Alabama Football: Why Jalen Milroe is ‘our guy’ for the Crimson Tide
By Ronald Evans
Nick Saban wasted little time after the Alabama football offense mucked around in Tampa. The weather causing a game delay had almost nothing to do with the mucking. With a few exceptions, until Roydell Williams began to break through tackle after tackle the Tide offense was stagnant.
Williams finished with a carry average of 7.6 yards. Jase McClellan was the other productive component in the Tide offense averaging 5.7 yards on 13 carries. The only other offensive bright spot in the game was a pass completion from Ty Simpson to CJ Dippre for 45 yards.
At halftime of the USF contest, the Tyler Buchner tryout had yielded five completions for 34 yards on 14 pass attempts. Also in the first half, Ty Simpson had three incompletions and had lost seven yards on a sack.
To find an Alabama Football historical comp, equivalent to the Tide’s first-half offensive output against USF, requires going back to 2000. The eighth loss in that season for Mike Dubose’s team was against Auburn in Tuscaloosa. Auburn won 9-0. Alabama had a game total of 135 offensive yards.
After Buchner was benched against USF, Ty Simpson was an improvement. It was Simpson’s first meaningful college snaps and he showed some promise. What he did not show was being capable yet, of leading a Crimson Tide offense against defenses far better than USF.
Saban and what’s best for Alabama Football
Much has been said and written about what Nick Saban did, didn’t do, should have done, should not have done with the Tide’s top three quarterbacks. None of that noise mattered. What mattered was on Monday Nick Saban did the only thing he could do. Saban announced Milroe as the starter going forward and said there had been no discussion of using a two-quarterback system.
Later in the week on the Pat McAfee Show, Saban elaborated, saying
"I’m pleased with his (Milroe’s) performance. He’s got nothing to prove here. He’s our guy."
Alabama football fans are generally relieved. Giving Buchner and Simpson an actual game test was good for them and probably good for the Alabama football team. But, quickly, it became time to move on, or in this case, move back to Jalen Milroe.
Nick Saban knew the Alabama team could not afford another day with an unsettled quarterback situation.
Note: Data from Alabama football history provided by Sports Reference and rolltide.com
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How will Milroe and the Crimson Tide offense perform against Ole Miss? A precise prediction is folly, but for now, just winning would be enough. And it could well be that removing doubt among players propels the Tide into a much-improved offensive performance.