Alabama Football: And now the summer of our discontent

If Saturday’s A-Day game was to be the salve healing all wounds from the Alabama football national championship loss, it turned out to be snake oil instead.

Alabama football fans have about as much appetite for rebuilding as we do losing national championship games. Even when a recipe for patience is warranted, we want immediacy. Which made this year’s A-Day game even more dissatisfying than normal.

Spring games are in general overblown events bearing little resemblance to real football. Which is not to say players are not trying hard or that coaches don’t dissect every performance component from every play.

Once spring games are over, coaches are prone to remind fans and media to not make too much of it. Few members of the media and almost no fans heed the advice.

Many Alabama football fans were looking for a “winter of discontent” result Saturday. Borrowing a phrase and an idea from the Bard, the A-Day game was to signify the end of our communal dissatisfaction that began on the night of January 7, 2019.

In our minds, a now healthy, Heisman-destined Tua would show why the offensive failures of the Clemson game were an aberration. That did not happen in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. In response, some of us are overreacting. Or are we?

Nick Saban certainly believes we are. Chiding the media after the game for suggesting Tua might not be fully healthy,

Second-guessing Nick Saban is foolishness. If he says Tua is physically 100 percent, there is no basis for doubt. But IF anyone remains concerned why Tua had an un-Tua like performance on Saturday, we’ll join you. And we will join you knowing it could mean our “winter of discontent” turns into our “summer of discontent.” Because it is a long time to Aug. 31 and an even longer time before Tua faces a challenging defense.

There are reasons why there should be no concern. The 2019 Crimson Tide secondary just might be very good. Add to that at least a couple of drops by wide receivers. And the game format of touch tackles on the QBs inhibited some of Tua’s creativity. Throw in a sometimes leaky offensive line in pass protection. Those are all good reasons why Tua looked ‘just good’ on Saturday.

The thing is, our Alabama football history is filled with quarterback saviors. Tide fans often, only half-jokingly, label new Tide QB recruit, phenoms as equivalent to the ‘Second Coming.’ Tua was the embodiment of that elevated image as a national championship-winning freshman. We don’t find it crazy, to expect of him, nothing less.

But he was a bit less on Saturday. And many of us will worry about it throughout the summer and into the fall.

Are Alabama football fans silly to worry about Tua for the next few months? Even if it is silly, it will not stop many of us from doing it.