🏈 QB depth and injuries...the last two decades starting with 2004.

[TerryP]

I friend of mine ran into this conversation somewhere on the 'net the last weeks. I thought it was interesting in retrospect.

Starting with '04. I'd imagine you guys remember the injuries the team went through that season. We were watching Marc Guillon come in and a lot had some hope. (Funny how his transfer affected opinions on when Coker transferred in.) Sobering thinking about how we were watching Marc because the other other choices were hurt or just...well, servicable QB's: Pennington, Avalos, and Crowley. Injury, after injury, after...

Saban comes in, 2007. Have you considered how many games we saw over his tenure where the starting QB missed the game due to injury? Here's weird. We saw four QB's in '04, Tua missed four starts in his time in Tuscaloosa. Bryce missed one. There's a total of five games in Saban's tenure were the starter missed and the #2 got the nod. Five over a career here versus four in one season.

 

[rammerjammer]

I firmly believe that was due to strength and conditioning. Shula had always been around the pro's where they had self motivation from multi million dollar contracts. IIRC, we had just opened a start of the art weight room when Saban arrived and the first thing he did was take out the TV's and revamp it to make it even larger.

I think it was in the book "Turn Around" about Bear coming back to the U of A. In the book someone is recalling a recruiting trip to Bama and Coach Bryant was taking him around campus and showing him different things. He took him to the infamous "lower gym" where they had hellacious workouts. Bear told the recruit that you would think that most championships are won on the field, but he said; here, is where we actually win them.


Another thing, Saban emphasized toughness. He created a league mentality. Last thing you wanted to do was lose your job to a rookie because you were not tough enough to play through an injury that was that bad. Lot of guys were dinged up year in and year out that we knew nothing about.