Nick Saban had good news for Alabama Football fans on Monday. The Crimson Tide coach said the news on Will Anderson’s knee injury is encouraging. Saban defined the outside linebacker’s status as day-to-day.
Other good news from Nick Saban’s Monday review, is that Alabama Football cornerbacks Josh Jobe and Jaylin Armour-Davis are expected to practice this week. Neither of the Tide’s first-team corners played against Mercer.
As always, Saban gave a glowing review of the upcoming opponent. This week the praise might be a bit more honest than against weaker teams.
Asked about the developments of the quarterbacks behind Bryce Young, Saban gave an interesting response. Saban repeated the Crimson Tide’s number two quarterback is Paul Tyson. He also said both Tyson and Jalen Milroe are being developed as replacements for an injured Bryce Young this season.
"We’re trying to get Tyson and Milroe experience. I think that both guys have ability to do certain things. Maybe if something happened to Bryce, we’d use both guys’ skillset to help us."
What makes the comment interesting is the Alabama Football staff has been unguarded in admitting Tyson and Milroe have different offensive packages. Those packages are built around the strengths of each guy. That begs a question of how compressed are those packages. As in, how much of the Tide’s offense, designed around Bryce Young, cannot be run by Tyson or Milroe?
No one outside the program has that answer, including opposing coaches. There were some different formations used Saturday when Tyson and Milroe were in the game. Both Pistol and Two-Back formations were utilized. It could be Bill O’Brien wanted to show Florida’s Todd Grantham enough to force Florida into using valuable practice time for the Tide’s ‘other’ offensive options.
Speaking about how Bryce Young has done this season, Saban said,
"I think Bryce has played well in both games. I keep saying this: how did the players around him do?the entire unit has to grow and develop. We’re making progress. We’re not probably there yet…"
It has been obvious in both games the offense, though filled with talent, has not yet become cohesive. The offensive line is often pointed to as needing the greatest improvement, but Young and the receivers are still building their ‘game-feel’ for each other. As they do, RPOs will become more effective.
The complete media review session can be seen below.
Earlier on Monday, Alabama Football announced its Players of the Week. They were JoJo Earle and Evan Neal on offense; Christian Harris, Kool-Aid McKinstry and Drew Sanders on defense and Jase McClellan on special teams.