I love your reasoning....Mediocre play at QB is a good thing. I wonder if you apply that rationale when picking a surgeon or an attorney.
It was in response to the idea that passing is more efficient, and I pointed out Alabama has had more success when they are a great running team vs. a great passing team. Simply put, over reliance on the quarterback and the passing game is not necessarily a good thing.
Even though you completely missed out on my "reasoning" and posted a snide remark, I will explain further. Controlling the clock, moving the ball, and not turning the ball over are priorities right?
Well, let's say you pass the ball, what can happen? Most of the potential outcomes are not really the best outcomes. Incompletion (remember even a perfect pass can be dropped, or a defender can make a great play on), clock stops. Turnover, whoops. Quarterback gets sacked, ouch. Lots of not good stuff can happen. But, even if you have a successful play, there's no guarantee it really helps. For instance, you go out there, score on three plays, the final one being a 60 yard pass for a TD. That's great right? Well it is unless your defense really needed rest, now they have to go back out there tired, and could become so exhausted they never recover. Or, you're trying to bleed some clock, the guy does catch the ball and he gets shoved out of bounds. So relying on the passing game is a great way to put up points quickly, but it's not a good way to protect the football or bleed clock.
Now, let's say you have a run instead. You immediately take incompletions and sacks out of the equation. Your QB isn't likely to get hurt, the clock isn't likely to stop. You can fumble of course, but fumbles can occur on pass plays to. You're usually going to get positive yards, even if only one or two (while a dropped pass is always 0). You have the potential to wear down the defense in a way the passing game doesn't, each running play can build up momentum for future running plays, wearing down the defense systematically. You can easily keep the ball in bounds, and instead of going for chunk plays, you can eat up clock and methodically move down the field. That's part of it to though, when Alabama really had the running game going, they could not be stopped. We saw Ingram do it sometimes, and Henry do it sometimes, and there was just nothing some of those defenses could do. Those drives weren't going to be stopped by dropped passes or what not either, it was low risk, clock eating football.
So back to the point, am I saying Alabama shouldn't have a balanced offense? Not at all, what I'm saying is Alabama is best when passing is a luxury. When they are passing not because they have to, but because they want to. They are passing because the guy is open, because the defense is giving it to them (and for instance if you have a dominant running back, the defense has to play weaker defense in the secondary), because they want to keep the defense honest, etc... You want quality play from the position, but the best possible scenario is Alabama with a truly dominant running back and an offense that doesn't rely too much on the quarterback. That's the most foolproof way to win. Once Alabama starts to lean on the QB, for instance like they did in AJ's senior season (I believe that was the highest pass to run ratio), things might not go as well due to minor inconsistencies.
If we had much less talent, Jalen Hurts would be just the quarterback we need but we are not lacking for receiver talent so his skillset isn't necessarily what this team needs right now.
I agree. I think Hurts asis could be scary in hands of someone like a Dan Mullen, or an offense that really focuses on fast, quick plays and forgoes a lot of the downfield stuff (like Auburn does for example). But yeah, Alabama simply wasn't going to run an offense like Miss. State or Auburn did against Alabama, and the receivers would have none of that sort of thing either.
