After Saturday night’s loss to Texas, one thing is clear — all of those post-Week 1 good vibes with Jalen Milroe are gone.

Nick Saban admitted in the postgame press conference that he thought about making a change at quarterback in the third quarter, but Milroe led a touchdown drive and stayed in the game. The leash with Milroe is clearly going to be short, and it remains to be seen if he’ll have QB1 status throughout the regular season or if Alabama will have a midseason quarterback change for the first time since Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa.

(Jalen Hurts took over QB1 duties early in the 2016 season-opener and Tua Tagovailoa was subbed in for Hurts at halftime of the College Football Playoff National Championship at the end of the 2017 season.)

One way or another, Saban needs to treat Saturday at South Florida as a drawing board game for the quarterback situation.

One of 2 things needs to happen. Either Alabama recognizes the need for more designed runs with Milroe (and not just scrambles) or it gives a non-Milroe quarterback a real look during non-garbage time. Maybe both can happen.

What can’t happen is Alabama convinces itself that Milroe is out of the woods in the likely event that he lights up a USF squad that’s coming off a 1-win season and has a new coaching staff. If Milroe balls out, the post-Texas concerns shouldn’t change.

Let’s remember that in his 3 games with legitimate reps against Power 5 competition (2022 at Arkansas, 2022 vs. A&M, 2023 vs. Texas), Alabama is only +3 with Milroe (+9 at Arkansas, +4 vs. A&M, -10 vs. Texas). Mind you, those were all games in which Alabama was a significant favorite. The Tide offense became far too 1-dimensional.

Milroe’s passing numbers in those games have been underwhelming:

  • 2022 at Arkansas: 4-9, 65 yards (7.2 yards/attempt), 1 TD, 0 INTs
  • 2023 vs. A&M: 12-19, 111 yards (5.8 yards/attempt), 3 TDs, 1 INT
  • 2023 vs. Texas: 14-27, 255 yards (9.4 yards/attempt) 2 TDs, 2 INTs

Note that Milroe basically played a half in that game against Arkansas. His 77-yard run on 3rd-and-forever prevented Alabama from giving the ball back to Arkansas for a potential go-ahead drive after the Tide led by as many as 28 points.

All of those games were 1-score games in the 4th quarter. If not for an incompetent goal-line play-call by Jimbo Fisher, we could be talking about Milroe with an 0-2 record as a starter against Power 5 competition, and both of those games were in Tuscaloosa.

But we’re not talking about that. We’re instead talking about the plan moving forward for Alabama’s quarterback situation. If Milroe isn’t the guy, Alabama needs to find that out before loss No. 2. If he is the guy and OC Tommy Rees needs to be willing to operate with even less balance, the Tide need to go all in with that and accept the risk associated with that.

Maybe Alabama is more predictable. Maybe Milroe faces more injury risk. Maybe it finds itself in more low-scoring dogfights.

Then again, Alabama was in a 1-score game against SEC competition 12 of 16 times with Bryce Young at the helm. That offense was far more pass-heavy, and the Tide still had difficulties putting teams away.

And yes, other things contributed to that, perhaps none more prominently than Alabama’s penalty issues. It was in the bottom 20 nationally in penalty yards/game the past 2 years, and against Texas, the Tide racked up 10 penalties for 90 yards. That’s essentially giving away a touchdown. When you combine that with the coverage busts in the secondary and the lack of pressure on a talented quarterback, it’s not hard to see why it was such an uphill climb for Milroe and the Tide offense to keep up.

Some of those things will get ironed out. But some things might not. Milroe’s continued struggles to read defenses were on display. It wasn’t that he had a receiver run a wrong route or that someone in the secondary made a phenomenal play. He threw the ball right into coverage. The name on Texas’ uniforms played no part in those mistakes. That’s the most troubling thing with Milroe.

You can overcome a lot throughout a game. Even a team with a talent advantage like Alabama can’t overcome costly interceptions.

Consider this: Since the start of 2017, Alabama has thrown multiple interceptions 5 times against Power 5 competition:

  • 2018 SEC Championship vs. Georgia (W)
  • 2018 CFP National Championship vs. Clemson (L)
  • 2019 at Auburn (L)
  • 2021 CFP National Championship vs. Georgia (L)
  • 2023 vs. Texas (L)

Yeah, a 1-4 mark in those games with multiple picks. Telling. And I’d argue that Alabama was totally outplayed for 3 quarters of the 2018 SEC Championship and it won that game because of the heroics of Jalen Hurts in place of the injured Tua Tagovailoa.

Saban repeatedly talked about “not making the plays that beat us” with his quarterback room. Some interpreted that as him wanting a game manager. The problem is that the Tide really doesn’t have that. If you think Tyler Buchner is that, you probably haven’t watched him enough. If you think Ty Simpson is that, why then did Alabama go through an entire offseason QB battle and settle on him as No. 3 in the pecking order?

That’s the issue. We talk so much about the standard of the Alabama quarterback room and the Heisman Trophy-level upside. We don’t talk enough about how none of them have thrown more than 10 interceptions in a season since John Parker Wilson in Year 1 of the Saban era.

Up until last Saturday, that 2007 season was the last time that an Alabama team lost in nonconference play. Of course, losing to Louisiana-Monroe in Year 1 of the Saban era is a bit different than falling to Texas. Still, though. It’s clear that if Alabama wants to stay atop the college football world and become just the second team to overcome a nonconference play loss and make the Playoff, adjustments are needed.

That starts with QB1.