Bryce Young shares key to remaining composed in games

The 2023 NFL Draft is less than a week away and star Alabama quarterback Bryce Young is likely to hear his name called very early on, perhaps even as the No. 1 overall pick.

He won’t have much to sweat on draft night. Then again, he rarely does.

The Crimson Tide playmaker was one of the most unflappable quarterbacks in all of college football over the last couple years, seemingly thriving when the pressure turned up the most. For Young, the secret to staying cool dates all the way back to his childhood.

“For me, I’ll be honest, you get in these pressure situations, do-or-die, it’s two-minute, or you’re down, whatever it is,” Young said recently on The Pivot Podcast. “For me, think about when we were all kids and whether it was basketball, you’re shooting outside before you go in, it’s like, ‘Three, two, one. Last shot, Game 7 of the Finals.’ You’re throwing the ball it’s like, ‘This is to win a Super Bowl.’

“Now I haven’t obviously been specifically at those levels, but I get to kind of feel something close to it. That stuff we all dream of as a kid and I get to live that stuff out.”

Bryce Young won the Heisman Trophy in 2021 after throwing for more than 4,800 yards and totaling 50 touchdowns. He was good again last year, though his numbers dipped a bit, in part because of a midseason shoulder injury.

His secret to staying cool under pressure is preparation.

“I don’t see there’s like anything to fear, there’s nothing to be scared of, that’s an opportunity,” Young explained. “I feel like pressure only brings out who you are. I feel like in pressure situations who you are at the core is going to show. What you’ve been doing, all that stuff, that’s what’s going to show.

“If I didn’t prepare or I didn’t feel like I worked hard in the offseason or I didn’t feel confident in who I was, I’d be nervous in those situations for sure.”

But Bryce Young has clearly not been bothered by those situations in his career. He was quite clutch, even though Alabama dropped two down-to-the-wire games in 2022.

He thinks that’ll translate to the next level.

“For me I feel like those are the situations where who you are is going to show,” Young said. “The preparation you put in, how you carry, all that stuff, all the work you put in throughout, that’s who’s going to show in those big-time moments. I pride myself on doing the work so when that happens in those moments I’m confident, I know who I am and that’s what I’m kind of able to look into.”