It looked exotic.

And it invited plenty of debate, not to mention intrigue.

Was it a pass or a run?

The jet sweep was a staple of Alabama's offense in Lane Kiffin's final year as as a coordinator at the Capstone. Last season, in a victory over Ole Miss -- the opponent Alabama faces Saturday -- Kiffin called the play three times in the first half as the Crimson Tide aimed to tire out the Rebels' active defensive front with horizontal runs.

But he didn't stop there.

The Crimson Tide executed the jet sweep 35 times in 2016, according to ProFootballFocus.com. On 31 of those occasions, Calvin Ridley or ArDarius Stewart raced across the formation and around the edge. At its best, the jet sweep netted 67 yards and a touchdown for Stewart against Mississippi State. At its worst, it led to a seven-yard loss for Ridley against Tennessee.

"We call it a ball-in-the-air toss," said former assistant head coach Mario Cristobal. "That thing is flying and it is running. There are a lot of moving parts to it. You catch things in the right formation you may get yourself in a monster play. But if you don't, oh boy. That's going to be rewound 40 times in the media room and talked about why it didn't work and you're going to be blamed for it."

And that last clause might explain why the jet sweep has virtually disappeared from Alabama's game plans this season.

Through the first four games, the Tide has called it only once, when new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll dialed up a jet sweep to Robert Foster in the second quarter of Alabama's rout of Fresno State. Foster gained 14 yards on the pop pass from Jalen Hurts, which came out of an "11" personnel package.

"We have run a few, but not many," Alabama coach Nick Saban said. "We do some of the motions off of it, run some plays off of it, complement some of the things that we did last year with some other things that we're doing right now. Some of those things you kind of read.

"When the guy goes in motion, how is the defense adjusting? Sometimes they don't leave enough players backside, sometimes they rotate and really have the sweep stopped. Sometimes it's what the defense does that determines whether you want to hand the ball off to the guy or not, or pitch it to him."

As Saban obliquely noted, the Tide has used play-action concepts off the jet sweep. The best example of that came in Alabama's victory over Florida State in the opener. Freshman wideout Jerry Jeudy sprinted across the formation prior to the snap before Hurts faked a handoff to running back Najee Harris and launched a deep pass to Calvin Ridley for a 53-yard touchdown strike. The concept of the play was brilliant because the safety shaded toward Ridley's side was drawn to Jeudy, allowing Ridley to get over the top of the defense on his post route.

But Daboll hasn't favored the jet sweep, as the Tide has resorted to using a traditional running game with its loaded backfield.

It makes sense because of where the strength in Alabama's personnel lies.

"We feel that we're a little more proficient in other areas that maybe we don't have to depend on that quite as much," Saban said.

The seeds for Daboll's decision to move away from the timing-based play were sowed soon after he arrived last winter, according to left guard Ross Pierschbacher.

"I mean I just think there was like some gray area," he said. "In the offseason, we tried to run it a little bit and there were some areas, as far as what the offensive line does, at least. So, I like getting more downhill. I think that shows more confidence in us if we're not just tossing it and letting the skill guys run but getting more downhill on them."

It's a definite shift in strategy, which has made the jet sweep go the way of the Edsel in Alabama's playbook.

Rainer Sabin is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin