News Article: College football expert Phil Savage comments on Jalen Hurts's improvement

Nolan said:

As Hurts so maturely says, "Everyone is entitled to their opinion."

I'm ECSTATIC he's our QB. Am I the only one that sees the improvement already?

Click to expand...

I love him to death. Jalen is an AWESOME player. He's one of my all-time favorites already. He's clutch and impervious to being overwhelmed. Tough kid....Fantastic leader.

I am seeing improvement and I feel like he's soooo close to really putting on some shows but various things are delaying it.

He's on his 3rd OC in 4 games, His OL is not giving him very much time, and the previous issue is getting in his head as the game goes on and he's fleeing the pocket prematurely sometimes (when a pocket is actually still there or at least moveable) and giving up on his WR's.

He's never rattled by turnovers(which is great) but he seems deathly afraid to have one from a pass(which is not so good ALL the time). I guess I'm trying to say he has a killer instinct when he runs because he feels good about not fumbling but seems to be way too cautious/scared to throw a ball in tight coverage for fear of a INT.....Does he not trust his own arm? Or Does he not trust his WR to win the 1-on-1? I just don't know.

But, I'm not overly impressed by the play calling of Daboll more than anything. It's not so much what plays are run....but the timing of weird calls. I honestly can't even tell what he's trying to do gameplay wise.

Like 2nd and 3 and calling a pass that leads to an incompletion or lost yardage to create an unfavorable 3rd down when a run could have picked up a new set of downs and the next play could be a pass.

Then stuff like being 1st and goal from 5-7 yrds out and running shotgun RPO formations instead of sending a lead blocker in and bulldozing 3-4 straight power runs for a TD.

Then being ahead 3 scores on a overmatched opponent in the 2nd half and calling a designed QB draw with the Starting QB. That's just asking for trouble.

I believe in Jalen 100%. I believe in our WR's 100%. I believe in CNS 100%.

I don't know what the OL's deal is and I still feel like the positional coaching there has had a LOT left to be desired since Pendry retired and Stoutland went to the NFL.

Mostly I don't feel great about Daboll at all. I feel like he's over there just picking random plays from a list of about 12 choices.

I'm hoping for the best and that this whole post makes me look stupid a month from now...lol.

Until we boat race a top shelf defense, I'm going to be cautiously optimistic.

Just turned 19, another factor that doesn't get enough attention

Nolan said:

As Hurts so maturely says, "Everyone is entitled to their opinion."

I'm ECSTATIC he's our QB. Am I the only one that sees the improvement already?

Click to expand...

I do, but I'm over arguing about it. The Offensive Player of the Year in the SEC who orchestrated a remarkable drive and scored what should have been the winning touchdown in the national title game if the defense had simply held for two minutes, and he's still criticized and scrutinized more than any Bama player I've ever seen. I admire his performance and I think he's a very good quarterback who will continue to improve and simply get better and better.
As far as being able to beat "quality teams like Clemson", what exactly does the OP think we are?
Hey man! They're starting a freshman QB and they scored a whopping 14 against Auburn!
I swear I'm beginning to think there are a ton of Bama fans who would start a thread, after winning the national championship game 75-0 over a combination of Oklahoma, Clemson and Ohio State's starters, titled, "Bama's Punting Game Has To Improve By .3 Yards A Kick If We're Going To Repeat". And that would be 15 minutes after the championship game was over.
Be miserable if you want and worry your butts off. I'm loving where Bama football is right now!
RTR! And Let's beat Colorado State!
sip

tusks_n_raider said:

But, I'm not overly impressed by the play calling of Daboll more than anything. It's not so much what plays are run....but the timing of weird calls. I honestly can't even tell what he's trying to do gameplay wise.

Click to expand...

I'd like to give him a benefit of a doubt, but I suppose we have to keep in mind this was kind of an emergency hire by Alabama. They lose their second OC really, long after most staffs have already been hired. They get a guy with virtually no college experience and a spotty resume as an NFL offensive coordinator. This doesn't mean he's a bad OC, or that he's going to struggle, but it also means he's probably not as seamless a transition as some would like to imagine.

