With both Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian both gone from Tuscaloosa, Alabama head coach Nick Saban had a choice to make this offseason. Should Alabama continue on its path into developing into a spread offense or should it re-emphasize pro-style concepts to the offense?

Based on the decision to hire tight ends coach Brian Daboll from the New England Patriots, Saban’s decision was clear as could be.

During Alabama’s Pro Day event Wednesday, Saban was asked to comment on his decision to hire Daboll. While discussing his decision, Saban made it clear he believes his offenses went too far away from the pro-style principles he seems to prefer run in Tuscaloosa.

“(Daboll) coached with us at Michigan State, long, long ago,” Saban said during Alabama’s Pro Day. “He’s been with Bill Belichick for 10 or 11 years, he’s been a coordinator in the (NFL) for six years. The combination of knowing him, being with Bill, knowing how that philosophy sort of meshes pretty well, and the experience that he had, I think all those things helped us and I think we wanted to go from pro-style to be a little bit more spread and maybe we got too far to the right on the spread part and now we need to develop our quarterbacks to go back and be a little more pro-style. I think having a guy like this, that knows pro-style football will help us.

Saban was then asked if the offense will change this season.

“We changed a little bit each year based on what our players could do, starting with the quarterback,” Saban said. “I think one of the key things is to help Jalen develop as a passer and do a better job in the pocket and I think Brian will help with that.”

Although Saban admitted that Jalen Hurts’ ability to hurt defenses on the ground, using his improvisational skills especially, would still be utilized moving forward.

“We want him to do those things, but only after he goes through his progressions,” Saban admitted.

After having so much success over the last three season with Kiffin coordinating and developing Alabama’s talent for the spread offense, it will be interesting to see how quickly the Tide offense transitions under Daboll. Considering Alabama scored over 50 points in three games last season, and reached at least 48 points in four other games, it’s fair to say the spread system was working well in Tuscaloosa. Considering the quarterbacks currently on the roster, Alabama would be wise not to completely abandon some spread concepts implemented over the last few seasons.

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