Alabama QB competition article

We scored too quickly vs Mississippi State while also letting them go on long time consuming drives. Check out the length of the first half drives based on TOP

State 6:08 (Punt)
Bama 1:54(Punt)
State 3:21 (TD)
Bama 1:54 (TD)
State 6:04 (TD)
Bama 1:13 (TD)
State 2:23 (Fumble)
Bama 0:54 (Punt)
State 3:41 (Punt)
Bama 2:02 (Punt)


So, basically our longest drive (based on time) was shorter than their SHORTEST possession. Plus they had 2 6 minute drives just in the first half. We did much better TOP wise in the 2nd half but by then a lot of the damage was already done.

Also, don't forget we missed a 41 yard FG that would have put us in the lead before the final drive. The reason we had to kick a longish field goal? look at the 3 plays leading up to it

1st and 10
Jalen Hurts run for 1 yard

2nd and 9
Jalen Hurts run for a loss of 4 yards

3rd and 10
Jalen Hurts run for a loss of 4 yards


Who knows what would have happened with Tua in the game but if we are nitpicking individual moments why not this one? What matters now though is that Tua at this point is clearly better and more than likely our starting QB for the next 2 to 3 years.

KrAzY3 said:

He made "freshman mistakes", clearly. He is an amazing talent, and I it might sound like my comments as an attack on Tua (they're not, he should be the starter from here on out), but I watched him get pulled from the CSU game because of issues. I watched him need to come out after Alabama wasted clock at the end of the Georgia game. I saw some of the things you expect from a true freshman. This has absolutely nothing to do with Tua, and everything to do with what you expect from a true freshman. Clearly he was better than like 99% of the true freshman QBs out there, it's not about that. Inexperienced players make mistakes, it's what they do.


The problem was Alabama didn't start with a soft part. Going back to A-Day, which I did in my first post in this topic, we saw that Hurts clearly managed an elite defense better than Tua. No knock on Tua, that's an experience issue. But to assume the Tua we saw against Georgia would have been the Tua we saw against FSU? That's a stretch, because the Tua that faced FSU would have looked a lot more like the one that faced CSU. I do agree that a nice soft patch of games would have cleaned up most that stuff though, I just have trouble finding the spot to do that, as mop-up duty by itself wasn't enough. Do you start him after the FSU game? That's the best window I see for that to occur, but I'm not sure any coach in the country would sit their starting QB after he just beat one of the top teams in the country.

My main point though is that while I'll concede that from the Auburn game on Tua might have been the better choice, it's really hard to find a "safe" spot to start him earlier. Hurts steered Alabama through rough waters, and Tua saved Alabama's season. Those two things co-exist just fine.

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The first part of Bama's season was very soft. That's why many were deceived into thinking Bama was an offensive juggernaut. In the FSU game, the offense did very little (259 yards total, 53 of the 96 yards passing on one play), even with very short fields. Bama had a blocked punt to the FSU 6 and settled for a FG; a KO fumble recovered at the FSU 11 resulting in a 1 play TD run; an int ret to FSU 42, missed FG; an int ret to FSU 31 resulting in a punt; after punt Bama got ball at FSU 30, kicked a 33 yd FG. So, you can see that Bama's O only contributed much to scoring the first 10 points, the rest were ST and defense. Tua could hardly have done worse other than becoming a turnover machine, which would have been uncharacteristic. Plus he would have had the great advantage of getting the first team reps in our imaginary scenario. The next 7 games were essentially pushovers, only A&M offered a little resistance. In Alabama's first 8 games the offense either was not much or didn't have to be much, thus, Tua could have gained great experience without a real threat of losing.

Again, it's reasonable to think that Jalen should have and deserved to start those games and did well enough to win, but we are speculating on whether Tua could have performed well enough to win as well. We can offer only opinions, but mine is that it is very reasonable to think that Tua could have done the same. Btw, Jalen did it the year before against a much tougher schedule, but with a better, healthier defense. It seems that any Bama fan could acknowledge that it's not a stretch at all to think that Tua could have done it this year against a weaker schedule, even though a lesser defense. In fact, the more I think about it, the more likely it seems, especially with the very soft start.

