What was Georgia thinking?
I’ve watched that last play by Alabama — in slow-motion from behind the quarterback — about 20 times now.
A lot of people blame Georgia’s “cover 2” defense.
Maybe, but I don’t think so.
In cover 2, the two safeties are deep, and they each cover half the field. If it was a cover 2, the safety on the offense’s left should have closed with the intended receiver and prevented a catch.
But it’s not so simple: neither Georgia safety commits to that cover 2 on the flags.
Think about that: Alabama sent 4 receivers deep, with 2 going to either flag, and both safeties sat on the hashmarks. This includes the safety on the strong/right side who had 2+ receivers coming into his area the whole play.
Yes, Tagovailoa did look off the defenders to the right, but the defenders don’t react much to that.
Arguably, Davonta Smith is not even the most wide open receiver on that play. Check out the video: Alabama sends 5 receivers, 4 of them deep, and they get 3 open deep and 1 going short. That only happens in zone.
Georgia’s defense was layered 4-5-2. The disguise is that it was man-to-man for the two corners on the end of that five. If you look up the middle, 2 of the 3 guys from the middle line and the 2 safeties have the middle locked down the whole play. Inexplicably, one of those 5 drops into an underneath zone on the far right and is defending against something that isn’t there.
And, do the Pythagorean theorem: Tagovailoa made a throw 45 yards down field, and 15 yards to the side, which is a 50 yard throw. If he has to go ballistic to make that distance, the safety can close. But he didn’t: it’s pretty much a frozen rope.
So here’s what Georgia was doing: 1) they took away the middle, 2) they defended against the scramble to the much broader right/strong side, and 3) they bet the true freshman didn’t have the arm yet to wing it 50 yards.
The more I watch that view from behind the quarterback, the more certain I get that Georgia did exactly what it wanted. They ended up with a 1-1 on the left, a 3-2 matchup in the middle, a 2-2 on the deep right, and a stalker on the short right. The key is the safeties on the crossovers: 2 white shirts cross over the middle and the safeties do nothing! Their job was not to get drawn away from the middle. Tagovailoa tried, and when they didn’t move, he went outside to a 1-1 on his near side. That’s much safer than the overnumbered middle, or into the heavier traffic on the messier far right side.
That’s not a bad bet on Georgia’s part. Guys aren’t fully developed at that age. And how many could actually throw it 50 yards at that age? Admittedly I wasn’t a quarterback, but I’m a big guy and I could do about 35. We all lie that we could do better (that’s why coaches look at your out routes to gauge your distance).
Why would Georgia do that? Because they were defending against the field goal not the touchdown. They had Alabama out of range, and the didn’t want a short pass over the middle, or a scramble to the strong/right side to get them back into range.
This is a better story than the cover 2 failure one going around. And it also doesn’t excuse the cornerback who missed the chuck on Smith. Not only did he get a step, but he got it to the inside, making for a shorter quicker throw.
Here's the video. You might want to go to the original, since I can't get this embed to show the full width. And you should pause it at about the 23 second mark, just before the ball is thrown, with the view from behind the quarterback. Look at both safeties. The story of the look off works best if one safety falls for it. But it’s far less likely to have been a successful look off if neither safety fell for it: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me … unless my plan is to sit the safeties on the hashmarks to take away the middle and they are doing their job. Oh … and look at the center right almost on the edge of the video as the Georgia defender makes his chuck, and clears on his receiver to distinctly turn upfield to defend against the scramble. That’s where the missing man is … and not over the top of Davonta Smith.
Georgia chose to cover the deep middle, the short middle, the deep right, and the short right. Georgia chose to leave open the short left (it’s the near side, where congestion is the defense’s friend in college ball), and to leave the deep left in single coverage.
No chuck, good move, pure speed, good read, tight throw, game over.
So stop blaming that poor Georgia safety: he did not break the coverage he was assigned to, and he hustled to get in the picture at the end of the play.
