BAMANEWSBOT
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Nick Saban said no one's seized the job as Blake Sims' successor just yet. He also said he doesn't think his team needs "a quarterback that has to win the game."
One scrimmage into fall camp, you and I have a lot in common with Nick Saban. We don't knowwho's going to be Alabama's starting quarterback against Wisconsin, either.
There's another question that wasn't answered Saturday and won't be until the Crimson Tide finds itself in a 60-minute battle with an opponent that's not intimidated or overmatched.
How good does the Alabama quarterback have to be for this team to be as good as it can be? Saban addressed that big-picture question, unprompted, during his opening remarks after Saturday's scrimmage.
"I don't think that we need to have a quarterback that has to win the game," he said. "If we can have someone who can play well enough and make good choices and decisions and not make the major errors that would affect the game, that probably would keep us in the game.
"With the rest of the players that we have, I think we'd have a good chance."
Can you say game manager?
That philosophy has worked awfully well for Saban, but can it be just as effective in 2015 as it was in 2003, 2009, 2011 and 2012? Or, with offenses everywhere putting up video-game numbers, does a championship quarterback have to be the best quarterback on the field when it counts the most?
You can make a case that Alabama was outplayed at the quarterback position in its last three losses. In the 2015 Sugar Bowl, Ohio State's Cardale Jones was better thanBlake Sims. So was Bo Wallace, especially at crunch time, when Ole Miss upset Alabama last October.
Oklahoma's Trevor Knight, enjoying his one shining Stephen Garcia moment, outperformed AJ McCarron in the 2014 Sugar Bowl. McCarron was statistically superior to Auburn's Nick Marshall in the 2013 Iron Bowl, but Marshall made his share of big plays.
Quarterback wasn't the only issue for Alabama in those defeats, but more than ever in big games, the man with the ball in his hands on every snap has to take the bull by the horns. Saban's still waiting for one of his quarterbacks to do that in this competition.
If it doesn't happen by Sept. 5, he suggested, he could play more than one quarterback in the opener the way he did in 2011 to decide the race between McCarron and Phillip Sims.
That approach worked out OK. McCarron won the job, and Alabama went on to win the national championship, Saban's second in Tuscaloosa with a first-year starter under center.
Can that slice of recent history repeat itself? Will the offensive line look like a trucking company to help Derrick Henry dominate as Trent Richardson did in 2011? Will this defense become all-time great the way that unit turned out to be?
In 2011, Alabama gave up 106 points for the entire season. In the last two Iron and Sugar bowls combined, Alabama gave up 165 points.
The 2011 team played one close game all season and lost 9-6 in overtime to LSU because the rookie starter McCarron and the offense couldn't find the end zone. Can this team also overwhelm almost every team it meets and reduce the need for its quarterback to be a play-making Heisman runner-up as the veteran McCarron was in 2013?
It's obvious that Saban likes his football team. No doubt he'd like it better if he didn't have that nagging question under center.
Continue reading...
One scrimmage into fall camp, you and I have a lot in common with Nick Saban. We don't knowwho's going to be Alabama's starting quarterback against Wisconsin, either.
There's another question that wasn't answered Saturday and won't be until the Crimson Tide finds itself in a 60-minute battle with an opponent that's not intimidated or overmatched.
How good does the Alabama quarterback have to be for this team to be as good as it can be? Saban addressed that big-picture question, unprompted, during his opening remarks after Saturday's scrimmage.
"I don't think that we need to have a quarterback that has to win the game," he said. "If we can have someone who can play well enough and make good choices and decisions and not make the major errors that would affect the game, that probably would keep us in the game.
"With the rest of the players that we have, I think we'd have a good chance."
Can you say game manager?
That philosophy has worked awfully well for Saban, but can it be just as effective in 2015 as it was in 2003, 2009, 2011 and 2012? Or, with offenses everywhere putting up video-game numbers, does a championship quarterback have to be the best quarterback on the field when it counts the most?
You can make a case that Alabama was outplayed at the quarterback position in its last three losses. In the 2015 Sugar Bowl, Ohio State's Cardale Jones was better thanBlake Sims. So was Bo Wallace, especially at crunch time, when Ole Miss upset Alabama last October.
Oklahoma's Trevor Knight, enjoying his one shining Stephen Garcia moment, outperformed AJ McCarron in the 2014 Sugar Bowl. McCarron was statistically superior to Auburn's Nick Marshall in the 2013 Iron Bowl, but Marshall made his share of big plays.
Quarterback wasn't the only issue for Alabama in those defeats, but more than ever in big games, the man with the ball in his hands on every snap has to take the bull by the horns. Saban's still waiting for one of his quarterbacks to do that in this competition.
If it doesn't happen by Sept. 5, he suggested, he could play more than one quarterback in the opener the way he did in 2011 to decide the race between McCarron and Phillip Sims.
That approach worked out OK. McCarron won the job, and Alabama went on to win the national championship, Saban's second in Tuscaloosa with a first-year starter under center.
Can that slice of recent history repeat itself? Will the offensive line look like a trucking company to help Derrick Henry dominate as Trent Richardson did in 2011? Will this defense become all-time great the way that unit turned out to be?
In 2011, Alabama gave up 106 points for the entire season. In the last two Iron and Sugar bowls combined, Alabama gave up 165 points.
The 2011 team played one close game all season and lost 9-6 in overtime to LSU because the rookie starter McCarron and the offense couldn't find the end zone. Can this team also overwhelm almost every team it meets and reduce the need for its quarterback to be a play-making Heisman runner-up as the veteran McCarron was in 2013?
It's obvious that Saban likes his football team. No doubt he'd like it better if he didn't have that nagging question under center.
Continue reading...
