With all due respect, how many people posting here played or coached sports at any where near the level similar to the coaches and players at a program like Alabama?
I played soccer and tennis in high school, and I was pretty darn good, even finished 3rd in the state in my group in tennis. I played men's club soccer (not intramurals but the actual university-funded men's club program that traveled to other universities for games and so on) at the university level. I also have a coaching license in soccer and coached at the high school level.
I can watch a soccer game and a tennis match and see things that the vast majority of the general public doesn't see. But my experience as a competitive high school player, collegiate club player and high school coach does not make me any kind of expert on anything relating to playing or coaching at an elite university level such as what exists at a school like Alabama.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that the vast majority of people posting stuff about the intricacies of playing and coaching the QB position at an SEC level are more similarly situated to me than a Jalen Milroe or Coach DeBoer.
I go to my son's high school soccer games and my wife (who was a scholarship soccer player at Alabama back in the 1990's) and I are simply appalled at the stuff a lot of the parents (and even the coaches at times) say during the games. Many of them act like they're Pep Guardiola when in reality most of them wouldn't know him if they ran him over in the parking lot and know as much about soccer as I know about quantum physics.
I know you've asked this question a few times. Here are my thoughts:
I don't think you have to be a coach or played QB to discuss this for two reasons:
First, practically speaking, this is a discussion board and people are just giving their subjective opinions, in this case, about the most critical position in football. Yet, if we only talked about the things we are experts on, this board would shut down tomorrow for lack of interest and traffic.
Second, but more to the point, it's my opinion that most of the criticisms that I and many others are raising about Jalen Milroe are the type of things that most knowlegable college football fans can simply see with their own eyes as weaknesses (and I consider this board to have many elite knowledgeable football fans).
And it's becoming more and more obvious that the ones who push back against the obvious weakness of JM are more in love with the idea of JM as the Bama quarterback (call them super fans) rather than seeing him more objectively.
This is what I mean: as if it hasn't been said 100s of times by now, but you don't have to be a College QB coach or former D-1 QB or high-level player to see that:
- Jalen can be in the pocket looking downfield and there's a wide-open receiver in the middle of the field OR one slipping out of the backfield running wide-open in the flats and he, for whatever reason, won't throw the ball to him. Common sense says he's either stubborn and won't run the play, unconfident in his ability to throw that pass, selfish and holds the ball so he can make a play instead OR he "doesn't see him." Most of his critics, to JM's credit, believe he's not selfish (seems like a good team type guy) so it's one of the other reasons...maybe all three to an extent...but this is generally described as "JM can't read a defense post-snap."
Another example of "can't read the defense" that is perhaps the most stunning and alarming thing is he can't run the "RPO" in the sense he can't read the "run option" of the RPO. Early last year, multiple times (before the CTR simplification of the "Bama offense"), we'd be running an RPO that was clearly intended for Jalen to read the defensive end to determine if he should hand the ball off to the running back OR if he should keep the ball and run himself. So many times, he made the inexplicable "wrong" read. There were several times that he handed off when, if he would have kept the ball himself, he would have run for long gains or TDS.
Both of these are just examples of struggles in post snap reads but some of it could be attributed to an inability to read a defense pre-snap (which I admit is harder to detect as an "arm chair QB").
But I guess my point is these are generally "arm chair QB" low-hanging fruit types of criticism of JM's game that many on this board can see as knowledgeable fans of the game.
And, I can only speak for myself, but also believe most of the other critics don't have a problem with JM as a person, but as a QB.