Mississippi State's general defensive strategy the last several years has been to push the envelope with pressure packages and try to avoid letting teams methodically work down the field on them. They want to get you off the field, get their offense into a long time-killing drive, and shorten the game to improve their chances of winning against superior talent. Usually this strategy has not really worked well against Alabama because the offense hits enough big plays to put 24+ points on the board and MSU's offense cannot grind on the defense well enough to do better than 6-10 points. Under Mullen, State has only scored 20 or more twice against Alabama (2014's 20 points and 2017's 24). That night was a perfect storm for State because our defense was so limited by injuries at that stage of the season that it was actually possible for them to move the ball and finish drives against us. The offense just did what they had to do against a defense that was going to push all the chips in on the blitzes. You're going to hit big plays if you can execute consistently in the face of pressure and they hit just enough to avoid ever being just outside of reach of the Bulldogs.


To be honest, I thought that LSU and MSU were Jalen Hurts' two best performances of the season. I watched the LSU game yesterday and he was putting balls on guys but the coverage was such that the catches were going to be hard to reel in. He didn't really make a bad decision with the ball, he was throwing balls that were catchable against good coverage, and he extended several drives with his legs. The MSU game was probably his best performance against a team forcing him to throw to win the game. Granted, they were doing it in the most reckless way possible but he demonstrated that you can't just casino blitz him because he'll play pitch and catch if you allow it.

BamaInBham said:

Tua could have done it this year against a weaker schedule, even though a lesser defense.

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I never meant to infer that Tua couldn't have, that it was some sort of an impossibility. But rather that it was a risk that might have failed. One thing that's perhaps being missed is we're not just talking offensive efficiency here. That's one thing. We're talking turnovers, sacks, bad snaps, clock management, there's all these little things that Hurts clearly had more experience doing, and we all have to admit he protected the ball well (too well in fact). We still haven't seen Tua start a full game, so a lot of it is speculative, and that's part of it. We've seen it all though really, we've seen a horrible pick and a horrible sack, and we've seen mind blowing plays from Tua. I do agree there's far more good than bad though.

I feel much more confident this year though. Alabama doesn't start with an FSU, so Tua will have a couple games to really get comfortable. This year, yeah this year I do hope and believe he might become that unstoppable force that some thing he could have been last year. I sure hope so.

BamaInBham said:

The first part of Bama's season was very soft. That's why many were deceived into thinking Bama was an offensive juggernaut. In the FSU game, the offense did very little (259 yards total, 53 of the 96 yards passing on one play), even with very short fields. Bama had a blocked punt to the FSU 6 and settled for a FG; a KO fumble recovered at the FSU 11 resulting in a 1 play TD run; an int ret to FSU 42, missed FG; an int ret to FSU 31 resulting in a punt; after punt Bama got ball at FSU 30, kicked a 33 yd FG. So, you can see that Bama's O only contributed much to scoring the first 10 points, the rest were ST and defense. Tua could hardly have done worse other than becoming a turnover machine, which would have been uncharacteristic. Plus he would have had the great advantage of getting the first team reps in our imaginary scenario. The next 7 games were essentially pushovers, only A&M offered a little resistance. In Alabama's first 8 games the offense either was not much or didn't have to be much, thus, Tua could have gained great experience without a real threat of losing.

Again, it's reasonable to think that Jalen should have and deserved to start those games and did well enough to win, but we are speculating on whether Tua could have performed well enough to win as well. We can offer only opinions, but mine is that it is very reasonable to think that Tua could have done the same. Btw, Jalen did it the year before against a much tougher schedule, but with a better, healthier defense. It seems that any Bama fan could acknowledge that it's not a stretch at all to think that Tua could have done it this year against a weaker schedule, even though a lesser defense. In fact, the more I think about it, the more likely it seems, especially with the very soft start.

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What I said earlier in the thread:

I do believe that Tua would have struggled with FSU in the opening game, but I'm of the opinion he was probably good enough and learning fast enough (and his learning would have been accelerated at a rapid pace in games in games 2-5 against Fresno St. Col. St, Vandy and Ole Sis) so much that he would have been a more effective starter as the season wore on last year.

