In the last three games he was 31 for 65 for 326. that's a train wreck, especially when the completion % is somewhat padded by the jet-sweeps so the actual is way less than 50% completion rate. Take out a couple of the big plays like I mentioned (OJ in championship game and that's only 30 for 64 and 260ish).
How Nick Saban Described Alabama's Unique QB Situation
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In the last three games he was 31 for 65 for 326. that's a train wreck, especially when the completion % is somewhat padded by the jet-sweeps so the actual is way less than 50% completion rate. Take out a couple of the big plays like I mentioned (OJ in championship game and that's only 30 for 64 and 260ish).
I agree with this for the most part but you can't just take out big plays. Most QBs have bad stats if you just take out big plays.
Train Wreck in the last 3 games? Let's take a look:
I'm going back to Chattanooga game on 11/19
11/19- Chattanooga 71 percent, 15/21 for 136 yards completing 71 percent. 3 tds
11/26- Auburn 75 percent, 27/36 for 286 yards 2 touchdown and 2 ints.
12/3 - Florida 55 percent, 11/20 for 138 yards 1 touchdown
12/31- Washington , 50 percent, 7 for 14 for 57 yards
1/9 - Clemson 13/31, 41.9 percent for 131 yards with 1 touch down .
Train wreck? I don't think so. His accurary decreased over the last 5 games, but there were several factors that played into it. Washington game- I believe we ran a lot in the game. That was a poor game management in which Saban and the staff was not happy with Kiffin's playcalling in the game.
Clemson game- He did lead the team in the game winning drive and if we had kept defense off the field in 3rd down, we would've won the championship.
In only 3 games this season he dropped below 100.0 Qb rating and that was against LSU, Washington and Clemson.
Remember he did all of those things as a FRESHMEN. HE took a team with lot of experience and lead them to national championship. His performance against Ole miss is something to remember for long time. What we saw last year, we won't probably see it again because Hurts will be lot better. Any good quarterback will improve. Look at Lamar Jackson.
He improved from year 1 to year 2. His completion rate was 56 percent in year 2. Jalen Hurt was 62.8 percent in year 1.
IF we can drop the discussion about the pass/run plays and focused on what he was able to do for the team, and helped generated lot of positive play whether it was a pass or run, That's something worth knowing he was a freshmen. Cut him a break. There are too much expectations placed on the young man and we just gotta back up and let him do what he does best. We will know a lot about Hurt in scrimmages and over the summer, but From what I was told, he has improved a lot in the off season.
I'm going back to Chattanooga game on 11/19
11/19- Chattanooga 71 percent, 15/21 for 136 yards completing 71 percent. 3 tds
11/26- Auburn 75 percent, 27/36 for 286 yards 2 touchdown and 2 ints.
12/3 - Florida 55 percent, 11/20 for 138 yards 1 touchdown
12/31- Washington , 50 percent, 7 for 14 for 57 yards
1/9 - Clemson 13/31, 41.9 percent for 131 yards with 1 touch down .
Train wreck? I don't think so. His accurary decreased over the last 5 games, but there were several factors that played into it. Washington game- I believe we ran a lot in the game. That was a poor game management in which Saban and the staff was not happy with Kiffin's playcalling in the game.
Clemson game- He did lead the team in the game winning drive and if we had kept defense off the field in 3rd down, we would've won the championship.
In only 3 games this season he dropped below 100.0 Qb rating and that was against LSU, Washington and Clemson.
Remember he did all of those things as a FRESHMEN. HE took a team with lot of experience and lead them to national championship. His performance against Ole miss is something to remember for long time. What we saw last year, we won't probably see it again because Hurts will be lot better. Any good quarterback will improve. Look at Lamar Jackson.
He improved from year 1 to year 2. His completion rate was 56 percent in year 2. Jalen Hurt was 62.8 percent in year 1.
IF we can drop the discussion about the pass/run plays and focused on what he was able to do for the team, and helped generated lot of positive play whether it was a pass or run, That's something worth knowing he was a freshmen. Cut him a break. There are too much expectations placed on the young man and we just gotta back up and let him do what he does best. We will know a lot about Hurt in scrimmages and over the summer, but From what I was told, he has improved a lot in the off season.
