Alabama would like to play more than one QB in season opener
Alabama head coach Nick Saban has yet to reveal which quarterback will start Saturday’s first game against Middle Tennessee, but he, naturally, knows exactly who that will be. And Saban said Thursday evening that he has shared a message with the Game 1 starter about performing at a level in which the Crimson Tide can get others at his position opportunities.
“All three guys have made significant improvement,” Saban said during his weekly radio show. “We’d like to play more than one guy in the game. I’ve told the guy that’s gonna start the game, ‘We want you to play well enough so we have an opportunity to play all the guys at the position because that’s important for us.’”
The three quarterbacks that Saban was likely alluding to are Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson and Tyler Buchner. Milroe and Simpson were the second- and third-string signal-callers last year behind Bryce Young and battled for the starting job in the spring before Alabama chose to look into the transfer portal and add Buchner, a one-time starter at Notre Dame, to the mix.
Throughout the preseason, Milroe has been the first quarterback up in practice and scrimmages to lead us to believe he will get the first snap Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium. But, as Saban has said multiple times this offseason, just because Milroe starts Week 1 doesn’t mean he will be the starter for the rest of the season – or even the following matchup.
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Saban reiterated that point during his first radio show of the season.
“The quarterback who plays on Saturday, that’s the quarterback for Saturday,” Saban said. “The life of a quarterback – any quarterback – depends on how they perform. If a guy plays well, that’s what creates security at that position. And if you don’t play well – because the first thing everybody does when you have success, the quarterback gets a lot of credit. But also when things don’t go well, the first guy they point at is the quarterback.
“So a guy’s gotta understand that the way he performs is really, really important. … But whoever starts the game, it’s not their job in perpetuity because they have the perform well, and because they don’t have a lot of experience, I think we’re all interested in seeing how they all perform.”
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