A look inside Alabama's QB race in 2016

When was the last time Alabama’s best player lined up under center?

Joe Namath? Kenny Stabler?

AJ McCarron was labeled a game-manager after guiding the Tide to the first of two consecutive national titles in 2011. He was much better than that in 2012, but that championship team still revolved around the punishing running of Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon, both of whom cracked 1,000 yards.

Critics all but sacked Jake Coker’s ability to win a title this year. He escaped the pressure and produced his two biggest games in the playoffs, but half a dozen teammates will hear their name called before his in the NFL draft.

Point being, even when Alabama has been at its best, its quarterback hasn’t been the primary reason.

History isn’t always a useful tool in predicting the future, but in terms of Alabama football, particularly under Nick Saban, it’s a pretty good place to start.

Keep that in mind as the focus turns to 2016 and the somewhat annual quarterback competition in Tuscaloosa.

Handicapping the race

Most analysts are assuming it’s a two-player race to replace the graduating Coker.

Cooper Bateman challenged Coker last spring and fall, even sharing snaps during the first two games and earning a surprising start against Ole Miss.

Blake Barnett is the red-hot, redshirt freshman with the can’t-miss recruiting resume. He was the No. 2-rated pro-style passer in the 2015. He has prototypical size — 6-foot-5, 200 pounds — and spent last offseason working with QB guru George Whitfield, trainer to NFL stars.

He’s also never thrown a college pass, which means there’s nothing to criticize.

“It’s probably a two-man race, but the quarterback battle last fall took some unexpected turns,” said Ben Jones, part of the Tide’s coverage team for the Tuscaloosa News. “The competition in August was supposed to be between Jake Coker and David Cornwell, a redshirt freshman. By mid-camp, it was clear that Bateman was making a move, and even Alec Morris (now departed for North Texas) looked to be in the mix.

“Bateman and Barnett would be the two favorites if you were handicapping things, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only contenders. Nick Saban has shown that he’ll take his time to settle on a quarterback, so it seems unlikely that things will get resolved in spring. Coker didn’t win the job until September, after the Ole Miss loss, and the 2011 race between AJ McCarron and Phillip Sims went into early in the season as well.”

The case for Bateman

Saban’s carefully manicured track record suggests it’s Bateman’s job to lose. Each of his previous four starting quarterbacks spent time as the primary backup.

“Bateman is the only quarterback returning to Alabama with any game experience, and that’s not insignificant,” Jones said. “Barnett, Cornwell and early enrollee Jalen Hurts have a combined zero snaps at the college level. Bateman told me during practice leading to the bowl game that he thought Coker’s time in college and his experience at FSU and Alabama was a big part of him winning the job.

“During the competition with Coker, Bateman was considered to be a little bit of a dual-threat quarterback. He didn’t flash that much in the limited time he got in the first few games of the season, but you saw parts of it. If he wins the job, that will probably influence what Alabama does on offense this season. The offense might go up-tempo a little more, use more of a moving pocket or more run-pass options.”

While Tide fans are ecstatic about Bo Scarbrough’s potential to become Derrick Henry 2.0, Alabama’s best offensive player next season will be Calvin Ridley, a receiver who would thrive in a more open attack.

Getting linebackers to account for a mobile quarterback also could free up space for tight end O.J. Howard, who showed everybody in the national championship game what a destructive force he can be.

The knock on Bateman is, in limited opportunities, he hasn’t shown the ability to stretch the field.

There would be a sense of sameness to Alabama’s attack if he were to win the job.

“His 37 completions went for just 291 yards, so most of his passes weren’t downfield throws,” Jones said. “It was a lot of horizontal stuff. He’ll have to work on building chemistry with some of the receivers on deep balls. It took Coker time to do that with Calvin Ridley, ArDarius Stewart and O.J. Howard, but once he did it, the offense was much more dangerous.”

The case for Barnett

Alabama has landed the No. 1 recruiting class throughout most of Saban’s tenure.

The one knock has been the inability to bring in a No. 1 quarterback.