To some degree that's true, but when the completion rate is that low, it shows exactly how big of a problem we had sustaining drives. We either hit big plays or we went three and out, as I stated earlier. In addition to the three and outs, we had 3 drives of only 4 plays and 3 that were only 5. Yes we scored on some of those drives, but it creates a systemic challenge in that our offense was completely unable to take over a game and sustain a long time consuming drive to allow our defense to recover. Even early when the D got off the field, in a few downs, they were most often right back on the field with little opportunity to rest.
The D held clemson to 7 points in the first half. In the second half we didn't have a SINGLE drive that lasted more than 4 plays or consumed more that 1:45 of clock time until the last drive and only then because we went for it on 4th down.
This is a comparison I find fascinating, since in a slightly different reality Eason could have been the starter for Alabama instead of Hurts. And I think that would have been bad news for Alabama. Eason did fine as a true freshman! I'm not trying to bash him, and it seems like Georgia fans understand this and appreciate he'll only get better. But, he did considerably worse than Jalen by virtually any measure.
Here's Eason's stats: 2,430 yards, 16 TDs/8 INTs, 55% completion percentage (for the season! not just against tough competition), 120 rating, all those numbers are well behind Jalen. Let's not forget Georgia went 8-5 and played the 48th toughest schedule. So, Jalen did considerably better as a passer, against tougher competition! I'll reiterate Jalen actually had a higher average as well. So, the touchdown numbers and averages show Eason wasn't commanding some lethal downfield game while Hurts was struggling to do the same. Here's where it gets silly though, not only did Hurts win 6 more games, but he accounted for 1,385 more yards and 19 more touchdowns! So, how on earth is it that Georgia fans are happy with their QB and some Alabama fans are not happy with theirs? That just blows my mind.
To your question specifically, the thing isn't that Eason makes some throws better, because surely he does, but that overall as a passer he got inferior results. For instance though, on short passes to his right (beyond the line of scrimmage), Hurts was in the top 20% of college passers in terms of completion percentage. Now are those easier passes? Yup, they are, but he still was better at it than most college QBs, and they still count, they still result in yards, etc... so my whole thing is you have to look at the body of work, not just snapshots like some people seem to do.
Lamar Jackson's numbers as a true freshman: 54.7% completion (once again for the season, against weaker competition to), 12 TDs/ 8 INTs, 126.8 rating. Rushed for 960 yards and 11 TDs. Hurts was better than all those stats (except total rushing yards, he was 6 behind) as a true freshman. The following season? Lamar Jackson won the Heisman and improved on all those stats. And to me that's really what all this comes down to. I still am not sure what world some people are living in, that they really thought that somehow Hurts could have done better than he did. Best ever not good enough? Really? No true freshman ever, has come in and been the best passer in college football, it's never happened. Add to that, the fact that Hurts played the toughest schedule, and yet I see some people like oh yeah he had a lot of success against weaker teams, yes like every other college quarterback! No one is going to go out against top ten defenses and rack up all their big numbers, it just doesn't happen. AJ against LSU in 2011 season, he threw for 0 TDs and 1 INT. That's in two games! Did anyone question AJ though? Nope, because they managed to arrive to the completely rational conclusion that may be he wasn't going to have his big games against the best defenses. That's the rational conclusion to reach. His best games in 2011? They came against Vanderbilt and Georgia Southern...
And then, as though that's not enough, some people want to pretend like Hurts didn't have a major issue with play callers. He did remarkably well considering the situation. You throw most QBs, true freshman or not out there into the situation he faced and they would have been dead meat. He maintained his composure, even when the defense knew what was coming, and made the most of an incredibly tough situation. Look, if Hurts regresses I'll be worried. If he's struggling after his first four games I will be concerned about the situation. But how can a rational persona look at a true freshman QB, facing brutal defenses, with major issues at playcaller, and still doing everything it took to win, and arrive to the conclusion that there's a major problem? What did they expect? That to me is the definition of entitled fans, that somehow expect everything Alabama does to be light years ahead of every other team.
