Greg McElroy is a former Alabama quarterback, so he certainly keeps a close eye on his former program now that he’s an analyst and radio host.

This offseason, Alabama has seen turnover at both coordinator positions. Tommy Rees is replacing Bill O’Brien as the Tide’s offensive coordinator, while Kevin Steele is taking over for Pete Golding as the defensive coordinator.

On Monday, McElroy reacted to the hires on “Always College Football,” explaining why he’s optimistic about the future in Tuscaloosa:

“Here’s why I’m very optimistic about the hire,” McElroy said. “Tommy Rees will specialize in creating a very complementary style of offense that won’t hang the defense out to dry and should re-implement that downhill, play-action passing attack that led to Alabama winning 4 national championships between 2009 and 2015.

“Transitioning to the defensive side, the guy has done a remarkably good job for a ridiculously long time. Kevin Steele and Nick Saban go back a long way, and I don’t think Nick Saban, right now at this point, is wanting to reinvent the wheel. He doesn’t want to bring along a young guy and kind of teach him the ins and outs of how Alabama runs their defense, runs their scheme and runs their practices. Kevin Steele knows how it’s supposed to look.

“This will be, I think, a really solid plug-and-play situation for Alabama defensively.”

Is McElroy right to be optimistic? We’ll get our first look at the new Crimson Tide coordinators in action this spring!