With less than two minutes to go in the Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Texas A&M Aggies game in Week 6 of the college football season, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban made an uncharacteristic poor clock management decision.
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Mario Cristobal made the dumbest decision I’ve ever seen a coach make, but Nick Saban made the same exact mistake today. Clock running on 1st down + A&M having zero timeouts, Bama THROWS on first down instead for kneeling. Inexplicable
He’s lucky it didn’t end the same as Miami pic.twitter.com/wUZ3H9al9A
— Ryan Hickey (@Ryan_Hickey3) October 8, 2023
As Ryan Hickey, the Executive Producer of "The Zach Gelb Show" on CBS, points out, Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal made a similar poor decision in Week 6 on the road against Georgia Tech that allowed them to go down the field and score a touchdown in the final seconds to beat the Hurricanes 23-20.
The decision? A throw on first down as opposed to a kneel.
Due to the errant throw, the clock stopped. Fortunately, the Crimson Tide weren't faced with a similar situation as Miami, but this somewhat characterizes one of the more underwhelming seasons we've seen from the Crimson Tide with Jalen Milroe at quarterback.
Some have pointed out that maybe this was on the offensive coordinator or trying to get the play off quickly to prevent a challenge from the previous play.
This is on the Offensive Coordinator. He called an RPO and the freshman QB did what he has been coached to do. Call a run play with no option to throw in this situation.
— Scott Wachenheim (@CoachSWach) October 9, 2023
Of course, an RPO isn't really necessary here, as they could just kneel the game out.
They did that because they didn’t want the previous play reviewed and Milroe panicked.
— CK (@CoachCook31) October 8, 2023
On top of this, the Crimson Tide committed an eye-pooping 14 penalties.
"This may be the record game for me in terms of messing up and still winning, if you take the mess-ups and the penalties and add them up altogether," Saban said. "But then you look at the other side of all that, and what kind of resilience and ability to overcome adversity does somebody have when you're talking about the kind of competitive spirit you have on your team — which I will take any day because we can fix the other stuff?"
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The Crimson Tide are now 5-1 and head into a Week 7 matchup at home against the Arkansas Razorbacks.
