Alabama offense remains a work in progress with Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson at quarterback
If this Alabama football team is supposed to be more of the vintage variety, which vintage are we talking?
Alabama, during Saturday’s spring game, didn’t mimic the 2009, ’11 or ‘12 Crimson Tide teams that won national championships behind road-grading offensive lines, bruising tailbacks, stingy defenses and efficient quarterbacks who steered their team away from mistakes.
On A-Day, Alabama’s top two quarterbacks threw interceptions on consecutive plays, its offensive line got worked over too often and its receivers dropped too many passes.
Alabama’s offense clearly remains a work in progress under first-year coordinator Tommy Rees, and that’s putting it nicely.
“Who can play winning football? That’s what I’m concerned about. You’ve got to eliminate the bad plays. We had too many bad plays,” coach Nick Saban told the SEC Network after getting his last look at his team this spring.
In recent seasons, Alabama became known for quarterback excellence, as the Tide cycled through Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young.
Young bailed the Tide out of jams time and again the past two seasons. He was an unflappable magician. Following Young’s departure, Saban has stated a desire for Alabama to rely more on its ground game. Still, he wants a quarterback who can keep Alabama clear of mistakes.
Neither Jalen Milroe nor Ty Simpson has cemented that ability.
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Milroe’s big-play potential gives him the advantage in this competition, and he directed the first-team offense Saturday. He possesses game-changing speed, and he supplied chunk yardage with his arm and his legs. But, Milroe and Simpson were inconsistent with their accuracy and decision-making.
Vintage Saban football elicits memories of Greg McElroy or AJ McCarron and making clutch plays while valuing possession.
In contrast, A-Day offered evidence of two quarterbacks with upside – Milroe, in particular, reminded us of his athleticism – but who remain prone to mistakes.
Milroe and Simpson combined to complete 31 of 63 passes.
Elsewhere, Jayden Daniels completed 10 of 11 passes in LSU’s spring game Saturday. A week ago, Georgia’s Carson Beck was 15-of-22 passing on G-Day.
Let that be a refresher of the challenge Alabama faces. LSU won the SEC West last season, Georgia repeated as national champions, and Alabama is playing catch-up to each, while its quest to develop a reliable quarterback continues.
Alabama hasn’t had a quarterback throw more than 10 interceptions in a season since John Parker Wilson threw 12 picks in 2007, Saban’s first year in Tuscaloosa. That cannot be the meaning of being a vintage Alabama team.
“What we’re really trying to get the quarterbacks to understand is, you’ve got to eliminate the bad plays, the plays that you get you beat,” Saban told the SEC Network. “We threw three interceptions (late in the second quarter). You don’t need to force the ball. You’re taking points off the board when you do that. I think consistency is the key.”
Spring games are difficult to evaluate. If one side of the ball struggles, that probably means the other side is doing something right.
Credit nickelback Malachi Moore, who seemingly did everything, everywhere, all at once. Alabama’s first-string defense persistently pressured Milroe. Earl Little II made an incredible diving interception of a Simpson pass to halt a scoring opportunity.
Receiver Kendrick Law flashed an ability to gain downfield separation, and five-star freshman running back Justice Haynes looks like he spawned from a weight room.
As for the quarterbacks, Milroe is Alabama’s best option exiting spring practice. He sprinkled in a few beautiful deep balls amid some incompletions, and looked like a man possessed by nitrous oxide while he blazed a 35-yard trail to the end zone for the game’s first score.
Milroe is undeniably talented, but he remains unfinished, unpolished and not emblematic of a vintage Saban quarterback.
Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Alabama spring game shows Crimson Tide offense has some work to do
