I don't necessarilly agree with this. One of my rare complaints about Coach Saban is that he oftentimes leaves the starters in for too long. We clearly shut down our offensive gameplan but we don't take the starters out at that point, either on offense or defense. You can take Jennings injury last year against Clemson as an example of starters probably being in a little too long. For the most part it's never really bitten us with an injury off the top of my head other than that.
Last year was the first time I can really remember where it seemed like the backup offense actually was running real plays later on in the game. Obviously, it paid huge dividends at the end of the year. Traditionally, by the time he puts the backups in on offense it's just a straight hand off game and I question how much experience the backups get from that experience. I've always desired them to actually call plays like it's a normal game and not a blowout.
I've always thought it was somewhat contradictory that Coach Saban asks the players and fans to play a full game, not look at the scoreboard, etc but the coaching staff clearly doesn't call a game with that mentality.
Having said that, I love the guy and this is just a minor nitpicking point. I think most of the development of our players occurs in practice by constantly going against great players and being worried about losing your job to the next up and comer. Last year was a welcome change as far as the use of the backups and I hope it continues into this year.
