Jalen Milroe explains his biggest personal changes since arriving at Alabama

Jalen Milroe has learned oodles during his three-plus years with Alabama football. Be it the ins and outs of a scheme, new ways to push his physical fitness to higher levels, or how to be a good teammate, Milroe has been keen to soak it all in.

But that willingness to sit back and learn, to study and focus on improving at his own pace has been arguably the biggest lesson Milroe has learned, he said. He shared more on how he’s grown as a person and player since coming to Tuscaloosa in an interview with Adam Breneman.

“I think the biggest thing was changing the perspective from the physical aspect to the mental aspect of it. I think that’s where people get lost,” Milroe said. “You have to be physically in shape and stuff like that, but you have to prepare the right way. Mentally be strong. I think that’s what takes you far, is how strong you can be, mentally. And so when you change your perspective with that, surround yourself with the right people to uplift you and not really worry about external factors.”

Milroe continued, pointing out he wasn’t always this way, especially early on. His eagerness to step in and be great and make leaps and bounds might’ve gotten in the way of the finer points of improving.

“That was the biggest thing — when you come in as a young bull, all you’re trying to do is prove yourself, trying to figure out where you fit in, learning the system, stuff like that,” Milroe said. “But instead, look at ways of how you can improve, number one, but also surrounding yourself with people that uplift you and get you wherever you want to be. And I always knew I wanted to be successful, so I think that was the biggest thing from freshman year coming in to now is my perspective of preparing the right way.”

Finally, he added, nothing can quite prepare one for the live-action reps quite like live-action reps.

So for all the preparation and learning Milroe had done in his two years sitting and studying, it still took time for that to kick into gear and start showing up in games as he accumulated a cache of reps to learn and grow from.

“And with the first year starting, that’s always the hardest,” Milroe said. “You don’t have the experience of being there for a couple years, so I think that’s the biggest thing. And for me, being a first-year starter last year, each game that went by, I learned so much. Whether it was positive or negative, I learned so much. So now, in the offseason period, I can look at the strengths from last year, look at the weaknesses. So now we have the offseason, now with this staff, all we want to do is be better than we were yesterday. So that’s ultimately what you want to do.”