Kalen DeBoer praises Jalen Milroe's growth, carry-over from spring football

If Alabama is going to take a step forward in 2024, not just reaching the College Football Playoff but potentially winning it, it’ll take a big jump in production from quarterback Jalen Milroe.

Milroe was electric last season, but how well he can pick up Kalen DeBoer‘s new offense is absolutely critical.

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“Well in spring it just goes from trying to grasp everything you can with the base, of the basic part of the offense, just to even the process, the procedures, the motions,” DeBoer explained Wednesday on an SEC teleconference call. “For a quarterback there’s a lot. It’s execute the play, it’s also seeing what’s in front of you.”

Jalen Milroe has some experience in executing when the games are live. He got consistently better at that over the course of the 2023 season, despite being benched at one point early in the campaign.

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Learning all the ins and outs of the new offense is important, because the offense will go as Milroe does. The good news? He seems to have put himself in position to succeed this fall.

“He’s done a great job really in the spring pouring into all that, the reps he had in the summer with the player-run practices were critical because you could tell when Practice 1 kicked off here in the fall that he was taking those steps,” DeBoer said.

Last season, Jalen Milroe accounted for 2,718 yards passing and 23 touchdowns. He was pretty safe with the football, throwing only six interceptions. He also ran for 468 yards and 12 scores.

If he can up those numbers slightly while maintaining his strong leadership role, Alabama should be in excellent shape.

DeBoer himself seems to have a lot of confidence in Jalen Milroe at this point.

“Now it’s really playing football, understanding situations, getting on the same page with both Nick Sheridan the playcaller and myself and working through all of those things,” DeBoer said. “Then there’s the leadership piece, too. He does such a great job with that, of both on and off the field. He holds himself to an extremely high standard in all ways. He leads through example, he leads just with his poise and body language and then his words as well.”

Alabama and Jalen Milroe will open the 2024 season with a game against Western Kentucky on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.