It might be so long since Alabama fans really saw what a train wreck looked like, that they have simply forgotten. A train wreck was Marc Guillon at quarterback, with a 77.5 rating, not against elite teams either mind you, against Western Carolina and middling SEC teams. That's what a train wreck looks like...
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I mean he threw for 347 yards and 2tds at 48% completion percentage in 3 games. That's rough no matter how you look at it.
A lot to respond to here so because it's how I organize my thoughts I'm going to itemize this.
1. The Eason vs Hurts comparison is flawed from both sides for a few reasons. Eason didn't have the same amount of talent around him that Hurts had and because Eason is much more of a drop back passer and Hurts is much more of a runner their stats are basically like comparing players from different positions. For example comparing sack totals of a 4-3 DT in a scheme where his job is to rush the passer vs a NT in a 3-4. Their jobs may seem similar but they are asked to do completely different things so the stats aren't great for comparing. Also, being a mobile QB tends to make the initial transition to a higher level much easier. RGIII vs Luck rookie years are a decent comparison on the NFL level.
2. I agree it is important to look at the whole picture you have to do so in context of the conversation. If people just want to talk about Eason vs Hurts as players it seems obvious to me that Hurts is the better player at this point. But better passer? different story.
3. I think most Bama fans are happy with Hurts just anxious about his progression as a passer. Which I think is reasonable because this is new territory under Saban. I doubt most fans are in sky is falling mode.
4. People are putting way too much on play calling. I will agree that at times the play calling could be suspect but part of the play calling issues stem from the fact that our starting QB couldn't throw all that well. You become severely limited as a play caller when you have a QB that (by the end of the season) couldn't throw pass 10 yards with any consistency. If anything I think play calling was more limited by Hurts than vice versa at least during the post season.
5. I don't think you can get mad at fans who have high expectations and then use Lamar Jackson as a comparison. That seems to fall under high expectations.
All of this to say that I personally am not super concerned about Hurts yet. He will get all the starting reps this year and should progress. If he doesn't, then I will become seriously concerned. There is a lot to like about Hurts at QB but I think we can all be honest and point out that he struggled mightily as a passer throughout the season and only seemed to get worse later on.
AJ's QBR against LSU in 2011 was 109.7 and 125.46 and that was a stacked LSU team. His yards per attempt was approx 7. Even though these games were not his best and were lower that his average, they're still very good games
Jalen's QBR against the two best teams he played: 84.2 against UW and 88.09 against Clemson. his yards per attempt was barely over 4. that's poor. No other way to look at it.
that's why no one complained about what AJ did v LSU.
I already said that Jalen had an awesome regular season. He exceeded every possible expectation. however, a weakness was exposed in his ability to distribute the ball to the entire field, and it was fully exploited in the playoffs. If we hope to make another title run, that weakness has to be addressed. If it's not, we'll likely struggle against the stronger teams on the schedule unless the power running game can carry the load.
We're not putting too much on play calling. If anything, we're putting too little.
Saban clearly didn't force the issue and Lane was more interested in slaying booze and coeds than in slaying defenses.
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Saban clearly didn't force the issue and Lane was more interested in slaying booze and coeds than in slaying defenses.
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That's because we do not know if Jalen limited the plays called, or the plays called limited Jalen. All we see is the result. The plays called were limited. But I don't blame Kiffin for the pattern of plays called in those late games. By then, you are who you are and you have to win or lose based on that. If Kiffin is to blame, it is because of things that he did or didn't do much earlier in the year.
What I don't understand is why are we comparing Hurts to Eason, to AJ, etc? Hurts is different QB. it doesn't make sense to compare a player who has different playing style, different circumstances and such.
I get comparisons - it's what we do. What I don't get is the inclination to treat Jalen as a true freshman in game 15. He was a seasoned veteran in that game. He was not a "true freshman". And, more to the point, it really doesn't matter at that point because he is either good enough, or he is not. Once you are in the game, nothing else matters - everything else is just noise. In that game, he was good enough. The team as a whole was not.
