The last 3+ years takes us back to 21' and 22' seasons.
That seems an poorly-timed, given that Mr. Milroe is now moving to the NFL.
I’ve stated multiple times on this board that my two favorite players of the Nick Saban era are Blake Sims and Ronnie Clark for the simple reason you just stated. They were without question “team first” players. They were willing to do whatever necessary to help the team and their teammates be successful.
That is really the question.
Courtney Morgan (in talking about Simpson) may have given us a clue as to what the issue was/is. In an interview, he said "When Ty is on..." and highly complimented him. "When Ty is on" lends me to believe that there are times when "Ty is off" resulting in inconsistency running the offense. As you've mentioned, against Mercer he just chunked up a 40-yard pass into triple coverage and luckily our WR came down with it. But overall that was a dumb decision. That may be what Morgan was alluding to.
Yep. Whatever it was, it was so much worse than what we saw on the filed that the coaches decided Milroe was the best chance to win.
Also, do not discount the loyalty factor that DeBoer gave Milroe for stepping up early on and keeping the team together. Factor that loyalty into DeBoer looking at Simpson and going "Which Simpson am I going to get if I put him in?" and just deciding to hold serve with Milroe.
The question is not what Ty did in practice to make the coaching staff believe that Milroe was the best option, but were multiple players so invested in Milroe being the starter that the coaches hands were basically tied regarding that decision. At this point it's all speculation, but I have not been able to get past the image of Milroe sitting on the sideline with the headphones on while talking to Rees who was sitting in the booth with his head in his hands looking like he was in a hopeless situation. That was during the loss to Texas and the image is burned into my mind. Most of what I saw from TY during his limited time in games indicated that he made good decisions and was accurate on short and intermediate passes. Only more gametime exposure will give us the answer.
I also think that the guys behind Milroe didn't play well enough to take his spot. Like others, I want to believe that one of these guys has to be better than what we saw on the field with Milroe, but I cannot imagine Coach Saban and Coach DeBoer actually being "held hostage" and forced to play Milroe no matter what. I don't doubt there were some bad locker room situations, but both Saban and DeBoer have enough of a history and reputation to do what is right. Frankly, I am glad this season is over.
As far as rating QB's go I can't say that Morgan is the person I would go to for an opinion. In his job if he is standing around a lot watching practices I would be mildly surprised.
I am looking forward to seeing what young Mr. Simpson can do with the offense.
I'm sure he hears the coaches talk about the players and I'd bet he does watch practices and scrimmages. If he's in a GM role he has to be privy to enough of the operational side of things that he can do his job properly.
Color me exhausted with the endless discussion on Milroe and the necessity of reading between the lines on who a replacement may be. Looking back two years ago Ty made an incredible run but dropped the ball just short of the end zone. Saban jumped him on "acting like you have been here before" Now we have all types of gyrations in the end zone. This season he escaped a tackler who was on his back immediately after the sack managed to take a couple of steps and put the ball in a crowd where only an Alabama player could catch it. Now it is said " It was a reckless throw". Doug Flutie won a Heisman making such a similar throw.
That play being a "dumb decision" is just my opinion. It may not have been CKD's opinion. For all I know CKD may have thought it was a great play. But IMO it looked like a "What the hell! I'm about to just throw this SON OF A GUN UP!!!". That's what it looked like to me which plays like that bother me. But a lot of things bother me.
But the thing with Ty is, we never got to see him run the offense, with the first team, to gain any kind of real live experience. He only came in when the game was already decided. Maybe if Ty had been given true live experience, the "off Ty" moments would have been few and far between. As has been mentioned many times, in the Tennessee and OU games, I don't think he would have done worse than what we got.
