How Lane Kiffin's Play-Calling Cost Alabama Shot at National Championship

To be sure, he has been an integral part of Alabama’s success in the 2014 season and one of several key cogs that have come together to make the Crimson Tide’s run this season possible.

The hiring of Lane Kiffin, which was initially met with widespread skepticism and outrage, turned out to be one of the most genius moves of the last coaching-change cycle.

But his play-calling in Alabama’s 42-35 loss to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl and the College Football Playoff semifinal cost Alabama a shot at the national championship.

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There were several questionable calls at key times. And while it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback (or Friday, in this case) to second guess play calls, there were also some overall trends on Thursday that drew more than just head scratches.

In a lot of ways, Alabama’s offensive performance had a lot in common with its outing exactly a year ago in the same New Orleans Superdome, the game that ultimately opened the door for Kiffin taking over as offensive coordinator for Nick Saban.

In that game, a freshman running back had eight carries for 100 yards and a touchdown in addition to a 61-yard screen pass touchdown in a 45-31 loss to Oklahoma. But that’s the thing—he had just eight carries. Then-offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier was content to let AJ McCarron throw the ball 30 times and drop back even more.

Fast forward 365 days.

That now-sophomore running back—of course, the hulking Derrick Henry—carried the ball seven times for 56 yards in the first quarter. Starter T.J. Yeldon appeared limited because of an injury, so Henry was going to be the workhorse back.

The problem, though, was that Henry didn’t get his next carry until late in the third quarter, a 21-yard gain. On Alabama’s next drive, he took a short pass 52 yards.

It’s hard to say definitively that a more patient approach to the run game could have changed the game’s complexity, especially since part of what has made Kiffin so successful is the attacking nature of his play calls, a welcome change for Alabama fans from the conservative nature of previous teams.

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But it wasn’t hard to see that Alabama had a good thing going, and with Sims struggling, Alabama fans filled Twitter with the familiar refrains of “run the dang ball.” Kiffin didn’t exactly oblige. Blake Sims ended up finishing the game with 36 pass attempts, his second-highest total of the season.

And then there was the late-game management.

The Crimson Tide fought back like they had all season. They got the ball back with 1:33 left and a chance to tie the game with no timeouts.

On the first play, Sims hit O.J. Howard for a six-yard gain. But Howard couldn’t get out of bounds. Instead of having a second play ready to go—standard practice for a two-minute drill like this—Alabama got back to the line and had to waste precious seconds getting another play in from Kiffin and the sideline.

There were several moments on that final drive like this where the offense appeared to lack some urgency, as Paul Myerberg of USA Today pointed out:

After the game, Saban and the coaches took the blame for the loss, per Cecil Hurt of the Tuscaloosa News:

That’s not to take some of the blame off of Alabama’s defense. It gave up 35 points and 537 yards of offense, including 281 on the ground. Deficiencies in the secondary caught up to Alabama, too, as a third-string quarterback entering the season threw for 243 yards, including a touchdown of 47.

Injuries to starters Reggie Ragland and Landon Collins hurt a lot of what had made that unit so good, especially against the run.

But Kiffin was brought in to win these types of shootout games. Those are the new norm in college football. He succeeded in a wild 55-44 win over Auburn. He didn’t get that done tonight.

Kiffin’s first year in Tuscaloosa was filled with brilliant moments and eye-opening performances. But it ended with a dud and kept Alabama from going farther.

Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.