I've learned 2 things over the past 2 seasons:
1. We'll have a QB
2. Kiffin will have them ready to play
1. We'll have a QB
2. Kiffin will have them ready to play
Link: Cooper Bateman to Work Around Super Bowl Winning QBs
- Thread starter RTR91
- Start date
It cracks me up that are so many definitive statements about player abilities, especially when we've seen so little of them in real action. I'd expect to see a lot more "it doesn't appear to me..." or "I don't think..." type of statements, but no, we have opinions posted as facts based on virtually zero evidence...
It's actually quite amusing.
It's actually quite amusing.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've looked up scrimmage, A-Day, and season stats. I even looked up high school stats. It's one thing to watch a single A-Day game, or just one football game and take away something, but at some point a body of work starts to emerge. I'm not questioning Cooper Bateman as a quarterback, and to reiterate I thought I might have been unfair in trying to judge him as a dual-threat QB. Hurts for example has posted more rushing stats in a single scrimmage than I'm aware of Bateman having in total. It's not fair to compare the rushing abilities of those two.
As a dual threat QB his performance against Ole Miss was lousy. He didn't run when he had the chance, he attempted 0 rushes, Coker is the one who runs for 58 yards (his best game rushing). If I judged him on the basis of being dual-threat I'd have to give him a failing grade. If I set that aside though? He was 11-14 with the one INT. That's easier to stomach if you stop expecting him to run when he had the chance. Would we have expected AJ or GMac to run against Ole Miss? If you extend that to the entire year, you are left with those 8 yards rushing vs. 291 passing. Once again, not what you look for in a dual threat QB (Sims the year before he was a starter was 167/61, obviously dual threat). Then if you carry that over to A-Day clearly Hurts and Barnett both were more elusive as runners. That's the only takeaway one could have from watching the game. It's not just that A-Day though, I can't recall seeing Bateman run in any of the A-Days, it didn't even occur to me he was a good runner until we started hearing about this athletic prowess.
The only reason I'm really stuck on this though is I do want to give the guy a fair chance. I think he can be a winning QB at Alabama, and it's possible he develops the running aspect of his game, but I don't think it's fair to him at this point to regard him as dual-threat. There's nothing wrong with throwing the ball away when he feels pressure, there's nothing wrong with looking for the pass instead of the run, that's nothing against the guy, but just because the guy has straight line speed doesn't make him a dual threat QB.
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Assuming that by "moot" you mean irrelevant (the other primary meaning of the adjective makes no sense in context in which you used it), Snuffy's point isn't moot at all.
If pure physical talent were all that mattered, Danny Woodson would be in the College Football Hall of Fame, and precious few of us would recognize the name of the freshman who supplanted him at QB during the 1991 season for reasons other than football skill. We don't yet know if Cooper Bateman has the leadership, maturity and ability to secure the ball necessary to take the position. We do know that CNS values those things as much as, if not more than, the athletic skills beyond a certain threshold that it's reasonable to assume all the competitors meet. Snuffy's point is entirely relevant here...
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Gotta say... It's a great idea to look at Cooper Bateman's 2015 A-Day QB stats when he split the spring at WR since CNS said he was one of the top athletes on the team.
Does it say more about CB or the other QBs that he split time at WR during the Spring and still won the backup job? If we are to believe the others can improve, why can't Cooper?
Does it say more about CB or the other QBs that he split time at WR during the Spring and still won the backup job? If we are to believe the others can improve, why can't Cooper?
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Well you are talking about the same people that didn't believe that Blake Sims could beat out a stud, and Jake Coker couldn't win 9 games. I think some people more want to be right about their prediction of who is qb than who can lead bama to #17. Personally I don't care as long as we win another trophy. Cooper certainly has as good of a shot as any to win the job, and he can improve and be better than his Ole Miss performance.
I hate to disagree with you because from memory, (I'm often not on the site), you are a good poster who either offers opinion or accurate facts. But Bateman's ESPN ranking was 44 nationally with a scout grade of 87 which is much higher than Hurts' not even being in ESPN's top 300 with a grade of 80. Though both were 4 stars, as you noted, Bateman was ranked far higher than Hurts. In the end it doesn't matter because that was just ESPN's best guess from HS. All that matters now is what you can do against college competition in the spotlight.
The following is not directed to you but to other responses to my posts in this thread. I never dreamed that comments about Bateman's speed would spark such "interest"
. A few comments:I know that there are other components to eluding the rush than speed. In fact, IMO, there are talents more important, such as pocket presence, quickness and elusiveness. But speed is also an advantage.
My comments about Bateman's speed were stated in hope rather than an argument showing his superiority. I don't think I ever said he was the superior athlete, but simply that he was a good athlete with better speed than the others. Which is true. People improve and Bateman's COLLEGE record is very sparse. And I think most have realized by now that A-Day games mean little other than showing athletic ability, otherwise Bateman would have been the QB in '14 not Blake.
