Paul Finebaum criticizes Jalen Hurts after win over FSU
All offseason, we’ve heard about how much Alabama QB Jalen Hurts has improved as a passer, but after Saturday night’s season-opening win over Florida State, that didn’t seem to be the case.
Though the No. 1 Crimson Tide rolled to a 24-7 win over the No. 3 Seminoles, Hurts struggled. At the end of the night, he’d completed only 10 of 18 passes for 96 yards and a touchdown.
Diving deeper into Hurts’s stats, only one receiver — Calvin Ridley — managed to catch a pass from the sophomore quarterback, making seven catches for 82 yards, one of which was a 53-yard touchdown strike.
Two of the other three catches were made by RBs Damien Harris and Bo Scarbrough and the final reception was made by Hurts himself on a batted pass.
Needless to say, ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum was not very impressed with Hurts on Saturday, and said as much on Sunday morning’s episode of SportsCenter (via 247Sports):
“I was underwhelmed,” Finebaum said about Hurts’ performance on SportsCenter Sunday morning. “I didn’t see a lot of progression from last year to this year. For those of us who kept saying ‘he’s going to get better cause Brian Daboll showed up from the New England Patriots,’ I didn’t see any of that last night.”
To be fair to Hurts, Florida State has one of the best defenses in the country, so it’s hard to expect too much from him against a defense loaded with future NFL stars.
Still, coming off of his struggles in last year’s national championship game, this wasn’t exactly what Alabama fans wanted to see from the reigning SEC Offensive Player of the Year.
I didn’t see any improvement. We’ll see if it happens later, or if it even needs to.
As good as he needed to be. No turnovers and a conservative game plan. The second half required absolutely no heroics whatsoever. The team did the damage and he played a clean game.
18 attempts to 42 rushing attempts… We will see when they let him sling it
Bama has NFL talent at nearly every position except QB. Jalen Hurts is not a national championship level passer. He got exposed in the NCG and every time he sees a top D he will be exposed again.
Saban is the greatest coach ever but I can’t understand why he doesn’t seem to be able to land another QB like AJ McCarron.
If you really think that you didn’t watch.
It sounds like some people watched a different game than I did. I saw Jalen confident in the pocket, stepping up in that pocket, making good throws including to progression reads, committing no turnovers, making good decisions to avoid sacks and pressures (for the most part), and dropping a perfect bomb to Ridley that he probably would’ve underthrown last year and made Calvin stop to catch and it’s a long gain instead of a TD.
A LOT of why Jalen was scrambling and running last night is OL-related. The pass protection just isn’t there yet. Also, I’d imagine that Saban and Daboll dialed up a fairly conservative game plan for this game.
I think people are not giving FSU enough credit on defense. They were second in sacks last season with 51 and less games than Bama….. FSU is good up front and cab apply pressure. Bama seemed to run their Base defense alot in the first half like they were worried about the FSU QB hurting them with his legs. In the second half they started bringing an extra rusher
FSU isn’t that good on defense. Clemson,
Michigan, and Ohio State have better defense AND offenses. Sounds like you are content with losing like that title game smh
Throwing a TD pass to a wide about receiver is nothing to brag about unless the praise goes to the receiver. I’ve yet to see Hurts throw any psss into tight windows. His passes are always to wide open receivers. Anyone can do that LOL. Playing Michigan, Ohio State, or Clemson again will EXPOSE Jalen’s mediocracy.
The only defense on Alabama’s schedule that is in Florida State’s league is the one in Baton Rouge. There is no need to be alarmed at this point. The defense didn’t look like its missed a beat.
Finebaum also criticized Saban and had to backtrack. Who cares?
Hurts also hit Jeudy with a beauty when escaping the pocket
He also had another TD pass but Matthews was smart and held Ridley.
So yeah Hurts was pretty good. Add in that our OL was the worst part of the team, probably worse than the Kicking game… I’m proud of Hurts.
Not to mention the perfectly thrown ball to Ruggs that should have been a touchdown. Those 3 plays alone would have put him over 200 with 3 TDs. People are dumb.
Hurts lit up everyone in the SEC last year except LSU and Florida.
Well, he didn’t really get a chance to show how much he improved because FSU was abusing our offensive line on every play and Jalen was forced to spend the whole game running for his life.