Evaluating Alabama’s ability to bounce back in 2023

Despite ending last season 11-2 with an impressive Cotton Bowl win, a season where the Alabama Crimson Tide aren’t in the SEC Championship game or the College Football Playoff is an outlier in recent history.

Many are doubting and wondering if the Crimson Tide can bounce back in 2023 and reassert themselves as one of the nation’s top powerhouses as fans have become so accustomed to seeing, which On3’s JD PicKell and Andy Staples recently discussed on ‘The Hard Count’.

“I think Alabama is still going to be very good, Alabama’s roster is still going to be one of the best in the country. They’re still going to be capable of competing for the SEC title and the national title, now the question is do they find a quarterback good enough to get them there?” Staples asked.

The quarterback position is a question mark heading into the season for the first time in a long time in Tuscaloosa. And being that it’s the most important position on the field, many doubts about the Crimson Tide ahead of the 2023 season likely stem from their uncertainty under center.

“They’ve been spoiled the last couple years with Bryce Young, clearly they did not feel anybody won that job coming out of the spring. That’s why they went and got Tyler Buchner and that’s where the alarm bells went off because they’ve been refuting five-star quarterbacks, you’d think one of those guys would be ready. Now I’m fully on the Dylan Lonergan train because I saw one series in the spring game and he was just dealing, so I’m ready to go with that,” Staples joked. “But no, who’s it probably gonna be? Well Tyler Buchner has run Tommy Rees‘ offense, Tyler Buchner was the day one starter at Notre Dame last year before he got hurt, so that would make sense.”

Buchner could be the answer for Alabama’s offense this season, as he flashed the ability to be an effective dual-threat quarterback in his two seasons in South Bend. But other doubts about the Crimson Tide stem from their season last year, which some view as a disappointment despite only suffering two close losses on the road versus Tennessee and LSU.

“But I’m with you, I think people may be undervaluing Alabama because of what happened last year but let’s be real about what happened last year,” Staples said. “They lost two games by a total of four points against very very good teams. So I am not ready to just declare the Nick Saban dynasty over.”

Another dynamic to account for is Alabama’s newly hired offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, who fills the shoes of Bill O’Brien after spending the last three seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Notre Dame. A hire that’s a little bit more unconventional for Alabama according to Staples.

“I do have some questions because I found it interesting that Kirby Smart at Georgia has now seemingly created the coaching pipeline that Saban used to have where if somebody left you, just pluck this guy who you’ve already had or somebody’s in the family. Like Bill O’Brien was a (Bill) Belichick guy so you can just grab him,” Staples explained. “They didn’t do that with the offensive coordinator, they did a real search so I do wonder if that’s different or is that a case of maybe they do need some new blood, so we’ll see what happens. But yes, Alabama is still very good, let us not declare the Saban dynasty over just quite yet.”

Across all sports, many of the top players and coaches use a variety of tactics to motivate themselves and one another, and Saban is no different. He’s used numerous tactics over the years to keep his team motivated, but both Staples and PicKell believe none of that will have to manufactured this upcoming season.

“And it feels like now he has everybody exactly where he wants them. ‘Oh poor Alabama, Alabama’s not gonna be as good as they were, oh is Alabama going to be able to bounce back?’ History as our teacher again, typically Bama and Saban bounce back in a very emphatic fashion,” PicKell added.

“He likes having a way to motivate, like coming off of a national title is hard to motivate, there’s no challenge in motivating these guys,” Staples said.