Alabama Football: What’s Wrong with the Crimson Tide’s Defense?

Points allowed per game is increasing year over year at Alabama Football and that’s a fact. What’s the reason? Is it because the game has changed, coaching or something else?

Many will say that the game has changed with offenses speeding up by the constant presence of the no-huddle and modern-day offensive schemes pointing to the reason that defenses are allowing more points. The numbers however say otherwise.

What’s wrong with Alabama Football’s defense?

Since the 2016 college football season, points per game allowed by the top five defenses each season has remained a constant with a high average of 17.2 points per game amongst the top five allowed in 2018, and a low of points per game allowed so far this year of 13.26.

With that being said, there shouldn’t be any justification for defensive coordinators to be allowing more points per game. None of those coordinators are more of a hot topic of discussion right now than Pete Golding at Alabama.

During his time at Alabama when he took over at the start of the 2017 season, Golding’s points per game average is currently 17.74. That’s including his average of 11.93 points per game allowed in his first season in Tuscaloosa. It’s been steadily between 18 and 20 points per game allowed on average each season since.

This is a far cry from the defensive coordinators before him at Alabama. Between the 2010 and 2015 seasons as Alabama’s Defensive Coordinator, which were Kirby Smart’s last five at the school, the Tide allowed only 13.5 points per game, including a low of points per game allowed in 2011 of 7.7 and a high in 2014 of 18.8.

Smart left the Tide in 2016 to take over as Head Coach for the University of Georgia, where his defensive has continued to play with a level of nastiness on the field. Since the 2017 season, Smart’s defenses at Georgia have averaged 15.2 points per game allowed.

In the previous six seasons to Golding’s tenure at Alabama, the Tide allowed an average of 13.3 points per game in that span. This time span accounts for two seasons under Jeremy Pruitt, who took over as Defensive Coordinator after Smart’s exit. Pruitt then left the Tide for a head coaching position at the University of Tennessee, making way for Golding at Alabama.

18.8 is one point higher per game that the average of Golding, which has many Alabama fans not wondering if, but when Golding will be fired.

Whether a coach should or should not be fired will be a constant debate, but when points per game are up since Golding’s entrance and the team has shown it’s lack of dominance in this department, it’s difficult to see a path forward with Alabama improving as a defensive unit under Golding as his points per game have been pretty constant between 18 and 20 the last five seasons.

Alabama Football fans can’t help but look at this through a microscope. The question is has the call to get rid of Golding been justifiable. When you consider that the top five national average is at the lowest it’s been in the last five years, it’s hard to ignore that the fan base does have a point.