Alabama Hasn't Even Scratched the Surface of Lane Kiffin's Playbook, Yet

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Through two games, Alabama fans have started to get an idea about new offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin’s offense and how it may be different or similar to what the Crimson Tide have run in the past.

Essentially, it’s not that different from Alabama’s offense under head coach Nick Saban. There’s a heavy emphasis on running the ball with power and setting up the play action. But we’ve also seen a number of new formations and players being used in different ways.

And, we’ve only seen a small part of it.

It would have been foolish for Alabama to show its entire hand on offense right away, especially in a game against West Virginia, a power-five team that isn’t quite on the Crimson Tide’s level yet, and definitely not against group-of-five Florida Atlantic. And with lowly Southern Miss visiting on Saturday before SEC play, don’t expect to get much more insight into what Kiffin’s trying to do.

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“I think there's a lot left on the table that we can show,” tight end Brian Vogler said on Monday. “I think the coaches are saving that up for maybe if it just works on a different defense. We put in a lot of stuff, and we take stuff out for certain defenses, and we game-plan around it. So I think a lot of the offense is still out there. The coaches are just waiting to use it.”

The Mountaineers ran a 3-3-5 stack defense which, while unlike anything Alabama sees regularly in the SEC, was built to stop spread attacks like West Virginia sees in the Big 12. If Kiffin was going to open things up, especially in the passing game, this wasn’t going to be the game to do so.

The result? Alabama ran the ball for almost 300 yards, with T.J. Yeldon and Derrick Henry each hitting the 100-yard mark.

Against Florida Atlantic, Alabama knew it had the distinct talent advantage. The Owls cornerbacks were playing off the Crimson Tide’s quick receivers. That led to the onslaught of screen passes thrown their way on Saturday.

Right tackle Austin Shepherd said most of those plays have a run option, and FAU was playing the run while setting its defensive backs to not get beat over the top.

“They’re kind of option plays. You can run or pass it,” Shepherd said. “We’re blocking the run. If they’re loading the box, we’re going to split the ball out.”

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It’s almost a cliche to say, but right now, Alabama is just taking what the defense is giving it. And that’s nothing new for the Crimson Tide.

“If you go back and look at games, not this season but in the past, we'll run plays over and over again because it just works,” Vogler said. “I remember in the SEC Championship we ran the same play six times in a row because it worked. If something is working for us, we are going to use it the rest of the game.”

That year, of course, Alabama had one of the best offensive lines in college football history. It could move defensive fronts at will. And Vogler is right: Alabama’s official play by play does indeed show a stretch at the end of the third quarter of six straight run plays up the middle or to the right side that helped set up a go-ahead touchdown.

This season, Alabama’s strength is on the perimeter. Its receivers are dangerous in open space. So it makes sense that if defenses are giving them that open space, the Crimson Tide would exploit it.

“We had the numbers, and it was what we were looking for,” Vogler said. "We spit it out there and with guys like Chris Black, Christion Jones, Amari Cooper out there to make plays, it's real nice.”

While Alabama and Kiffin don’t want to show their full arsenal right away, they haven’t had to, by any stretch. They’ve had plenty of success taking what the defense has given them, whether that’s from a talent-level standpoint or schematically.

So when could we expect to see the playbook open up a bit more?

The first likely candidate is Florida on September 20. The Gators have the talent on defense to match up with Alabama. Cornerbacks Vernon Hargreaves III and Jalen Tabor can match up with Cooper, Black and the like. The Crimson Tide won’t be able to bubble screen them to death.

Kiffin’s offense has been innovative and a fresh look for a unit that got stale at times under Doug Nussmeier. But it hasn’t come close to being fully unleashed yet.

Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats come from CFBStats. All recruiting information comes from 247Sports.

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.