Though Saban has indicated that Bateman is the best option at this time, we know that things can change, though during his reign at Bama the leading candidate coming out of spring has usually or always been the eventual starter. Again, I wish all of the kids well and believe that whoever Coach Saban eventually selects will be the best option. He's done a great job to this point.
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First, I agree with the part in bold. Secondly, I've tried to say this a few times but I do want to repeat it. Just because I don't think Bateman really has the instincts of a runner (yet at least), has nothing to do with whether or not I think he can do the job. I backed Sims the entire time (even when severely outnumbered and took a lot of crap for my defense of Sims), and I spent more than my fair share of time standing up for Coker to. There were people ready to name Cornwell and Barnett to the job and I stood by my assertion that Coker was more prepared to do the job. Not trying to come off as bashing Bateman, though I keep saying that it should be reiterated. I'd like to be wrong about Bateman's rushing ability to, I would, I'd love to see him go out there with an extra weapon. But it's not necessary and I don't think it's fair to put that label on him at this point in time.
It's also worth mentioning that the Bateman dual-threat talk didn't originate in this thread or recently, but it got going when he re-emerged as a candidate for the job last year. He was recruited as a pro-style quarterback, he played as a pro-style quarterback, and somewhere around being tried out as receiver, the fact that he was a great athlete emerged. This wasn't an issue, but I think it became one around the time of the Ole Miss game. By then he was considered the dual-threat option (by nothing other than pure speculation) so when he played against Ole Miss that's what I and others expected to see. It wasn't what we saw though, and it wasn't what we saw all season, it's nothing something we've ever seen from him at Alabama. At this point I'm far more content with comparing him to someone like GMac, it seems like the more reasonable thing to do.
I look at it this way. Blake Sims was probably the most athletic QB we've ever had and he was a pocket QB the vast majority of the time. We called very few QB runs for Blake Sims but he was able to make some key plays (unscripted plays) with his legs. Additionally, we don't know what the coaches told Bateman going into the A day scrimmage. It would make sense that the offense is not predicated on calling QB runs so the coaches told Bateman to stay in the pocket and make reads/throws down the field. Also, Bateman was playing against the first team defense i.e. Tim Williams and the QBs were declared down once a defender got a finger on them. That's not really a fair assessment to compare Bateman's rush production vs the 1st team when Hurts and Barnett were going against the 2nd team. Hurts would not have been able to run much at all against the 1st team defense under the A day rules regarding black shirts for the QBs. I think when people mention Bateman as a duel threat guy it's more about making those unscripted running plays rather than calling QB run plays. That's probably why there's not many rush yards for Bateman in the A day games - called QBs runs aren't really integrated into the offense..
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IOW, fans started realizing Bateman's athleticism when Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin thought enough of him to play him at WR some.
Ha! I forgot this thread was about SuperBowl QBs...will donovan mcnabb be there?
Not intending to restart this discussion but I was wrong about Hurts' speed. I watched the spring game recently and they twice said that he had run a 4.5 at Bama. I was going by his ESPN profile which said he ran 4.85 in the 40.
As talented as Hurts is I don't think he can make a play this year. In an offense like Auburn or Ole Miss where it's a one read sling it or run to daylight he could start immediately but the teams running pro set offenses require vastly more mental work, experience and preparation. The question is do you want to play more snaps now or do you want to be better prepared for an NFL roster spot. I do believe Hurts will be our starter at some point in his career, I just don't know when.
Did you watch Blake Sims play QB in 2014? He didn't often read the defense for his progressions.
He did have success doing that, and while we all love Blake, I'd argue that it's more desirable to have a QB who CAN go through his progressions fluidly than one who can only make the first read. If there is one on this roster I think that gives him an advantage over Hurts early on. Hurts could probably have success playing similar to Sims but I think he'd have even more success being able to identify his 2nd or 3rd target. Hard to deny that Hurts was very exciting to watch.
One thing I should note is that despite my saying that Hurts is clearly a better runner, at this point in time I'd say Bateman is clearly the better candidate to start. Bateman has the best grasp of the offense and while I have openly questioned if he has the instincts of a runner, he seems to check the boxes in terms of what Alabama requires their quarterbacks to be able to do.
The flip side though, is that after watching Hurts at A-Day, I also would have to say I can't rule him out completely. He was with the team during the championship game preparation, he was there for the spring, and he'll be there for the fall. This makes him a fair bit further along than most true freshman. He's a long shot, but if he continues to progress it is a possibility, albeit a longshot.
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Of course, we would prefer a guy that can make his reads over a guy that has one read. I was just commenting on the idea since Blake showed that's not always the case:
Strictly my opinion here, but Sims proved that when the team believes in you and plays on another level when the qb the team believes in is in the game you don't have to be the most talented player at qb. Especially when you have an OC who is willing to play to the offenses strengths as opposed to making the offense do things they just aren't that good at.
To be clear, I obviously am not the coach and I don't make the decisions on these things and will support whomever the coaches feel gives the team the best chance to win.
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