One can make the argument Jalen didn't do enough because he did too much.
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QB Competition 2018
- Thread starter ATLBAMAFAN
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I literally started what I said with "There's only been one exception to the rule. 2012."
Here's the full list by the way:
175.3 AJ McCarron Redshirt Junior National Championship
167.2 AJ McCarron Redshirt Senior
169.0 Greg McElroy Redshirt Senior
157.9 Blake Sims Redshirt Senior
157.8 Jalen Hurts True Sophomore
147.3 AJ McCarron Redshirt Sophomore National Championship
147.0 Jacob Coker Redshirt Senior National Championship
140.5 Greg McElroy Redshirt Junior National Championship
139.1 Jalen Hurts True Freshman
121.5 John Parker Wilson Redshirt Senior
114.6 John Parker Wilson Redshirt Junior
You can easily argue that near the bottom of that list Alabama was too limited in the passing game, you do need to be able to pass. But, it needs to be a restrained passing game. In a shootout, someone gets shot. The key is to avoid the shootout in the first place. If you can mix a modest passing game with a dominating running game, you will dominate time of possession while still scoring points. You'll wear their defense out, and control time of possession. For instance, Jalen Hurts is 10th in the NCAA in yards per attempt this year. A lot of people would tell you that's a good thing, but is it? Higher risk/high reward does not make for controlling time of possession and doesn't do as much to wear the other team out. Alabama lost time of possession, badly, against LSU, Miss. State and Auburn. Heroics from the quarterback position might very well have saved the Miss. State game, but it is far preferable to avoid needing heroics in the first place.
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I saw that but it's not the aberration you think it to be or worth being excluded from the picture.
What that year really says is AJ was GREAT for the ENTIRE season that year that created balance with the running game which made us a extremely difficult team to defend.
The years where the QBR's are 'lower' the QB's started off slow but improved as the year progressed and peaked in the clutch when the post-season arrived.
The years where the QBR's are 'higher' the QB's being relied on more is not the reason those teams failed to win a NC.
2010 was a team filled with complacency and our 2 RB's both had surgery's/nagging injuries.
2013 was probably just as good as the 2012 team but Nuss called a horrible game and AU pulled off a miracle play.
2014 was a team that was only in the playoff to begin with because of Blake/Coop. We don't beat AU 55-44 otherwise.
It's not as simple as 'When we have a Gunslinger' at QB and depend on him we are worse as a team and fail to win NC's OR 'When we have a scaled back Game Manager' at QB and pound the rock we are better and will win a NC.
I fully agree with you we need to be dominate on the ground and feed the RB's BUT.... we also have to be able to effectively throw the ball and have balance and sometimes win a game by airing it out.
But it's true. He didn't do enough by distributing the ball around like he needed to because he did too much by doing it all on his own.
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This part is true, but people tend to overstate what is required from the position. The greatest danger as I see it is over-reliance on the quarterback. Once you see he can do exceptionally well at particular things, the tendency is to keep asking him to do that. Most of the time that will work fine, but a passing play is inherently risky. Downfield passing is inherently riskier. I'm a big Drew Brees fan, but for every several games he wins with his arm, there is one he loses with it to. Even though the NFL game is different, the Saints do better when they run more consistently and rely less on Brees. The sort of things you ask a quarterback to do that is limited in his capacity is exactly the sort of thing that tends to consistently win football games at the college level.
Now, this was really bothering me for a while during the season. Alabama has issues with time of possession, I thought Hurts was running too much, I thought the passing game lacked a lot of easy stuff, the low hanging fruit so to speak. I was on record as laying that mostly on the feet of Daboll, and perhaps I was wrong with the attribution, but while many were pleased with the offense I was consistent in saying something wasn't right. I used terms like sandbagging, and questioned repeatedly what was going on and if Daboll was up to the task (once again perhaps misplacing blame). The key was most people just saw points and thought oh well things are going fine. It isn't that simple though.
I keep using myself as an example, but it's just easier to remember my own opinions and thoughts on matters. Going back to Bateman, I recall saying that while I thought he was extremely limited, that Alabama could win with him. Bateman made me nervous, he did, but couldn't Alabama have won with him? We'll never know, but I'd put money on the notion that Alabama could have had an effective offense even with someone as limited with downfield passes as Bateman was. Going back to Hurts last year (and his rating does demonstrate he was more limited in his passing abilities last year), I said all along he had what it took to win at Alabama. Did he not? Bo's injury against Clemson likely derailed the proven recipe from working yet again, an offense that worked more through the running back than the quarterback. In either case, we're talking about one of the worst passing seasons a Saban quarterback has had, and it still put Alabama in the title game (better then 3 of the top 4 passing seasons).
Now, I agree balance is important. You have to pass, and I could argue Alabama actually didn't pass enough this year. The issue was they tried more difficult stuff too often, and not enough simple stuff. Hurts had the ball in his hands way too often (too many runs) and way too long. But, Alabama's offense works best when passing is a luxury not a necessity. You pass to keep the defense honest, you pass to keep your play-makers engaged, you pass to make sure the machine stays well oiled. You don't want to get in the habit of passing because you feel like you have to. That's when things start to go south. Is there the rare occasion, two minute drill and such when passing is a must? Absolutely, but you want to limit those circumstances as much as possible. This is because every time you try to throw a pass downfield, you have a reasonably high chance of something bad happening. The more games that are decided by your quarterback play, the more games you will lose.