I'm not sure yet where he's going with the offense, but I think growing pains have to be expected. Hopefully though he can both do what he needs to do to get accustomed to the role of college OC while still developing Hurts properly. I'm sure there's a strong temptation to just rely on his legs from a playcalling perspective as well.

I think Jalen is just great. He is playing just like CNS wants him to play and just like CNS tells him to play. I don't know if CNS and staff will ever turn him lose to play like Lamar Jackson, but that isn't on Jalen that is on the coaching staff.

KrAzY3 said:

I'm not sure yet where he's going with the offense, but I think growing pains have to be expected. Hopefully though he can both do what he needs to do to get accustomed to the role of college OC while still developing Hurts properly. I'm sure there's a strong temptation to just rely on his legs from a playcalling perspective as well.

Click to expand...

This is a big thing that concerns me. I mean I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while but hopefully he's not just robotically calling plays like a CPU team in a video game. He's gotta be aware that there is a time to call Jalen's # to Run and a time to protect his Starters health. We can't hit reset on the XBOX if He gets injured running a QB draw in a blowout win in the 2nd half.

He's gotta be aware that it's NOT the pros where you can go sign or trade for another QB mid-season. Our backup is a True Freshman too and even though Tua looks extremely talented too we probably would be better served not trying to see if we can have another Record season by a TF. The odds are just against that.

I get that guys can't play tentative in football fearing injury, but there's a difference in Jalen running an RPO or scrambling vs Calling a play especially for him to run in a decided game. It's a risk/reward situation.

I also understand that we don't want to eliminate Jalen's skills too...but for normal circumstances we have FIVE stud scholarship RB's to take the carries. There is just no sense in opening him up to taking extra hits or shoving him into the opposing D's teeth like he's Tim Tebow indestructable.

Maybe I'm just extra jittery about it because of the current LB situation and being overly cautious and critical ....but it just doesn't seem like a smart tactic or habit to fall into before we even get into SEC play.

If Daboll starts showing a tendency to have creative trouble generating rushing yards without calling Jalen designed plays then we will be in trouble for sure. That would be LSU level lack of awareness/creativity.

I'm probably just being a worry wort.....but Jalen is THE #1 guy we can not afford to lose for any extended period. I guess that shows my respect of his talent and how much he means to the team.

Isn't this guy like 19 years old....chill out people. He's going to be one of the great ones when he's all done.

RTR


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Alasippi said:

I do, but I'm over arguing about it. The Offensive Player of the Year in the SEC who orchestrated a remarkable drive and scored what should have been the winning touchdown in the national title game if the defense had simply held for two minutes, and he's still criticized and scrutinized more than any Bama player I've ever seen. I admire his performance and I think he's a very good quarterback who will continue to improve and simply get better and better.
As far as being able to beat "quality teams like Clemson", what exactly does the OP think we are?
Hey man! They're starting a freshman QB and they scored a whopping 14 against Auburn!
I swear I'm beginning to think there are a ton of Bama fans who would start a thread, after winning the national championship game 75-0 over a combination of Oklahoma, Clemson and Ohio State's starters, titled, "Bama's Punting Game Has To Improve By .3 Yards A Kick If We're Going To Repeat". And that would be 15 minutes after the championship game was over.
Be miserable if you want and worry your butts off. I'm loving where Bama football is right now!
RTR! And Let's beat Colorado State!
sip

Click to expand...

To blame the clemson loss on the Bama d is crazy. If the offense had done anything the second half, just one long time consuming drive, or multiple short ones the defense isnt so exhausted. A team cant run 99 plays if your offense is doing its job.

TUSCALOOSAHONOR said:

A team cant run 99 plays if your offense is doing its job.

Click to expand...

