Re: Alabama QB competition article (ALL QB posts here, please)
There's a saying that football people - especially analysts - like to use about quarterbacks: "throwing your receiver(s) open." The thing is, that's technically impossible. If your guy isn't open, no throw you make will make him so. However, what is possible is anticipating the first moment and/or the window in which your guy WILL be open and getting the ball to him in that window. Often, this requires letting go of the ball while your receiver is still covered. While this skill - anticipating when your receiver WILL become open - can be learned some guys just seem to feel it, naturally. It was obvious, early in 2016, that Jalen didn't naturally feel his receivers coming open. However, he obviously had enormous talent, great poise, and natural leadership ability and the hope was that he would develop his skills as a passer.
I'm certain that at least once last season I expressed on this forum my frustration with the offensive coaches because the play-calling was seemingly ignoring Jalen's weaknesses and not adapting, at all, in order to mask those weaknesses while still taking advantage of his strengths. Simple things like narrowing the field with vertically layered route trees, multiple check-downs, etc. - stuff coaches do in high school and college on a regular basis - we never seemed to try with Jalen. The question I always had was "why did the coaches seem so unwilling to change the play-calling?" The obvious, most likely answer is that Jalen was executing those plays well in practice and then struggling in the games and the coaches kept assuming the light bulb would eventually come on during the game for Jalen. Any other answer points to a coaching problem.
Perhaps there was a coaching problem. Perhaps a top-down emphasis was placed on certain aspects of quarterback play that hampered Jalen's development. Perhaps Daboll really wanted Tua to start the whole time and never could win that argument with Saban. We'll probably never know. However, if - as was asserted earlier - it's true that Jalen's never had a true quarterback coach working with him on how to be a QB then maybe Jalen will finally turn the corner and become a great passing quarterback.
However, even if he does the problem then becomes what appears to be the best thing for the team, overall. It's painfully obvious, in hindsight, that at least much of the team and certainly the OC felt more confident in Tua than in Jalen in the Georgia game. It certainly appears as though Tua has a much greater potential as a pure passer than does Jalen. It also almost certainly appears as though Tua's current development as a pure passer is far beyond Jalen's at the moment. At this point, you would assume that there isn't much difference between the two in terms of their knowledge of the playbook. While Jalen has the intangibles you want to see in a QB in spades, e.g., leadership, poise, toughness, etc., those intangibles are what separates quarterbacks when their upside, current development, AND knowledge of the playbook are relatively equal. While Jalen's prowess as a runner is almost certainly better than Tua's, it's not as if Tua is a liability running with the ball in his hands; he's just a slightly lesser strength. So, at this point, even if Jalen is able to turn the corner as a passer this season it's most likely too late for his opportunity as the starting quarterback at Alabama, barring an injury to Tua.
So, in my opinion, no matter how Jalen eventually develops our coaching staff let him down last year by either failing to give him the tools and instruction needed to develop in time for his best opportunity at Alabama or else by failing to give him a proper analysis of his limitations.
Personally, as a Jalen fan and for his sake, I would love to see him turn that corner and become a first-round draft pick in a couple years as a quarterback. Whether that will or even is likely to happen none of us can truly know and it really isn't worthwhile to debate.
Watching that video, I had flashbacks to sitting in the stands, seeing routes develop, yelling "pull the trigger" or "see him" over and over. The weird thing is that I don't really remember doing as often as I actually did. It seems winning does affect my memory and allowed me to gloss over Jalen's shortcomings more than I realized as the season was progressing.
Of course, it's really unfair for me to make any judgments about Tua, Jalen, and our coaching staff's decisions since I have a very limited view and am not a part of our daily practices. However, if just most of what we've heard about practices last year and thus far this offseason are true, then it really should be Tua's job to lose.