Curious about this. Earlier in the season Jalen threw deep passes but was off. After a few games, Lane seemed to go away from those calls and stick with the things he knew Jalen could do. Almost like "Welp. Lost cause there. Let's go with what we know he can do."
By doing that, the passing game didn't improve as a whole.
So at what point in this upcoming season does he go from a true sophomore to a true junior? Because we're discussing the stats aspect of it. His numbers compared to fellow true freshmen are better. No other true freshman faced the schedule he did, yet he had great numbers.
I disagree with this. I understand your logic but I believe that in most cases a player's development IN-SEASON has a ceiling on it. Because of the nature of the practices and the goal being week to week game preparation that leaves little time to finesse points of need in a player's game. So instead of working on throwing mechanics he has to watch film and memorize a game plan. Obviously this leads to a player being able to develop significantly in some areas and stagnate in others. All that to say is that while he was seasoned with game experience by the end of the season, Jalen was still a freshman on the finer finesse point of downfield passing and the complexity of the passing game and reading talented college secondaries. His game experience made him a really excellent player for our team, though.
I think its hard to blame anyone for this. Lane was coaching a team that is competing for a NC every year. I imagine its really hard to call plays when you have a TF QB and you need to balance winning every game with developing him as a passer. Do you take more risks to push your QB to develop and possibly lose a game? or do you take the conservative approach, win the way you can and possibly hinder the QBs development and play for a NC. I think its pretty clear which he/they chose. Personally, I wish they had named Hurts the starter during fall camp. If you are going to play a TF at QB then you need to get him as many practice reps as possible. I know they were still trying to give BB8 a chance but it just seemed wrong to split all of those practice reps. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
I'm sure those are exactly the questions Lane was asking himself during the season.
Did you see how much better AJ and Coker became in their first season as starters? All were much better passers and much better decision makers by the end of their first season as starters, and all looked like they were not going to work out in their early games. You absolutely develop in the middle of a season - especially your first season. Frankly, this board is the only place that I have ever seen it suggested otherwise. AJ beat LSU with his arm in 2011 in the BCSCG. The same AJ who struggled to complete a pass against the same team at home in November.
AJ was 16-28 in the first game, which wasn't horrible. The problem from that game was Mac not taking chances and being fairly conservative. The play-calling was pretty dang tight.
On this point we will have to agree to disagree because while I thought he had a great season, IMO he was not good enough in that game. An 88 QBR just doesn't cut it. Less than 50% passing isn't good enough. a majority of the drives having 4 plays or less (with 40% of the total being 3 and out) isn't good enough. Especially when the defense wasn't doing anything exotic - playing a basic cover 3 with perhaps 4 variants.
Let's say Cole Cubelic is correct in that there were six dropped passes from the game. That puts Jalen at 19-31 and probably close to 200 yards. Drives last longer, so the defense isn't as tired, and Bama probably scores more points.
But let's continue to hammer home Jalen's issues from the game.
I think you might both be right here. Jalen did progress in some areas of the game as the season went on and I think that's fair to expect. He clearly improved as a runner as the season went on. However, I think Jalen is completely different from AJ and Coker in a few ways. 1. He is a mobile QB first so when you are trying to win games you don't push his development as a passer as much because he has his legs to fall back on. 2. Jalen was a true freshman with very little time in the offense and had to learn a playbook that Coker and AJ had a year to get under their belts before starting. 3. I think its possible that Jalen did improve in ways that aren't tangible because he needs to work on the basics of being a passer. So, it seems possible that AJ and Coker improvement came from a better understanding the playbook more and/or seeing the field and defense better. Jalen could have had similar improvement in these areas but his need to learn how to be a real passer limited that improvements impact on his game. Idk I may be just off on a tangent here and this may make 0 sense but I feel that Jalen was/is in a really unique situation so its hard to compare with almost anybody especially when it comes to more abstract conversations.
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