A team can't run 99 plays if the defense is doing its job either. Blame falls both ways. Hurts had to score to put Alabama back ahead. He did. The defense had to get one stop to win the game, they didn't... Now I don't blame the defense so much as I blame the OC situation, injuries, and Watson. But, Hurts sure as heck falls pretty low on the list of things to blame the loss on. He did his part, he kept his team ahead.

KrAzY3 said:

A team can't run 99 plays if the defense is doing its job either. Blame falls both ways. Hurts had to score to put Alabama back ahead. He did. The defense had to get one stop to win the game, they didn't... Now I don't blame the defense so much as I blame the OC situation, injuries, and Watson. But, Hurts sure as heck falls pretty low on the list of things to blame the loss on. He did his part, he kept his team ahead.

Click to expand...

Not only that, but IIRC, there were 6 drops and 4 or 5 throwaways because of the OL. The OC abandoned the running game after Bo went out. In a loss, there are any number of circumstances and people to blame, but Jalen gets more than an inordinate share.

Aside from his physical gifts, his ability to bounce back or rise to the occasion is better than I've ever seen. Just off the top of my head: everyone remembers the OM game after the hit, scoop and score, he threw maybe his best pass of the year leading to a TD; the A&M game as soon as they went ahead he led a drive to regain the lead; the UT game, after his bumbling fumble, he lead the team to another TD; the only time Clemson went ahead, he regained the lead; the only time FSU took the lead, he immediately threw the bomb to Ridley. Again, I've never seen any QB or player rise to the occasion like him - it's amazing. He is Pat Trammel in spades, with much more talent. IMO, his phenomenal leadership is the primary, maybe the only, reason Bama has a legit opportunity to win a title this year.

Not to rehash the NCG again but there was plenty of blame to go around and mainly on our coaching staff. Ultimately they didn't make adjustments at any point to counter Clemson's tactic of running a high number of plays no matter what. We never tried to slow the game down so the 3 and outs and any non-scoring drives were over FAST. That's on the Staff.

Yes Bo got hurt late.....But we still could have let the play clock go down and run Harris and Jacobs. But we just kept going 'fastball' as CNS calls it??

Our 3 phases just didn't execute as well as they should or could have so that's on the team as whole. We Won 14 games as a Team and Lost 1 as a Team.

But I'll tell you what if we play the 'single a certain player out' game....Jalen is the absolute last guy to look at for fault.

He made a MONSTEROUSLY clutch scramble play to Score the go ahead TD that 9 times out of 10 should have been the winning play, A Daniel Moore painting, and the creation of an instant Alabama Legend at QB as an 18 year old True Freshman.

Our whole perspective would be different right now riding high as Back-To Back Champions with a Returning Sophomore sensation who would attempt to lead us to the yet elusive 3-peat.

He did more than anyone could have even remotely expected of him. Despite losing that game I am still absolutely thrilled we have him for 3 more years. He made tons of clutch plays last year and never put us in a bad bind.

I'll go ahead and make a prediction right now. Selma can pull it up in Jan 2020 if not sooner.....Jalen Hurts will lead us to NC #17 before he leaves the Capstone and he'll be the MVP of the NCG game doing it.....he was 1 second from that achievement last year as an 18 year old. Think about that....marinate in it. He's only going to get better.

i love Jalen. He operates like Clint Eastwood out there. All he lacks is the cigar blunt in the corner of his mouth. It's like having the Fonz under center.

That being said, there are some lessions that should be learned from the Clemson game. Here are the facts.

i maintain that Bama took the all around greatest defense in the history of college football into that game. Scoff if your will, but that D had the all the elements of the typical great Bama D with the addition of the ability to bring withering pressure with only four down linemen rushing. In short, it was the best we ever had.

And we lost.

We lost because Clemson ran an absurd, unheard of number of plays. And that was because we lacked balance on offense.

Who can blame Jalen? Only a fool. Because Jalen was probably the greatest true freshman QB in history.

And still, one must accept that we seem to have no intermediate passing game. And this leaves us very vulnerable against teams with great offenses and solid defenses.

Now logically what can we do? What should we do?

