As Jalen Hurts goes, so goes Alabama, or something like that. The Alabama defense has stood out more for the team so far this season (and maybe more than any single unit in college football).
However, as head coach Nick Saban said at his press conference on Tuesday, the team’s quarterback has largely contributed to the character and look of a given team while Saban has been in Tuscaloosa.
“With the quarterback, I think that’s the most important guy in terms of what he can do best,” Saban said. “I think if there’s anything that we’ve done fairly well, whether it’s with Jalen this year, Jake (Coker) last year, Blake (Sims) the year before, AJ (McCarron) when he was here, Greg McElroy when he was here, we’ve always done a pretty good job of what that guy can do and trying to feature the good players that we have around them, and hopefully those step up.”
McElroy was a savvy game manager who always made smart throws but also relied heavily on a stifling defense and the powerful legs of Mark Ingram. McCarron had a stronger arm, routinely making long throws to Amari Cooper but also being dependent on a great defense and getting help from Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy, and T.J. Yeldon.
Blake Sims had the least talented defense among recent Alabama quarterbacks but led one of the more successful offenses in Alabama history. He did have Yeldon and Derrick Henry in the backfield.
This season’s unit hasn’t been oriented around a power running game. It has been mostly option offense. Hurts excels at running this style of offense, although LSU will present a different kind of challenge for the freshman quarterback. That is a story for next week, but national pundits have praised Saban for changing the offense overnight. Saban took the opportunity to set the record straight.
“Well, I never thought I was a conservative coach to start with, and this is not something that we just did this year,” he said. “We did a lot of the stuff that we’re doing now when Blake Sims was a quarterback. It was very effective. I think we had the best offense in the history of the school. I think what we try to do — what Lane (Kiffin) tries to do, what I try to do, what we all philosophically try to do — is: what can our players do the best?”
So far, this season’s team has an opportunistic defense that is stifling against the run. The defense showed weaknesses against the pass early in the season, although Saban and defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt have clearly worked hard to improve this element and will have to continue to do so with the loss of safety Eddie Jackson.
On offense, the team excels at running the ball, albeit in a very different manner than past teams. Damien Harris is the top back, although Hurts is every bit as likely to carry the ball, and Joshua Jacobs has been solid, especially in the first half of games.
Overall, the Tide has put forth a balanced effort on offense, ranking second in the SEC in rushing (264.8 yards per game) and sixth in passing (233.3 yards per game). Hurts’ dual-threat capabilities are the cause for that. Over the course of the season, Hurts has gotten accustomed to making big plays, evidenced by the fact that Alabama is second only to Ole Miss in 20-yard passes (30).
Hurts has done well enough to get passes to Calvin Ridley and ArDarius Stewart (when Stewart has been healthy), but plenty of others have had minimal involvement as of late: Gehrig Dieter, Robert Foster and Cam Sims for instance. While O.J. Howard has been implemented, it still feels he is criminally underused.
“We feel like we’ve got some really explosive receivers that we’d like to get more involved in what’s going on and make some explosive plays, and that’s something that I think we need to work on more, but we’re controlling the ball. We’re doing a pretty good job,” Saban said. “I think we’re doing what our players can do, but I think we need to do more in terms of getting other people involved.”
