Nick Saban: Unfair to evaluate offense right now because Bryce Young hasn't practiced much

No. 6 Alabama is ready to take on No. 10 LSU with the top spot in the SEC West on the line and coach Nick Saban made a surprising revelation on Wednesday evening. Quarterback Bryce Young hasn’t practiced almost at all since suffering an AC sprain in his throwing shoulder earlier this season.

Young left the team’s game against Arkansas on Oct. 1, paving the way for backup Jalen Milroe to take over. Young returned two weeks ago at Tennessee, but Saban said his status has made it tough to evaluate the offense.

“I don’t think it’s really fair to assess anything that the offense has done because we’ve been a little bit left-handed ever since Bryce got hurt in the Arkansas game,” said Saban, asked if the offense is using the speed at receiver effectively enough. “He basically hasn’t been able to practice for however many weeks, three weeks, and played pretty well in two games. But the continuity of what you do and how you build confidence and timing has been a little bit distorted.”

Young hasn’t appeared to show too many negative side effects of his shoulder injury during games, putting up very respectable numbers in the loss to Tennessee and a win over Mississippi State.

He went 56-of-87 passing for 704 yards and four touchdowns in those two contests, without throwing an interception.

With him limited in practice, though, Saban has issued a challenge of sorts to the rest of the team.

“I really challenged the players to be able to do things better, whether it’s run the ball, run routes better, make more explosive plays, whatever that might be,” Saban said. “But I think it’s a little bit unfair to judge anything that’s happened in the last couple weeks.”

Bryce Young hasn’t practiced much, but there are some silver linings

It’s never ideal for your starting quarterback to be unable to throw much during practice, but the fact that Bryce Young hasn’t practiced much has also created opportunities for other players.

Milroe obviously benefited from his absence some, stepping up in leading the team to the Arkansas win before turning in a decent performance against Texas A&M.

Others have also soaked up some of the extra practice snaps.

“Now the good news is I think it was really beneficial to the two backup quarterbacks,” Saban said. “I think they’ve got a ton of reps and I think that’s helped them.”

Still, evaluating the offense as a whole? Saban can’t put much weight behind that right now.

“It’s not really fair to sort of see how we’ve sort of developed offensively because probably the most important guy on the team, any team, is the quarterback — and most importantly on our team because of the quality of player Bryce is — so we’ve been a little bit out of sorts,” he said.

Alabama will take on LSU Saturday in a game that kicks off at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.