| FTBL Hurt: Quarterback battles are rare for the Tide

Bamabww

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https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1674376
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist

For Nick Saban's entire tenure at Alabama, and even a season before that, Tuscaloosa has been an oasis of quarterback stability, a model of simple succession that would make any stable monarchy - Sweden, let's say - jealous. John Parker Wilson, Greg McElroy and A.J. McCarron have gotten all the starts and important minutes since the start of 2006. Had Brodie Croyle not had injury problems along the way, you could stretch that streak all the way back to 2003. Croyle didn't get every start because he was sometimes hurt, but he was always thought of as the No. 1 quarterback from the start of his sophomore season.

Perhaps that will continue. The general consensus is that it won't be that way, that a competition between Blake Sims and Jake Coker will carry over into the season. No one, not even Saban himself, seems certain that the starter against West Virginia will keep the job all year. Most people now presume that Sims will be that starter, although nothing official says so, and even the boldest guessers are quick to talk add that "things could change," even in the two remaining practices.

In his Monday press conference, Nick Saban said he was taking the "glass half full" approach, which is an optimistic one, although not quite as optimistic as the "glass completely full" view of having one (or two) sure things who are able to execute everything, even in the thickest of playbooks. There is also the glass being totally empty - neither quarterback being able to get the job done, although Saban doesn't seem apprehensive.

At any rate, this is shaping up to be the most interesting "situation" in over a decade. People whose memories extend that far also remember that "interesting" quarterback situations do not always translate into "enjoyable" ones.

That brings us to the stretch from 1997 through 2001. Things were dysfunctional in many ways during those years, the 1999 SEC championship notwithstanding. In 1997, a proven veteran in Freddie Kitchens was shuffled around, mainly because the coaching staff was mired in a losing disaster and was willing to try anything so as to appear that they were doing something. In 1998, with Kitchens gone, the staff settled on John David Phillips, then had to give up on him entirely after four games. That move actually worked out. Andrew Zow did pretty well in 1998 and 1999 (yes, Shaun Alexander helped) but when the staff started to flail around again, the two-year Zow/Watts controversy was born.

So will this season mirror those in terms of chaos? Or were those seasons doomed to chaos, not because two (or more) quarterbacks saw action, but because the coaching staff was madly trying anything that might work?

Whatever happens to Alabama this season, that won't be the case. Say what you will about Alabama, but there is nothing dysfunctional at the top. Saban knows what he needs to do to win games, and he will eventually settle on a quarterback that gives him the best chance to do that, perhaps not in Week One, but soon afterwards. (For all the apprehension about Lane Kiffin among Alabama fans, Saban is in charge of things.)

That doesn't mean Alabama will win every game. The quarterback situation was perfectly stable with a proven BCS champion in 2010 and Alabama still lost three games. The SEC is that unforgiving.

Has the situation been a perfect storybook tale of uninterrupted succession? No. But that does not automatically mean it will be a horror story either.
 
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