Why Does Alabama Have a Quarterback Problem?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It’s essentially become known as the annual “the sky is falling” week surrounding the University of Alabama football program, complete with second-guessing and suffocating pessimism.

It occurs whenever the Crimson Tide lose a game, although it's a little different this time three games into the 2015 season because there are some legitimate concerns about the quarterback position.

Before this season, Alabama had seen only four players start at the position since 2006—part of the era now known as Before Saban—John Parker Wilson, Greg McElroy, AJ McCarron and Blake Sims. Uncharacteristically, the Crimson Tide have used two already in 2015 after seeing five players compete for the job.

“I don’t think they’ve been able to find consistency play in and play out—whether it’s throughout camp, whether it’s throughout practice and throughout games—that has convinced them that one guy is the unanimous guy to go with,” said Tom Luginbill, college football and recruiting analyst for ESPN. “I think what’s really hard about this is you’ll have a guy who goes a few days and looks like he’s taken some strides, and that guy will all of a sudden take a step back, and all of sudden another guy will step up. It’s clouded the situation. It’s made things very, very muddy.

“So they certainly haven’t had the consistency that they’d like to have.”

What set off the latest round of doom and gloom was the 43-37 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium, which as far as Crimson Tide fans are concerned isn’t supposed to happen—ever.

Coming in, Alabama was 25-1 in the series as a home team and hadn’t lost in August/September under Nick Saban, yet here the coach was using two quarterbacks with sophomore Cooper Bateman starting and senior Jake Coker relieving.

The offense didn’t move as well as the team hoped with Bateman, and Coker’s completion percentage was just 47.7 percent (21-of-44).

What a lot of people seemed to forget was that Ole Miss led the nation in scoring defense in 2014 and Alabama has nine new starters on offense, including all of the playmakers.

“The one thing maybe that isn’t getting enough credit as far as maybe being a glaring issue, they haven’t had a marquee guy in the three games this season like they had with Amari Cooper last year,” Luginbill said. “With this offense, you have the quarterbacks coming along at the same time as the receivers are, and then it doesn’t help that Robert Foster, who was beginning to emerge as a playmaker, goes down. I think that has as much to do with the quarterback situation as anything else.”

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Alabama didn’t just lose Cooper but all three staring wide receivers. Of those returning, Chris Black had the most receptions last season with 15 for 188 yards. Cam Sims caught the lone touchdown.

Black doesn’t have a reception yet this fall, and Sims tore an ACL during the spring and is just now getting up to speed. ArDarius Stewart has been Alabama’s leading receiver with 18 receptions for 138 yards and one touchdown, but he hasn’t been consistent.

Moreover, Alabama geared its offense to work best with Blake Sims last season and got away from its bread-and-butter identity. While Coker is more of a pro-style quarterback, the team is running the same read-option package with Bateman—which was partially why he started against the Rebels.

“We had some things in the game plan early that the quarterback was going to pull the ball and do some things, so we thought that Cooper’s speed would be a change of pace for them,” Saban explained. “We thought that it could be a little bit of an element of surprise.”

However, Bateman never did tuck the ball and run. Coker did six times for 58 yards, including his three-yard touchdown late in the third quarter.

Another area that coaches hoped Bateman might provide a spark in was third-down efficiency. He completed five passes on third downs, but only two were for first downs.

Again, Coker posted better numbers as Alabama converted nine of 14 opportunities. Two of those failures were due to dropped passes, but he also had an interception.

Both quarterbacks were picked off when trying to go deep. The only pass Bateman threw downfield was the ball that was intercepted. Otherwise, the deepest ball he threw was 13 yards downfield, resulting in an 18-yard gain by Stewart.

Team	Attempts
Washington State	156
Bowling Green	151
East Carolina	144
Alabama	131
Cincinnati	130
Texas Tech	130
Central Michigan	129
Louisiana Tech	129
Idaho	127
Georgia State	126

Coker’s longest completion was 18 yards (not including yards after the catch), and he was 0-of-6 on anything deeper. Regardless, after falling behind, Alabama attempted 58 passes and executed 100 offensive plays.

“They had 17 points off of turnovers that had nothing to do with the quarterback,” Saban said of the change. “That was the hole that we got ourselves into. That was the reason that we did it.”

In other words, the coaches believed Coker was better equipped to lead a comeback, and he nearly did considering that Alabama was down 30-10 with two minutes remaining in the third quarter.

He completed five of six passes before his first interception, and after enduring a 1-of-5 stretch, he managed to get Alabama into the end zone twice before his second pick. His top target went from being Stewart to Richard Mullaney.

“(We) have a good relationship on and off the field,” Mullaney said. “I think Coker played really, really good and kept us in the game.”

Alabama fans couldn’t help but notice, though, that the tandem was made up of fifth-year players who had transferred in from other schools. It makes them wonder if there’s a problem in recruiting or developing quarterbacks, especially since Saban’s had so much success at just about every other position.

Until McCarron came along, the only positions at which Saban had never had an All-American were quarterback, tight end and punter (although JK Scott took care of that last season).

The problem with having a three-year starter was that other quarterbacks left for playing time elsewhere, leaving a development gap at the position.

Name	Year	Stars	Outcome
Blake Barnett	2015	5	Hasn't played yet
David Cornwell	2014	4	Hasn't played yet
Cooper Bateman	2013	4	Made first start against Ole Miss
Parker McLeod	2013	3	Transferred to Western Kentukcy
Alec Morris	2012	3	Has played, but no pass attempts
Phillip Ely	2011	3	Transferred to Toledo
Phillip Sims	2010	4	Transferred to Virginia
AJ McCarron	2009	4	Started for three seasons
Star Jackson	2008	4	Transferred to Georgia State
Nick Fanuzzi	2007	3	Transferred to Rice

It really hit last year, but Sims, who had been recruited as an athlete and tried running back, wide receiver and defensive back first, helped by switching to quarterback. Having an impact player like Cooper, not to mention an offense that returned nearly everyone, helped him tremendously.

“I think people fail to realize that you’re talking about a team that’s won three national championships in the last six years,” Luginbill said. “They’ve done it with two different quarterbacks. They had a great offensive year last year with a third quarterback so this is really the first time there’s been some bumps in the road, or hiccups. You become so conditioned with a program like Alabama to just expect everything’s going to be easy all the time. That’s not reality.

“I think they’re going to be fine over all the long haul.”

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.