Graphing the Tide in the Iron Bowl: Are 3rd downs and Red Zones more important than turnovers?

Now that feels better (mostly). Despite a flurry of turnovers, referee puzzlement, and more, Alabama got ahead and hung on to win the game decisively.

Box score

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The topline box score is a little misleading this week, especially due to the “Hugh Freeze special,” at the end, where Auburn racked up first downs passing yards, total yards, and YPR to make all of those metrics look closer than they were once the game was no longer competitive.

Otherwise, the key figures are in the categories you’d usually expect: 4 turnovers (!) for the Tide (to Auburn’s 2) with a 3rd down Bama advantage, but a close one on penalties.

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Team Success Rates over time (cumulative)

The feeling of the game didn’t fool you: it really was a close one through most of the first half, even if it seemed like Alabama was on the precipice of opening things up (with the Ryan Williams drop, untimely turnovers).

The Alabama offense started up and down but righted the ship quickly — thankfully, given the DOA status we saw from this offense the week prior — and used a strong 3rd quarter to produce an overall respectable Success Rate (around 46-48% by the time the game was decided).

Auburn very much stuck around in the first quarter and a half, with SR’s matching the Tide’s, and explosiveness often exceeding the boys in Crimson. We came into this game with the notion that, statistically speaking, Auburn was actually a very explosive offense … just one that was often prone to mistakes and turnovers, at least earlier int he season. It seemed like we were only getting half of that promise for most of this game, with the Tigers putting up very high ~20% XRs in the first half. Fortunately, by the end we saw the other end of the promise, with 2 Auburn turnovers closing the door on what would have been a frustrating comeback.

Rushing and Passing Success (cumulative)

Alabama’s rushing and passing chart in this one has the hallmarks of some of our better games this season: respectable rushing success on a lot of attempts, with a very efficient passing game as almost a “change of pace” counter.

The rushing game had some troubles in the 2nd quarter, but otherwise produced average efficiencies and little explosiveness. But hooo that passing game got going in the 2nd quarter (4 explosive passes, plus one more successful one, on 9 attempts then), and then just kept climbing in the 3rd quarter. That >60% passing SR for the game is about as high as we’ve seen for this team in 2024, at least in competitive play.

The Auburn chart is the opposite across play mix, relative efficiency, and overall trajectory. For the Tigers, the run game quickly became the “change of pace” tactic — despite the presence of star RB Jarquez Hunter, and apparently a pretty mobile QB — but it’s success didn’t hold out by halftime (and they largely gave up on the rush after).

Rushing rate (cumulative)

Again, this Alabama chart looks like if often has in wins in 2024: a balanced initial attack that averages out on the rushing side of things around halftime, only to continue its drift in that direction. Roll Tide.

Auburn’s looks like a team that started panicking in the 2nd quarter (which is curious given that they were keeping it close). They’d had mixed success at best in the first quarter passing the ball, but they still tried ten passes in a row in the 2nd quarter. The first three worked, with two of them being explosive … but they might have gotten a little too high on their own stuff (given that that next 7 flopped and they went into the half down by multiple scores).

The Tigers started rushing again late in the 3rd, once they realized that their more efficient rushing game probably needed to have some role for a comeback to happen. Aside from a few odd scrambles, though, it didn’t pan out for the ol’ Eagles or whatever.

Success and Explosiveness by Play Type

Like I said, the Auburn rushing attack was technically working pretty well … at least when you take those scrambles into account. (Who am I, a Bama fan in 2023-2024, to think that QB scrambles aren’t legitimate rushes?). Their Explosiveness Rate (XR) was surprisingly high here for the rushing game, but keep in mind that both of these metrics are on pretty few plays (see 22 to the Tide’s 53) in this “change of pace” phase of their offense.

Alabama won it passing, though: Milroe and OC Sheridan had a nice enough bounceback, despite the turnovers, considering that Alabama had a high 60% SR on passing, with an even higher 28% XR on the same. Yes, we have the same “change of pace” effect with Alabama’s passing offense in this game — only 25 passes to Auburn’s 43 – but this is what you’d like to see to restore Milroe’s confidence and make a case for the postseason.

Play Map: Yards and Result by Play

There are some things to like in this play map, like a consistent stream of successful plays, with plenty of explosive ones sprinkled across 3 quarters. By the 4th quarter, the team was shifting into clock-killing mode, but you still see some success peppered in with some sustained drives.