Scratch that.

Barnett was a five-star recruit, the No. 2 pro-style QB and No. 21 player overall in the Class of 2015.

That qualifies as “elite” in most recruiting circles, Jones said.

“Barnett might be considered to have the highest ceiling of any quarterback on the roster, or the highest ceiling of any quarterback in recent memory at Alabama.

“It’s tough to say what he does well from an in-game standpoint, because he hasn’t gotten in a game, but his mechanics look good and he has all the tools. He can run, too. Most people believe he’ll be a starting quarterback at some point here, it’s just a matter of when it happens.”

Barnett was an early enrollee last January, so he has been in the system long enough to seriously compete for the job.

While precedent isn’t necessarily on Alabama’s side, other redshirt freshmen have flourished as first-year starters. Two recent ones — Johnny Manziel and Jameis Winston — won the Heisman Trophy.

However, Barnett still has to jump ahead of two others, most notably Bateman.

“He still has a lot of catching up to do,” Jones said. “The speed of the game is something he still has to adjust to. Running the scout team at Alabama helps him as much or more than at any other school, but that’s still not the same as getting in an actual game.”

How much will it matter who starts?

Ah, this goes to the core of what Alabama is — and what it is not.

What it is not is a quarterback factory.

Since Saban arrived in 2007, just two Alabama QBs — McCarron and Blake Sims — threw more than 25 TDs in a season. Coker needed 15 games to join them as Saban’s only 3,000-yard passers.

The attempts have risen since Lane Kiffin’s arrival, but regardless of who wins the job — Bateman or Barnett — Alabama will not ask either to be Chad Kelly in 2016.

Greg McElroy, who served as John Parker Wilson’s understudy, threw it just 325 times in his first year as a starter for the 2009 championship team.

McCarron, who backed up McElroy, attempted just 328 passes in his first year as a starter for the 2011 championship team.

Sims threw 391 passes in his first year as a starter in 2014, but nearly half of his 252 completions went to the most explosive player in the country, Amari Cooper.

Coker, who backed up Sims in 2015, threw 393 passes this season — but Alabama’s 29.7 attempts per game still ranked seventh in the SEC.

“In one sense, things will definitely revolve around the quarterback,” Jones said. “Lane Kiffin has done a great job in each of the last two years of tailoring the offense to what Blake Sims and Jake Coker could do. He doesn’t shoehorn a guy into a role that doesn’t fit. If they end up with a guy who can really run, they’re going to let him do that. If they decide he has a laser rocket arm, they’ll have some weapons downfield to throw to. If they need to run a bunch of wide receiver screens and soften defenses up outside, they’ll do that.

“On the other hand, no quarterback is going to be asked to throw the ball 40 times a game here. Derrick Henry is gone, but Bo Scarbrough and Damien Harris were five-star recruits at running back and it’s their turn now.

“The run game might look more like it did in previous years than it did during 2015, when Alabama rotated back and forth between players like Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, T.J. Yeldon and Eddie Lacy before Henry became a monster who racked up 395 carries.”

Crystal ball says … Barnett

Saban won the national championship game with the bold onside kick, which nobody saw coming.

Is more misdirection in store?

If Barnett is as talented as his recruiting status suggests, Alabama’s passing game could set program standards while keeping sideline photographers busy trying to catch Kiffin raising his arms mid-play, as he’s known to do.

He brings a dangerous and different dynamic — a big-play strike that Coker so perfectly executed against Michigan State and Clemson.

Kiffin discussed the race as Alabama was preparing for the national championship game. He, of course, wasn’t about to tip his hand.

“It’s a new set of challenges and helps you grow as a coach because you have to adapt to that quarterback and find different things they can do, whatever it is,” Kiffin told the Tuscaloosa News. “We’re not worried about that now, obviously. … But that will be a new set of challenges going into next year and into spring.”

In that regard, 2016 won’t be dramatically different from 2015 … or 2014 … 0r 2011.

The machine will roll on, regardless.