Greg McElroy labels Alabama’s growth this season ‘staggering’

Alabama is firmly in the College Football Playoff conversation after convincingly defeating LSU in Death Valley in Week 11.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy, who was a quarterback under Nick Saban at Alabama early in his tenure, praised his alma mater following the massive victory. He called the Crimson Tide’s growth this season — particularly in the past three weeks — “staggering” thanks, in part, to the play of quarterback Jalen Milroe.

“This is what the offense for Alabama needs to be,” McElroy said. “Jalen Milroe, Justice Haynes, and Jam Miller ran the ball 48 times against LSU, they threw it 18 times. Now, that’s an imbalance that would probably concern a lot of coaches, but it doesn’t concern me because I think about what Jalen Milroe does best. … You know what scares me to death? [Milroe] taking off and going 72 yards to the house like he did this past weekend.”

McElroy pointed out the massive shift in dropbacks in the pocket from the Crimson Tide’s loss to Tennessee compared to how Saturday against the Tigers played out. Against the Volunteers, Milroe dropped back 37 times while against LSU, he dropped back to pass the ball just 18 times.

This change forced the Tigers on their heels early and the Crimson Tide never took their foot off the gas, eventually heading home to Tuscaloosa with a 42-13 victory.

“This was one of the best rushing attacks we’ve ever seen from an Alabama quarterback,” McElroy continued, also praising the entire offense as a unit.

“And I think what was most intriguing is that they dominated not just with their scheme. They had a lot of really good looks and really good formations to just kind of formation the heck out of this LSU defense. But they also dominated on the line of scrimmage as well.”

Alabama will likely be able to open up its playbook on Saturday against Mercer, and it remains to be seen if head coach Kalen DeBoer will keep his offense so run-heavy moving into the latter stages of the regular season.

Kickoff between Alabama and Mercer is set for 2 p.m. ET live on SECN+.