But you’d like to see some big plays! Ryan Williams dropping that 55-yarder meant that our longest play from scrimmage was a 26-yard pass to Germie Bernard in the 3rd quarter, and that is not very long. Suitably, that means despite our solid success rates in this game, that Avg Extra Yards (AEY) metric barely lifts beyond a few yards on average, despite our holding on to a lead for the large majority of the game.

If you flip over to the Auburn side of the graph, you actually see a similar, if consistently slightly lower, AEY line. Payton Thorne put up a 45-yard pass to Malcolm Simmons in the 2nd quarter, but otherwise their explosive plays stayed in the 20-30 yard range. It’s funny that explosiveness amplitude can lift that AEY metric for an offense even when it’s pretty inefficient.

At the right end of that Auburn chart, you see why I roll my eyes at their box score and even their SRs and XRs: that’s 4 explosive passes, all made on a drive against prevent defense, and was never destined to affect the game in its final seconds. Screw Hugh.

Success and Explosiveness by Quarter

Considering that the 4th quarter was mostly clock-burning territory, Alabama actually did pretty well across all quarters. That 2nd quarter represented a bit of a lull, but explosiveness (and Auburn’s even worse ineptitude at the time) nearly made up for it and allowed us to build a bit an 8-point lead.

That 3rd quarter though: that’s the stuff. We scored 14 points from a very high 65% SR and a respectable 15% XR. Auburn showed some life of their own, especially in XR, but only managed 13 plays with below average efficiencies then. In fact, Auburn only ran 25 plays in the entire second half, which is a crazy stat given that the game still felt so close coming out of the half.

And yeah, there’s that 4th quarter again. Without that garbage time drive, these would be basically average stats and not the bonkers (and porcelain-thin) figures you see here.

SR, XR, and Play Count by Drive

This Drives chart reads like a “greatest hits” of Alabama’s Drive charts in our wins this season. You’ve got your quick-hitters mixed in, like Drive 6 (only 5 plays but with 80% SR and 20% XR) and Drive 17.

But then you’ve got some long drives that we didn’t see emerge until October or so. That late clock-burner, Drive 21, was a rare sight, with 13 plays absolutely draining that 4th quarter clock. Now, students, how do we put together 13 play drives? Correct: with middling-to-poor efficiencies (31% SR, 0% XR) that depend on late-down conversions to survive. Add that drive to the 12 play one earlier in the game, plus a few 9-play drives, and you see how Alabama commanded that time of possession and ended this game before things got weird.

Success and Explosiveness by Down

Aha … herein (mostly) lies a decisive victory despite a debilitating turnover margin. Alabama revisited the well and pull up some “Milroe Magic” from the depths. As happens to the “good” version of the Jalen Milroe offense, we converted consistently on 3rd down, massively over-performing our early down efficiencies and explosiveness rate. Credit some early downs success in making many of these conversions easier … but if you watched this one, you’ll well recall a few 3rd-and-longs that Milroe and our receivers pulled out of the hat anyway. And the middling 1st and 2nd down metrics very much speak for themselves.

Auburn did the opposite: garnering some success on early downs — especially those explosive 1st downs — but then frittering it away on late downs (33% SR on 3rd down, 0/1 on 4th). We’re lucky that a few more of these didn’t magically “Auburn” and convert anyway … a few drives could have made this game feel (and go) much differently. You have to wonder if the home field (loud on 3rd downs) and DC Wommack’s “bend don’t break” philosophy show some effects in this chart.

Success and Explosiveness in the Red Zone

And herein lies the other major element of this decisive won. Alabama and Auburn both got 9 cracks at it from the Red Zone, but Alabama put up a 56% SR and, more oddly, a 22% XR … while Auburn barely registered a pulse here. Cue the “FG’s vs. TD’s” effect and the loss for the Tigers.

But let’s talk about that Explosiveness Rate: there isn’t that much room in the Red Zone, so you usually don’t see high explosiveness numbers out of here. But this “outer Red Zone” area seems to be something of a sweet spot for Jalen Milroe, as he often scrambles (or follows designed runs) to deliver “explosive” touchdowns from this distance. We saw two in this game, with Milroe running it in from 19 yards in the 1st quarter (truly, that is barely in the Red Zone), then again from 17 yards in the 3rd quarter. And we’ve seen it plenty this season! You have to wonder if something about the scheme, QB mentality, drive momentum/confidence, or something else are making that such a performative spot on the field for Milroe and this offense.

