Did Nick Saban consider making a QB change in loss to Texas?
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe struggled in the Crimson Tide’s 34-24 home loss to Texas on Saturday night. In his third career start, Milroe turned the ball over twice and completed 52 percent of his passes (14-of-27) against his home-state Longhorns.
After the game, Nick Saban was asked if he gave any thought to making a change.
“I did,” said the Alabama head coach. “But when he put the drive together to go down the field and score when we got ahead, I thought that gave him a lot of confidence. But we never, ever discussed it. I can’t sit here and say the thought doesn’t come to mind for any player that’s having a difficult time.
“But he made some good plays at the end of the game, and that was good to see. Obviously, the interception was critical in the game. So we’re just gonna work to try to get all our players better.”
Milroe ended the night with 255 passing yards and two touchdowns, but his two picks proved to be costly in the loss, which snapped a 21-game winning streak at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Milroe threw a pass into traffic that was intercepted on Alabama’s first offensive series of the evening. After Texas took a 20-16 lead early in the fourth quarter, Milroe made another poor decision that was picked off and resulted in a quick score for the Longhorns’ largest lead.
Milroe made some plays down the field with a couple of long touchdowns to Jermaine Burton and Amari Niblack, with a couple of would-be touchdowns erased by penalties by his offensive line, but the bad decisions outweighed the good in Saturday’s defeat in Tuscaloosa.
Did throwing an interception on the offense’s first series lead to Milroe being cautious?
“I can’t really answer that,” Saban said. “It’d probably be a better question to ask him. I think they kind of catted the corner from the backside and they rolled the coverage – we were in trips – and I don’t think he saw the thing roll up and it was a poor decision. But I didn’t see a bad look from him on the sidelines ever. He was into it. He was talking to Tommy (Rees). He was getting new information.
“So he certainly didn’t get the poor-me’s over any of it. He was competing like crazy and came back and made some really good plays. I mean, we had a chance. We got ahead in the game and what was there 11 minutes to go in the game or something? So, anyway…”
Alabama will return to the drawing board after suffering only its third non-conference loss in the regular season of Saban’s tenure. Up next for the Crimson Tide is its first road game of the 2023 season – a trip to South Florida on Saturday, Sept. 16, that’s part of a 2-for-1 series.
Alabama has several questions to answer, including what it will do at the quarterback position in the immediate future. After the loss, Milroe was asked if he was looking over his shoulder at the other quarterbacks on the Crimson Tide’s roster, like Tyler Buchner or Ty Simpson.
“No, not necessarily,” Milroe said. “Just looking to improve and get better. I know that I can trust my coaching staff to want me to get better and give me the right resources to improve.”
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