Despite a stellar debut season as Alabama’s starting quarterback last fall, Nick Saban has not been shy critiquing Tua Tagovailoa this offseason.

While Alabama may have fallen one game short of reaching its national championship goal, Saban could not have asked for a better individual performance from Tagovailoa last fall. In his first year as Alabama’s starter, Tua completed nearly 70 percent of his passes and had 3,966 yards and 43 touchdowns with only six interceptions. He also added five rushing touchdowns and was on pace to win the Heisman Trophy before getting injured in the 2018 SEC Championship Game.

During his Tuesday appearance at the 2019 SEC spring meetings from Destin, Florida, it didn’t take much prodding for Saban to acknowledge there’s room for improvement in Tagovailoa’s game.

“I think Tua has got to challenge himself a little bit to get back,” Saban said during his press conference. “I think being hurt was an issue for him at the end of the season and I think he has to challenge himself to get back into great shape and overcome some of the things that happened toward the end of the year. I think he should take the perception that he has a lot to prove relative to how we ended the season. I think our whole team fit into that category.”

These latest comments from Saban come after he critiqued his starting quarterback following the 2019 NFL Draft.

“I think Tua played, for the first seven or eight games last year, if there… if it’s possible, to play perfectly — take care of the ball, no interceptions, really high completion percentage, take what the defense gives. I think he did that flawlessly in our first seven, eight games,” Saban said during an appearance on the NFL Network. “Then you start thinking about I’m going to make some plays here, I’m going to throw the ball downfield and I think when you get out of that, you start to become more outcome oriented. Worrying about the result, rather than staying with the process and taking what they give you.

“I think you put yourself at risk to make mistakes and I think Tua did that a little down the stretch. I think he learned from that and we want him to be the guy that just makes the decisions that he needs to make to make good plays down in and down out and not force plays down the field and make big plays.”

In addition to his comments on Tua, Saban offered up this comment on his team’s options behind Tagovailoa and noted he would like to get his backups some experience early next fall, if possible.

“The other quarterbacks are guys that are developing and have done some good things, and obviously, have some things they have to continue to work on,” Saban added. “Hopefully we will be able to get them some positive improvement over the summer and fall camp and we’ll have an opportunity to get them some kind of experience level that will benefit them if they need it down the road.”