Alabama Football: Nick Saban Says No More QB Stats Available After Practice

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer)

Nick Saban's Saturday press conference following a scrimmage type practice had a new wrinkle in it. Until further notice, no quarterback stats would given following a practice.

That's a first for Saban, but knowing him well, let me explain why that could be a good move.

Let's say quarterback A ends the day with three touchdowns and 275 yards and quarterback B has one touchdown and 165 yards. Most of the press and almost all of the fans would say that quarterback A is killing quarterback B and deserves the starting job.

But they weren't there. They don't know that quarterback A got 90 of those yards a cheap touchdown against the third-string defense on a play where the cornerback fell down. They didn't see quarterback A throw two utterly dumb interceptions while another receiver was wide open on the other side of the field.

And maybe they didn't know that quarterback B handed off when short and goal to get the running backs some play and not worry about his stats, but he made four critical third down plays to set up each rushing TD and did so against the first team defense.

And his one TD pass, a perfectly thrown corner pattern in tight coverage thrown so that it would either be caught by the receiver over the shoulder or incomplete with no chance of a pick.

Now who do you pick? Now do you understand Saban's decision?

It's not going to be about who puts up the biggest numbers. If it were, Greg McElroy may not have started last year. It's about who can move the ball in the safest manner down the field and put the team in position to win games, not cost them games with dumb mistakes.

As for the rest of the press conference, Saban said at the podium following the scrimmage that the two-a-days have made the team weary and it shows in how they practiced Saturday, but that this was an important step in the process because you had to learn to play tired. He said the veterans were doing better than some of the younger ones in that.

Overall, he thought things were sloppy and lots of mistakes were made, but that's to be expected at this time of the year. If they weren't, they wouldn't need to practice.

He sent a mixed message about the running game by saying that the running game was not as effective as he wanted to see it, but the offensive line looked much better than last year.

He talked about team chemistry and the importance of that just after speaking about how well both quarterbacks were doing. Reading between the lines, maybe he was already thinking toward the end game of getting the team solidly behind one quarterback.

Later in the Q&A period, he said the running game may have suffered because the defensive line is just that good.

He talked about the closeness in quality between some of the first and second teams on the offensive line.

A question was asked about the new offensive line coach, Jeff Stoutland, and Saban said that he has done a good job at winning them over and keeping that good thing going. He said yes, Joe Pendry had been a big part of making the line what it is today, but that the chemistry is still there.

After needling a reporter over the way a question was asked, Saban said the pass rush was looking better this year and that in addition to the ones you expected to be good, Dont'a Hightower and Coutney Upshaw that redshirt freshman Adrian Hubbard might give the Tide another good pass-rusher.

Asked about special teams Saban said the punters were more consistent and the kickers only missed the real tough kicks. But the kick returners still haven't been ironed out. Maze looks to be No. 1, but DeAndrew White and Christion Jones, though he had a slip-up today, are looking good also.

Then he went into the quarterback talk and said that he didn't want the press to "add to the confusion" over who is leading in that race. He stated that the team is fine with what's going on and the decision would be an internal matter based on who could play winning football, not who has the best stats.

Saban made it clear that he didn't want a quarterback controversy and the press seemed to respect and accept that. He simply asked for our professionalism in this matter to show through.