There is is only one logical course of action. Take out an insurance policy. What sort of insurance policy? A Tua insurance policy.

Here is what I mean. Work with Jalen. Praise Jalen. But give Tua at least 20 shapes a game so that by November, If we find ourselve being croweded at the line, we can bring in a guy who can see the field and make all the throws! Right? Logical?

And it may very well be that Jalen progresses further with his game and we sail to another title. Or it may be that we have serious problems against elite teams. But this time, we have a plan B. We have a guy who is experienced enough to play in big game atmosphere. We have a guy who can make the defense pay for crowding the line.

Jalen should start. Tua should play. And Tua should be our changeup guy if needed down the line.

i will confess that I think Tua has the greatest potential of any QB we've had since Namath. And if you you read my comments in light of that, then, agree or disagree, at least you can understand where I'm coming from.

One last point. I want to make a boxing analogy. It has been said that styles make fights. Case in point ...Forman v Frazier. Both great fighters. But Frazier was the smaller man. He was a left hand dominant terror with good power who wore an opponent down with a relentless attacking style, sort of like Marciano. Forman, on the other hand, was a brute with overwhelming power. Forman destroyed Frazier both times they met. Why? Because Frazier's style left him to open to Foreman' sledgehammer punches. Both were great champs with similar records. Yet, they could have fought 100 times and Frazier would have lost them all.

Style.

My point is, a guy like Jalen can destroy most teams with his duel threat versatility. BUT, a super talented defense capable of pressuring and containing him, and forcing him to make plays with his arm, can neutralize him. See? Styles also can make the game. And while Jalen might be the answer most of the time, he might be Joe Frazier against George Forman a couple of times a year. He just may not be equipped to deal with certain defenses.

So we need an insurance policy. An Ace in the hole so to speak. And that means consistently splitting time. All Tua needs is some in game experience. Then can be that guy. That relief pitcher or changeup. That insurance policy.

Alasippi said:

I do, but I'm over arguing about it. The Offensive Player of the Year in the SEC who orchestrated a remarkable drive and scored what should have been the winning touchdown in the national title game if the defense had simply held for two minutes, and he's still criticized and scrutinized more than any Bama player I've ever seen. I admire his performance and I think he's a very good quarterback who will continue to improve and simply get better and better.
As far as being able to beat "quality teams like Clemson", what exactly does the OP think we are?
Hey man! They're starting a freshman QB and they scored a whopping 14 against Auburn!
I swear I'm beginning to think there are a ton of Bama fans who would start a thread, after winning the national championship game 75-0 over a combination of Oklahoma, Clemson and Ohio State's starters, titled, "Bama's Punting Game Has To Improve By .3 Yards A Kick If We're Going To Repeat". And that would be 15 minutes after the championship game was over.
Be miserable if you want and worry your butts off. I'm loving where Bama football is right now!
RTR! And Let's beat Colorado State!
sip

Click to expand...

Sorry. Hit the dislike button on accident. Love this post.

All that sounds nice in theory but we don't know how Tua will react in crucial big game moments. I thought Blake Barnett was going to be our version of Marcus Mariotta based on his HS tape. But when got on the field in a big moment he was scared to death.

Jalen is unflappable. You can't teach that. He's Clutch....you can't teach that. He's making improvements with his technique which is something that can be taught. His deep ball is vastly improved and all his passes are coming out crisp and tight. The only parts in progress are pre-snap reads and hitting intermediate throws and throws on the run. He deserves the benefit of the doubt right now.

Tua has potential and I agree he should get playing time because he might be needed if Jalen takes a bad hit and has to come out.

But whoever we hopefully face in the SECCG and/or Playoffs.....I want to go to Battle with #2 running the show. He's proven. He's been in the fire and answered the challenges of a brutal SEC schedule. I guarantee you the other 21 starters want him pulling the trigger too.

It's Jalen's team no matter how positively you see our backup. Tua will have a chance at some point and we will see how he does. We have virtually no data to go on right now with him other than he has nice mechanics and a live arm.

