball to travel 10 yards. If that had happened……….
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Now THAT would have been the ultimate example of “Clemsoning” and Dabo would have found moving bans at his house before he got home. I was just thinking of a Hail Mary loss, you are evil to have that in your head.
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