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I know Tua had the opportunity to grow slowly during the course of the year, but we saw him "grow up" in basically the 3rd quarter of the NC game. Think about that: THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! So given the opportunity to get first team reps against 4 teams after FSU and to "learn on the job" I think it's very reasonable to assume he would have done just fine.

And, while we are speculating, if playing him early might have resulted in an earlier season loss (like MSU or LSU), I would have preferred that over losing to Auburn. Hey it's all speculation. We could have beat Auburn and then lost to Georgia in the SECCG. It all worked out, but I'm of the opinion that Tua, if given the game opportunities earlier in the season, would have done what he finally did: overtake JH as the teams most complete QB.

KrAzY3 said:

I never meant to infer that Tua couldn't have, that it was some sort of an impossibility. But rather that it was a risk that might have failed. One thing that's perhaps being missed is we're not just talking offensive efficiency here. That's one thing. We're talking turnovers, sacks, bad snaps, clock management, there's all these little things that Hurts clearly had more experience doing, and we all have to admit he protected the ball well (too well in fact). We still haven't seen Tua start a full game, so a lot of it is speculative, and that's part of it. We've seen it all though really, we've seen a horrible pick and a horrible sack, and we've seen mind blowing plays from Tua. I do agree there's far more good than bad though.

I feel much more confident this year though. Alabama doesn't start with an FSU, so Tua will have a couple games to really get comfortable. This year, yeah this year I do hope and believe he might become that unstoppable force that some thing he could have been last year. I sure hope so.

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There will be some defenses that will play very well against us whether its LSU, TAMU, MSU. or Tenn. We can look at Rosen and Darnold to see that all the pieces have to come together regardless of QB talent. The question is ...does employing a QB with Tua's talent stretch the field and open up opportunities for the other considerable talent on the field. I believe it does absolutely but we have to avoid feeling that it will not be trench warfare when we travel to Tiger Stadium. Unfortunately every mistake he makes there will be a chorus of I told you so!!

I think another thing people are forgetting is that as more tape is available on first-year quarterbacks, they tend to hit a wall because opposing defenses start scheming away all their favorite plays. And the way our schedule always works out, we rarely play our best defensive opponents early in the season when the fog of war around what your young QB can execute can work to your advantage. Right around the time "the book got out" on Tua, we'd be hitting the LSU-@MSU-@Auburn stretch. We've just gotta accept what happened for what it was: we unintentionally rope-a-doped the UGA defense, who was a little weak in the secondary despite their experience, by putting in a quarterback nobody really invested any time looking for tells and tendencies against because they just assumed we were letting him throw so much "in case of emergency" w/ Hurts. I don't think any staff in America would've assumed the "in case of emergency" would be Hurts playing ineffectively and getting yanked in favor of Tua.

KrAzY3 said:

I never meant to infer that Tua couldn't have, that it was some sort of an impossibility. But rather that it was a risk that might have failed. One thing that's perhaps being missed is we're not just talking offensive efficiency here. That's one thing. We're talking turnovers, sacks, bad snaps, clock management, there's all these little things that Hurts clearly had more experience doing, and we all have to admit he protected the ball well (too well in fact). We still haven't seen Tua start a full game, so a lot of it is speculative, and that's part of it. We've seen it all though really, we've seen a horrible pick and a horrible sack, and we've seen mind blowing plays from Tua. I do agree there's far more good than bad though.

I feel much more confident this year though. Alabama doesn't start with an FSU, so Tua will have a couple games to really get comfortable. This year, yeah this year I do hope and believe he might become that unstoppable force that some thing he could have been last year. I sure hope so.

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In response to the bolded remark: sure anything could have happened.

We probably don't disagree much, but I seem to think that the likelihood of Tua's success is greater than you do. I also think that his mistakes would have disappeared very quickly without much damage. But who knows? We're all just having fun guessing during an off-season.

Smart said they prepared for Tagovailoa and if they didn't then it certainly wasn't, errrr, smart. It was even all over the www sports boards that Tua may play and I don't think it was at all a surprise that Hurts played ineffectively. I know it's been beaten to death and we keep saying the same things over and over, good and bad, but our offense for the past 2 years has been ineffective against about every good defense.