The problem going forward is how can Alabama ensure solid quarterback play, and not let any quarterback dominate the offense? Getting back to what I said a while back, it isn't that Hurts is incapable of doing what Alabama needs to do to win. To borrow what RTR just said it was that he tried to do too much, and that was indeed inadequate.
Edit: To try and simplify my position... I think it is easy to vastly overstate the importance of a lethal downfield passing game. You can win without one, heck Alabama won a title with a quarterback who had broken ribs. The thing is, once you know you can get "easy" touchdowns via the passing game, it becomes far too easy to lean on that and undermine the more arduous things like a consistent smash mouth running game.
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Anybody catch CNS's comments on gameday today?
It's critical for "the qb to connect" (speaking of passing and especially on 3rd down).
He straight up said Jared Stidham's passing "Was the difference our game."
Coach knows we've got to get better in the passing game!
It's critical for "the qb to connect" (speaking of passing and especially on 3rd down).
He straight up said Jared Stidham's passing "Was the difference our game."
Coach knows we've got to get better in the passing game!
Is there a question who the better passer is on the team (running and executing the offense)?
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Jalen is running too much because he is apparently unwilling or incapable of making correct reads on RPO plays and going through progressions.
And as for CNS' thing about QBs who "don't make mistakes" - a quarterback has to be willing to make mistakes. Otherwise he's probably only going to ever make safe throws. A good QB has to have moxie but Saban, for all his strengths as a coach, doesn't tolerate that.
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And as for CNS' thing about QBs who "don't make mistakes" - a quarterback has to be willing to make mistakes. Otherwise he's probably only going to ever make safe throws. A good QB has to have moxie but Saban, for all his strengths as a coach, doesn't tolerate that.
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Trying to keep it simple, I'll just address your summary. We're not talking about a requiring a "lethal downfield passing game", we're talking about a competent passing game that must be respected. However successful the passing game is now and however much improvement Jalen has made, the passing game is not good enough to make good defenses respect it, to take advantage of stacked boxes and other devices they use to take advantage of a bad-to-decent passing game. All Bama's needs is a decent-to-good passing game.
As far as your stats, they are interesting but misleading. The reason Bama was better last year was not because Jalen didn't do as much but because they had a generational defense and scored many (?15?) NOTs. The reason Bama won in 2009 was not because McElroy did less than 2010 but because of injuries and according to Saban, Barrett Jones and others, Bama had a sense of entitlement. They still ran the ball a lot in 2010 (you should use all of the yardage by the RBs, not just the top rusher). As t_n_r noted, Bama would have never won the '13 A&M game without McCarron's passing, nor would they have been as close to AU that year without it. The 28 they scored in '13 would have been enough this year, and in reality it would have been more with that passing game and since the AU D couldn't somewhat ignore the passing game. The reason Bama lost the first LSU game in NC year 2011 was because Saban wouldn't put the game in AJ's hands, which he admitted was a mistake. More could be said, but that should be enough. And so on.... t_n_r covered other years and reasons.
There is something to the fact that Jalen is trying to do too much, some may even be from the coaches or offensive design, but the passing deficiencies are a bigger problem. Bama just needs competent passing against good defenses, not lethal. Currently it's not competent. It's not all on the current QB.
On the other side of this issue not directly related to this post but to the subject overall is that
defenses have been designed to stop Jalen, not Tua. We don't know how much difference that would make, along with the other difficulties of playing in "real" time. Specifically they
have to take Jalen's running into account, effectively devoting 1 player to this task - though Tua is not bad, in fact, his reading is far superior, though the sample size is small, and he is much quicker and more elusive than Jalen, but still he is not the same threat.
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Jalen only has 1 INT the entire season. That can only be analyzed one of two ways. Either he has become the most accurate passer in college football or he's only throwing if the guy is wide open. Last season he had 9 INT's. The positive spin would be to say that he has matured, but another way to look at it is that perhaps he's afraid to take chances this season because he knows there's a pretty good QB on the sideline waiting to take his place if he throws INT's.
This thread is really moving fast and I apologize if this has been said. IMO, one of the worst things that could have happened was for Jalen, as a true freshman, to be awarded the SEC Offensive Player of the Yesr last season. There's just no way to exceed expectations after that.
I just read an article saying Shea Patterson from Ole Miss was granted a transfer. I wonder if Saban would want him for some competition between him, Jalen, and Tua? I bet he will go to Florida or a place who has no QB at all.
If he won last Saturday, he would have been offense of Player of the Year again. He had a better season
IIRC he is from Louisiana and flirted with LSU before signing with Ole Miss. If anyone needs an experienced QB is Coach O.
True. I also read that Michigan is his top choice right now and that he has to sit out a year.
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