This game was tremendously frustrating for evaluating the QB position.
1. Bateman: It appears the game plan was to use his athleticism to exploit the read option. Saban even hinted at it during the postgame interview. It was open the entire first quarter and I kept wondering why Bateman would continuously hand it off instead of take it himself after seeing the DE collapse and no sign of an OLB on the backside. I am wondering now if Bateman wasnt benched bc of that as opposed to the interception. The story I'm telling myself is that he didn't (for whatever reason) perform the gameplan that was specifically designed for him. Which to the coaching staff may be unforgivable. However, his accuracy on passes was pretty good (11/14), I dont recall any stupid penalties and he seemed to be managing the position very well. He got pulled pretty early so it's hard to have an overall opinion.
2. Coker: Came into a game behind and with a team completely out of sorts. So he felt the pressure to try to force plays. 1st- he has the heart of a lion and I loved the way he competed and worked for yardage even when the defense was hanging all over him. Accuracy was erratic (21/45), plays took a long time to snap the ball (not sure if that is solely his fault but it certainly seemed more chaotic with him in), and there were multiple times where the play clock ran out or we needed a TO to save a penalty. He threw into triple coverage, stared down receivers, threw what should have been 2 additional interceptions, was generally slow to release the ball. He is a 5th yr senior and still makes rookie mistakes. Is this his upside limit? Or was this him trying to force plays bc of us playing behind? As a 5th yr senior, this may be who he is: erratic, but competes hard.
So who do you go with? Both have positives, but I dont think you can rely on either one to lead the team. If you put Barnett in before he is ready, are you just hurting him in the long term? This may be why the coaching staff doesn't have a good answer. Maybe there isnt a good answer. It has to be amazingly frustrating to the staff.