Jmo but you're not being patient enough in regards to Jalen.

i think Coach Saban is behind Jalen 100% and expects him to improve everyday, as he does with every player. Make today better than yesterday. That's what I see in Hurts. Jalen has bought into The Process. Some are expecting him to be an All-Pro qb right now. How about we just let him be one of the best, if not the best, college qb?

I'm with Sip here and he said it better than I did. Enjoy the year, folks. It's a good time to be watching Alabama football. Don't take it for granted.

Roll Tide!!
ChattTide

tusks_n_raider said:

All that sounds nice in theory but we don't know how Tua will react in crucial big game moments. I thought Blake Barnett was going to be our version of Marcus Mariotta based on his HS tape. But when got on the field in a big moment he was scared to death.

Jalen is unflappable. You can't teach that. He's Clutch....you can't teach that. He's making improvements with his technique which is something that can be taught. His deep ball is vastly improved and all his passes are coming out crisp and tight. The only parts in progress are pre-snap reads and hitting intermediate throws and throws on the run. He deserves the benefit of the doubt right now.

Tua has potential and I agree he should get playing time because he might be needed if Jalen takes a bad hit and has to come out.

But whoever we hopefully face in the SECCG and/or Playoffs.....I want to go to Battle with #2 running the show. He's proven. He's been in the fire and answered the challenges of a brutal SEC schedule. I guarantee you the other 21 starters want him pulling the trigger too.

It's Jalen's team no matter how positively you see our backup. Tua will have a chance at some point and we will see how he does. We have virtually no data to go on right now with him other than he has nice mechanics and a live arm.

Jmo but you're not being patient enough in regards Jalen.

Click to expand...

Great comment! But I'm simply in favor of hedging our bet a bit.

i guess I'll put it like this. I'm just not confident Jalen can beat a Oklahoma with Baker Mayfield for example. I'm afraid our offense would give over the ball to their offense too many times. And I'm afraid that is more true this year than last, because I don't think our D will be in the class of last year's D.

if Tua has the potential I think he does, you just can't sit him until his senior year. I just can't fathom that. First of all, he'll transfer. And secondly, I don't think the downside of playing him early and often is that great.

And I would add I just don't see the Tua - Barnett comparison. I just can't see it.

I could be way off on Tua. But I don't think so. And I'm going to go ahead and say it. I think Coach Saban is thinking along the same lines as I am. I think he is going to play Tua early and often so that he has an option down the road if we get bogged down.

That being said, Jalen is our starter and deservedly so.

Sorry. Oklahoma. It's late here. Hee hee.

KrAzY3 said:

A team can't run 99 plays if the defense is doing its job either. Blame falls both ways. Hurts had to score to put Alabama back ahead. He did. The defense had to get one stop to win the game, they didn't... Now I don't blame the defense so much as I blame the OC situation, injuries, and Watson. But, Hurts sure as heck falls pretty low on the list of things to blame the loss on. He did his part, he kept his team ahead.

Click to expand...

Guess what Im saying is not to blame it all on the defense. Heck I dont think we need to "blame" anyone. We had injuries, a young qb who still has to upgrade his passing skills, a mess with the coaching changes. Just really not how you would want to go into a big game. I think the defense plays better if we have our injured players not injured. I think we are able to run better if our bruiser running back hadnt got hurt. And plays calling would have been better if we had straightened out the oc mess before the year even started. But when I hear people say Jalen scored the go ahead td And ALL the defense had to do was stop the other team Im thinking that would have been enough had the offense done anything the 3rd and 4th qtrs. Had they kept the ball out of clemsons hands at all then the d wouldnt have been gassed. There is no d in the would that can handle 99 plays with no help from an offense. When you play a great qb part of your defense is to keep him off the field. Bama didnt do that. The loss belongs on everyones shoulders not Just a worn out d.
As far As Jalen is concerned I personally wouldnt call a qb run this game. He has got to learn to be a better passer And the only way you do that is to pass. I believe that it may take him till his senior year to become the polished qb that we As fans want.