HURT: Same QB question, same Saban non-answer
September 4, 2015
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
The last Nick Saban media opportunity of the preseason involved the same question as the first one, and all the ones in between: who is going to be the starting quarterback for the University of Alabama?
And the last answer, unless Saban decides to reveal his choice to the ESPN Gameday crew on Saturday morning, was the same as the first: Saban isn't telling.
Perhaps he waggled his cards by the tiniest bit as his answer on his weekly radio show (I was the media guest, so I asked the question) seemed to indicate two quarterbacks - not three, and certainly not five - would see action against Wisconsin. Saban had not been quite that specific with numbers before, although he didn't mention any names.
"Look, we have two guys that have really done a nice job in the last couple weeks that we have confidence in, that I believe in that can win the game and do a really good job with the quarterback position," Saban said.
It takes mere seconds after any Saban quarterback comment before the microscopes come out, looking for clues down to the molecular level. The ensuing comment, therefore, was assigned a multitude of meanings.
"Neither one of them have really ever done it in the game, so to me, the final sorta proof in the pudding is who can go do it best in the game," Saban said. "So how do you know who can do that. You can only speculate, as a coach, how they did in practice."
Jake Coker, the senior candidate for the job and last year's backup, has, technically, been in games. On the other hand, maybe Saban wasn't talking about coming into a contest that has already been decided. Maybe not having "ever really done it in a game" means getting the start, playing with a 0-0 score and making the plays that make the difference. Coker hasn't done that.
So he may have been talking about Cooper Bateman and Alec Morris, or maybe he meant, as many people have assumed in the past couple of weeks, that Coker/Bateman or Coker/Morris will be the tandem. Certainly, he said "two," but I wouldn't leap to the conclusion that he eliminated Coker in any way.
As usual, Saban chose not to explicate his remarks.
"When you have two guys that are doing pretty well that you're really pleased with, why do you have to choose?," he said. "Maybe it's best to give two guys an opportunity at some point in time in the game. Then they both have the opportunity to prove what they can do in the game, which is ultimately the most important thing to our team.
"Our team totally gets that. They understand what we're doing."
For most of the show, even during the quarterback questions, Saban was upbeat. He even got a chuckle when asked if he was "miserable," an inevitable question since that purported misery has been a hot topic of Internet reportage this week.
"We are happier than ever that we are here from a family standpoint especially," Saban said. "Our children both live in Birmingham, our grandbaby is in Birmingham, we have a business in Birmingham. We have more friends in Alabama than we've ever had at any place we've ever lived."
He just isn't telling any of those friends who the quarterback will be - not until he absolutely has to.
September 4, 2015
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
The last Nick Saban media opportunity of the preseason involved the same question as the first one, and all the ones in between: who is going to be the starting quarterback for the University of Alabama?
And the last answer, unless Saban decides to reveal his choice to the ESPN Gameday crew on Saturday morning, was the same as the first: Saban isn't telling.
Perhaps he waggled his cards by the tiniest bit as his answer on his weekly radio show (I was the media guest, so I asked the question) seemed to indicate two quarterbacks - not three, and certainly not five - would see action against Wisconsin. Saban had not been quite that specific with numbers before, although he didn't mention any names.
"Look, we have two guys that have really done a nice job in the last couple weeks that we have confidence in, that I believe in that can win the game and do a really good job with the quarterback position," Saban said.
It takes mere seconds after any Saban quarterback comment before the microscopes come out, looking for clues down to the molecular level. The ensuing comment, therefore, was assigned a multitude of meanings.
"Neither one of them have really ever done it in the game, so to me, the final sorta proof in the pudding is who can go do it best in the game," Saban said. "So how do you know who can do that. You can only speculate, as a coach, how they did in practice."
Jake Coker, the senior candidate for the job and last year's backup, has, technically, been in games. On the other hand, maybe Saban wasn't talking about coming into a contest that has already been decided. Maybe not having "ever really done it in a game" means getting the start, playing with a 0-0 score and making the plays that make the difference. Coker hasn't done that.
So he may have been talking about Cooper Bateman and Alec Morris, or maybe he meant, as many people have assumed in the past couple of weeks, that Coker/Bateman or Coker/Morris will be the tandem. Certainly, he said "two," but I wouldn't leap to the conclusion that he eliminated Coker in any way.
As usual, Saban chose not to explicate his remarks.
"When you have two guys that are doing pretty well that you're really pleased with, why do you have to choose?," he said. "Maybe it's best to give two guys an opportunity at some point in time in the game. Then they both have the opportunity to prove what they can do in the game, which is ultimately the most important thing to our team.
"Our team totally gets that. They understand what we're doing."
For most of the show, even during the quarterback questions, Saban was upbeat. He even got a chuckle when asked if he was "miserable," an inevitable question since that purported misery has been a hot topic of Internet reportage this week.
"We are happier than ever that we are here from a family standpoint especially," Saban said. "Our children both live in Birmingham, our grandbaby is in Birmingham, we have a business in Birmingham. We have more friends in Alabama than we've ever had at any place we've ever lived."
He just isn't telling any of those friends who the quarterback will be - not until he absolutely has to.