Success and Explosiveness by Distance to go

The distance chart shows some familiar faces: like continued solid performance from short yardage (Roll Tide!), and lower success rates from further out (Boo Tide!). But in the middle, we’ve flipped the script with these odd 7-9 yard plays … with big over-performance in this range. It’s usually a distance that this offense lapses in, but I wonder if this is where some of our 3rd-and-longer conversions happened to come from in this game.

Top Rushers

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Jam Miller was, unusually, actually getting attempts like a lead back, with this 28 rushes (which must be a season record for a Tide rusher) for an unfortunately low 36% Success Rate. Justice Haynes came in to shake things up for 7 more carries, but delivered a similarly low efficiency. For what it’s worth, Jam was very involved in the “drain the clock” drives late, so folks seemed to know that the ball was coming through him.

Jalen Milroe, for better or worse, gets the image feature this week because he continues to be our best rushing option: that 64% rushing SR on 14 attempts is really high, even before you mix in 2 explosive TD runs (14.2% Rushing XR, which is high for rushing).

Top Passers

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Now this is the Milroe chart we (mostly) prefer. That INT represents a big black spot in his game — plus, a few more fumbles on him that you really, really wanted back at the time — but otherwise this QB line looks like it often does in Bama’s victories in 2024. He passed much less than the opposing QB, but ended up with about as many successful passes anyway. (Plus, if you consider that last garbage time Auburn drive, you can lop off 4 of those Thorne explosive passes and it looks even better for Milroe in comparison).

Also, Auburn tailback Jarquez Hunter threw a pass. That was my favorite pass of the day!

Top Receivers

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Germie Bernard was an outstanding lead in this one, with 4 explosive catches — Germie Hands! — as part of his 6/7 performance and solid top line.

Ryan Williams made himself known (1 explosive, then 1 more successful pass), but his dropped to-be-TD maybe took the wind out of his sails. It also wouldn’t be a surprise if defenses were covering him more intensely than Germie and company at this point in the season.

And, speaking of receivers not being covered … all of the other receivers listed are TE’s! This seems to happen to Alabama once every 5 games or so, when we remember there are Tight Ends, we pass the ball to them, and then great success and confidence follows. Please, more of that.

Roll Tide, big time. In a year that’s had a lot of change, some severe ups and downs, and some big disappointments, the Iron Bowl continues to have gravity that subsists despite context. Any of the “Playoff chatter” we’re hearing is all upside and only a result of a few lucky breaks in other games (South Carolina, Mizzou, WKU, and Syracuse all winning); but even without that, this game had and has meaning. After experiencing “The Thumb” from the other sideline, it’s a genuine surprise to be realizing the same thing — 5 in a row! Roll Tide! — in the arguably declining years of a dynastic coach, and now with this new guy. It’s something to celebrate, even if our next chapter is some boring bowl game against the likes of Illinois.

Oh, did you want me to talk about Playoff possibilities? Well, all I got are opinions and a pocket full of numbers. However you feel about the SP+ Metrics system, it has Ole Miss at #3 and Alabama at #5 in the nation, near the likes of Penn State and way ahead of some of the low-SOS pretenders littering the top 12.

I know folks are concerned about the team “deserving” or having a shot in the playoffs, but I think we’ve got as good a case as anybody in a 12 team format: more ranked wins, one of the toughest schedules, and demonstrated ability to play with the best of them. People will rightfully obsess over the meltdown at Oklahoma — you can’t blame ‘em — but that damned game was at least 10-24 if you don’t include a phantom (and patently incorrect) flag on that Ryan Williams TD catch.

If we don’t make it, we don’t really have anyone else to blame, but I’d be disappointed to see a field that let the likes of Clemson, SMU, Miami, and Indiana over teams like Ole Miss and Alabama that had to perform against a higher floor of competition week in and week out (like, literally and mathematically speaking, not just conference pride talking here). Losses to “6-6 teams” is just a different thing in the SEC, given that the average SP+ score for SEC teams blows the other conferences out of the water.

So we can hope for the best — and root against the Clemson Tigers — but in any case I’ll see you on the other end of whatever our next postseason game is.