Alabama Football: Aggies not Crimson Tide have a Quarterback problem

It is not known if or how much Bryce Young will play against Texas A&M. The Alabama Football starter may be sophomore, Jalen Milroe, backed up true freshman, Ty Simpson. A guess is, on Monday, the most positive thing Nick Saban will say about Young’s status is he is ‘day-to-day.’

Whatever Saban says, the Aggies will have to prepare for Young and Milroe.

If this was Tennessee week, an iffy QB situation for the Crimson Tide might be a major concern. Indications are the game in Knoxville could be a shootout, needing the Tide’s most accurate passer.

But this is not Tennessee week, and this week, the team with the biggest quarterback problem is Texas A&M. In the loss to Mississippi State, the Aggies may have lost their most recent QB starter, Max Johnson. Multiple reports said Johnson injured the thumb on his throwing hand.

Haynes King, who had started earlier in the season for Jimbo Fisher, finished the game Saturday, with embarrassingly bad results.

The outlook is pretty bleak in College Station, and it will not improve much if Max Johnson is able to return. Max Johnson is the SEC’s 10th highest-rated passer, according to ESPN’s Passer Ratings. Among the 128, FBS quarterbacks rated by ESPN, Johnson is No. 78. That is not a rating to build an offense around.

Even if Johnson is seriously lacking, the fault may not be his. Instead, there is chatter in College Station that Jimbo ‘Quarterback Whisperer’ Fisher’s outdated offense is the core problem. Fisher has not had a game-changer QB since Jameis Winston. In the rapid evolution of college football offenses, FSU’s 2013 National Championship season was in a different era.

Nick Saban and always adapting Alabama Football Offense

Since then, Nick Saban has, on multiple occasions, brought in sharp offensive minds to update the Alabama football offense. College football experts state Fisher has changed his offense little since 2013. As a result, the Aggies’ offense is often so predictable, and lacking imagination, it can be described as plodding.

All the blame should not fall on Fisher. When Scott Woodward hired Fisher in 2017, the decision was widely applauded.

"… after a wild week of speculation, the Texas A&M Aggies seemingly hit a home run in hiring Florida State Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher away from Tallahassee.The move represented one of the rare instances in college football history that a national title-winning coach left for another program .."

A little over a year ago, Texas A&M extended Fisher’s contract through the 2031 season. In an unusual move A&M guaranteed Fisher the full term of the contract, meaning to fire him now, without cause, would cost the Aggies $85M.

Even in oil-rich Texas, that is a lot of money.

If the college football game has moved far beyond Jimbo Fisher, Max Johnson and his teammates have no choice but to try to rally around their coach. The Aggies could not be coming to Tuscaloosa at a worse time.