The LSU offense a year ago killed you because they put 5 studs in every concept with a stud throwing it. As a DC you had a choice, drop 8 to deal with that volume or blitz to deal with the empty protections.

The problem is, Joe Burrow’s athletic ability and spatial awareness/reactivity, he rendered single free rushers useless. If he also could sniff out where your blitz was coming from, he had the wherewithal to throw hot consistently,

Joe Brady and Steve Ensminger did a great job anticipating where blitzes would come from and placing Burrow’s hots accordingly

So basically, your choice is now to drop 8 and rush 3.

That’s absolutely out, because Joe Burrow was such a prodigious post-snap raw processor (has translated btw) that he would sit back in that clean pocket and get through the full 5 man progression until he found someone

If everyone was covered, he had the space to start directing traffic downfield and leave the pocket to extend, at which point he’d find someone downfield or tuck and run for 15

Alabama did it by bulking up in protections on early downs and using a ton of play action. This made things super easy on the QB. They could run 3 man concepts because nobody can even come close to covering Smith in a 1 on 1 situation.

So they’d line up in 12 a fair bit (including a stud receiving threat in Jahleel Billingsley) and basically force you to play nickel in order to deal with their freak receivers. Then they are in insanely good position to run it

Alabama is built off the RPO, and Sark WANTED you to man up on those receivers. If you don’t, they will throw those break to daylight glances, the speed outs, the bubbles, etc until they’re in the endzone. If you do, they will call their spear, their pylon, their Y cross, etc.

And if you end up in man to deal with their RPOs, you have to cover DeVonta Smith man to man which even 2019 Derek Stingley couldn’t do. You can force a bracket on him sure, but that’s an unlivable over-pointing of resources against Waddle, Metchie, Billingsley.

This isn’t even to mention the fact that Sark will send Najee Harris all over the field and make you cover him, which is insanely difficult.

The thing is, against either offense, you were screwed. LSU’s was better because it put up as good or slightly better production against better defenses with spring practices and full training/installs, no comparing the seasons, as Ds were hampered more than Os.

But the point is this, unless you did something wholly unrealistic like getting multiple rushers home with just 3 rushers total or covering DeVonta Smith 1 v 1 adequately, you were screwed.