Alabama Football: Why A.J. McCarron Will Start for the Tide and Be an SEC Danger

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) It's been often said that you can't measure heart, that you can time quick feet, but not a quick mind and that the best way to win a game, is not to lose it.

Phillip Sims has the hardest job on the Alabama team. He doesn't have the luxury to be as good as the person he is vying for playing time with, he has to slam dunk beat him out in a rout and that simply hasn't happened yet. The man he's chasing for that job, A. J. McCarron, hasn't let that happen.

Both players have skills, almost the same skill sets in fact. Saban has said countless times that there's little if any difference in throwing ability and running ability and evasiveness in either quarterback. Throughout spring and fall camps, that has remained consistent.

Both have heart, great heart, both are effective leaders, both can make plays. Indeed Alabama will play a little more second-string quarterback this year than ever before under the Saban era.

So if they're so similar, why am I so convinced that McCarron will be the starting come fall? Because so far Sims has only shown he can be as good at times as McCarron, not consistently better, and in Nick Saban's world consistency is a key word.

More to the point, who can consistently move the ball, drive and motivate the team and make the fewest mistakes that can kill a drive and cost the team a scoring opportunity that could cost them the game.

Consistently, that man is A.J. McCarron.

Saban has to trust that his quarterback has bought into his system 100 percent, and his system is ball control mixed with explosive plays and no turnovers.

How much does Saban trust McCarron?

Remember back to the national championship game with Texas in 2009? Few knew the extent of Greg McElroy's injury. With a national title on the line, Saban announced that should McElroy be hurt in that game, that he was going to burn an entire red-shirt year of A.J. McCarron and play him, a red-shirt, virtually untested freshman quarterback.

That's a lot of trust.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the former No. 2 quarterback, Star Jackson, packed his bags and left town. He wasn't bitter over Saban's decision, he just knew his days of being No. 2 were over and that with Phillip Sims behind McCarron, he'd never get the chance to ever start a game at Alabama.

That is not the case with Phillip Sims. Sims knows if his time is not this year or next year that they'll be a time that will be his. Star Jackson may have been a No. 2 quarterback, but to put it in another sports analogy, he was No. 2 but a lap down.

Sims is No. 2 but he's on the bumper of McCarron.

That is the kind of No. 2 you need.

People need to understand history in life, business and sports. What has happened before paints a clearer picture of what will happen in the future than simply looking at the present and judging what you see before you.

John Parker Wilson was a solid quarterback, but many on the team knew Greg McElroy had a higher skill set, yet he sat on the bench and waited his turn. Then as McCarron developed, players saw that he had a higher skill set than McElroy, yet he sat on the bench and waited his turn. Many think Sims has a greater skill set than McCarron and he very well may, but he'll wind up waiting his turn.

Why?

Saban likes those men in charge of every offensive play to be men he can trust, that has time in the system to understand clearly just what he wants and how he wants it done. They are men who he feels have bought into the system and know protecting the ball is just as important as moving the ball.

Statistics don't win games; ball possession, scoring and few turnovers win games. That's why Saban has stopped having statistics announced to the press. A quarterback who throws for four touchdowns in a practice with two interceptions had a worse practice in Saban's mind than one who threw for two and had no turnovers and was content to hand off and have three rushing touchdowns.

When I wrote an article several years ago that Greg McElroy would come in as a rookie and surpass what Wilson was able to do, there was an uproar of laughter and criticism in the comment sections. Well, we all saw how that turned out.

This year we will see McCarron be able to put up stats and numbers that make fans miss McElroy a little less, and A.J. will wind up being one of the deadly quarterbacks that other SEC will hate to face. What the future hold for Alabama is quarterback is exciting, not only under McCarron, but Sims too when his day comes.

No doubt about it, Sims is the flashier quarterback. He's perhaps capable of making more explosive plays, but he's also more likely to have more plays explode on him. That will go away with time, and like his predecessors, people will say that Sims was better than A.J. but sat on the bench and had to wait.

Grooming a quarterback in Saban's system is like grooming a wild stallion to ride in a race. You have to break their tendency to try and do too much to soon. You have to teach them not to do things in a wild sprint with short-sighted goals, but pull themselves back a little and run at a safer pace that makes completing the long race more possible.

McCarron is ready to run the race. He understands the pace and the way he must run the race in every turn and straight-away. He knows when it's best to hold a little bit back to be safe, but he has the skills to turn it on when he has to, so he can be there at the end.

The talent level at Alabama has been in an upward spiral since Saban has arrived, and it's hard to do better in the talent department than Sims, who came in as one of the top rated quarterbacks in the nation.

Sims will have his day to be sure, but it won't be today. Nick Saban will know when the time is right for him to be the lead horse in the race, and when that day comes, Alabama will indeed be a fearsome team to stop.