Crimson White said:

Smart said they prepared for Tagovailoa and if they didn't then it certainly wasn't, errrr, smart. It was even all over the www sports boards that Tua may play and I don't think it was at all a surprise that Hurts played ineffectively. I know it's been beaten to death and we keep saying the same things over and over, good and bad, but our offense for the past 2 years has been ineffective against about every good defense.

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His players say that they didn't though. (thinking face emoji here)

rgw said:

I think another thing people are forgetting is that as more tape is available on first-year quarterbacks, they tend to hit a wall because opposing defenses start scheming away all their favorite plays. And the way our schedule always works out, we rarely play our best defensive opponents early in the season when the fog of war around what your young QB can execute can work to your advantage. Right around the time "the book got out" on Tua, we'd be hitting the LSU-@MSU-@Auburn stretch. We've just gotta accept what happened for what it was: we unintentionally rope-a-doped the UGA defense, who was a little weak in the secondary despite their experience, by putting in a quarterback nobody really invested any time looking for tells and tendencies against because they just assumed we were letting him throw so much "in case of emergency" w/ Hurts. I don't think any staff in America would've assumed the "in case of emergency" would be Hurts playing ineffectively and getting yanked in favor of Tua.

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The "book getting out" is always an issue. In Tua's case it probably won't be as much of a problem because he seems so versatile and unflappable and because he has a great supporting cast. Also, he too will gain experience and probably be much better. But no matter how good and important a QB may be, ironically, he is very dependent on his teammates, in fact, every facet of his offense. As you implied, Bama's early year schedule might foster a false sense of what the offense is, just like last year. My only slight concern are the limitations his height might impose.

Also, interested to see how Locksley will perform. Though his overall OC record is not good, he had some bad talent and one year of incredible bad QB injury luck, but he did do well when he had good talent at Illinois, even though it was with an RPO type QB against an unprepared Big 10. But it was at Illinois. We know he has good talent now, so I'm feeling better about him. I'm excited about Gattis. What he did with the PSU WRs was impressive. I was not even dreaming of him at Bama and noticed how consistently wide open the PSU receivers got in the couple of games I saw. I assume he was responsible for that.

rgw said:

His players say that they didn't though. (thinking face emoji here)

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Agreed - the players said that they did not prepare for Tua. Makes me think that the coaching staff prepared for Tua, but in practice they focused on Jalen. It is almost impossible to stop Jalen without proper preparation. It is like trying to stop the triple option - you need reps.

TIDE-HSV said:

If the recorded heights are correct, Tua is an inch taller than Brees...

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Bama usually states height's 1 to 2 inches above what is recorded at the combine - maybe they measure them with their cleats on . But as you imply it can be overcome, but it does have to be overcome. He seems to have all the skills to do it: ability and savvy/instincts to move in the pocket, the ability to throw hard and accurately on the run, just general intelligence to know what can and should be done. Brees is probably a great comparison in more ways than height. I'm glad you picked someone who is not Samoan and/or left-handed .

rgw said:

His players say that they didn't though. (thinking face emoji here)

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I wouldn't be totally surprised if he did not, because when he was D.C. at Alabama, though he was good, it appeared he didn't always properly prepare for the really good dual threat guarterbacks. I joke. Sort of.

B1GTide said:

It is almost impossible to stop Jalen without proper preparation.

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I think the good defenses figured out Jalen Hurts a long time ago. A cursory look at our offensive production last year is a good clue of it.

I think B'ham said it, but Tua will make the rest of the offense work better (shoot, it'll help the defense too with less 3 and outs). Sure, DC's aren't going to just stand there and gawk at Tua's talent and say, "nothing we can do about it," but the point is he's going to be alot harder to defend because UA will be alot harder to defend. It's been said that with JH, about half of the field was basically surrendered to the defense. I think Tua's already shown the whole field is in play now!

Crimson White said:

I think the good defenses figured out Jalen Hurts a long time ago. A cursory look at our offensive production last year is a good clue of it.

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Everyone knows how to stop the triple offense - it is actually pretty simple. But if you don't rep it, you won't stop it. Jalen's legs bring that type of threat.