How can he not know kiffin and still speak to kiffin on a visit?
That's a fair point and I think the answer would be how much the potential hire needs the exposure and success to advance their career. Either way, you are going to win alot of games as the OC under Saban.
Part of this feels like much ado about nothing. First, as awesome as Tua was, and clearly he was awesome, the risk was abundantly clear. We saw several of the things you might worry about with a young, inexperienced quarterback in just one half of football. Turnovers, not knowing the play, clock management issues, big negative plays... this was a risky move and while it was the right move, I still don't buy the idea it was the right move going all the way back to November. Look no further than the Miss. State game, where any of those sorts of things could have altered the outcome (edit: obviously that's highly speculative, I can see why people would feel otherwise).
I'm really not trying to argue, because he's gone and this is all behind the team. But how about the stuff he stripped from the playbook that Kiffin used? It worked, it got yards, it got points, and there's simply no question his play calling was different right? My point was Daboll's playcalling was suited more for Tua than it was for Hurts, and part of that has to be on Daboll. We saw Kiffin mold the offense around three different quarterbacks, Daboll seemed to lack that ingenuity and flexibility.
I for one am glad his big flappers are no longer part of the Crimson Tide. Too bad he can move on and keep his comments about his own team.
The problem is that, in practice, one QB had long since won the battle in the eyes of everyone but the HC. Unless there's a reversal of what I saw a week ago, I want the QB competition to be behind us...
He'll keep talking as long as someone will listen, and, as long as he's talking about the Crimson Tide and Saban, someone will listen...
I hope the new OC hire is that honest with CNS before he gets an offer.
Nothing is certain except that the offense didn't work and it took Saban until the 2nd half of the National Championship to make a change. The definition of insanity finally caught hold.
Again, we have no idea if the Tua we saw in the second of the NCG is the same Tua we would have gotten if we would have started him against LSU. You would have to accept he stagnated in his development to think we would have. Tua took A LOT of practice reps and mop up reps from mid season to when he was put in. He had an additional 15 practices by simply being in bowl game. So are we to assume he made zero progress from mid season to the second half of the NCG? That would be absurd to think that. Saban made the right call at the right time. Which in the end isn't that all that matters?
Why do you assume he wasn't ready earlier on in the season? I agree that we can't argue the unknown but if you are going to assume he wasn't ready a logical person has to assume he was. There is no evidence to dispute that.
I'm not saying he wasn't. But which is more likely, he wasn't ready at the mid point of the season but with the additional practices and mop up duties between the time he was put in. He got better. Or he was just as prepared midway through the season as he was during the national title game and he simply didn't get any better. Because remember, he made A LOT of freshman mistakes in the NCG. To believe the latter you have to assume he didn't get any better from the midpoint of season to when he was put in. Because if he was just as good at the mid point of the season as he was at the end. Then he didn't improve any. Which is highly unlikely. Because anyone who plays sports knows, you're either getting better or getting worse. There's no such thing as staying the same. My guess is, if he would have been put in during the LSU game he would have lost us the game. I believe the same for the MSU game. He was put in at the exact right time and it paid off.
I think he would have been just as good for the MSU or LSU game. There is nothing compared to real game experience and he delivered on the biggest stage. The LSU game in Tuscaloosa was small fries compared to the pressure he had in the NC.
There's no way you have ever played sport's if you can so easily dismiss the impact of literally thousands of reps that entailed both practice and game experience.
I have and I don't discount practice. However, Tua was ready midseason just like the internal reports indicate.
It's not just the pressure, he proved he is almost immune, it's the reps. I don't disagree that Tua might have played earlier, but consider that Jalen was 24-1 before the AU game, he won the MSU game with 2 late TD drives which included key down field passes, he never turned the ball over, even at his worst. Even if you don't think it's right, certainly you would agree that it's understandable that he would not bench him in favor of a true Fr, no matter how well he had performed in practice and mop up duty. It's admitted by Saban and others that they had planned on Tua possible playing after the AU loss, in the Clemson game. It turned out he was not needed. And remember in the UGA game, that the score was a very manageable 6-0 with Bama having the ball, with less than 1:30 left in the half. So, Saban makes the change in time to win the NC, having proven his loyalty to a player who had performed remarkably well, the SEC POY, who could not work harder or want it more, who took tough coaching very well, who was a great kid and done great things for the program. It couldn't have worked out better in most respects. Any reasonable person who wanted Tua earlier surely can understand why CNS was reluctant to make the change and agree that it worked.
