Alabama Football: Can the Tide Win a Championship with A.J. McCarron at QB?

If there was ever a quarterback that proved that you could win a national championship without possessing great overall talent, just as long as you had the right pieces around you, it was former Alabama signal-caller Greg McElroy.

McElroy obviously wasn’t born with the same elite quarterbacking skills of guys like Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III, but he did posses the smarts and the game management skills to get the job done when it came time to pitch in and do his part.

It also didn’t hurt that McElroy shared the backfield with a Heisman Trophy winner, had a Top-10 pick wide receiver as his main target and also had one of the best college defenses of the decade to keep the opposing offense in check.

With so much help around him, McElroy was able to lead the Tide to a national championship in just his first year as a starter back in 2009, forever cementing his place in Alabama history.

Now, Alabama fans are hoping that current first-year starter A.J. McCarron can repeat some of McElroy’s magic. The problem is, he’s got some work to do now that Alabama has a loss on its resume.

So far, McCarron has looked as good as anyone could have hoped, as he’s completed 65 percent of his passes and only thrown five interceptions in 10 games.

Like McElroy, he’s been very much a game-manager, since basically all he’s had to do so far is hand the ball off to Trent Richardson, not make any major mistakes and just let the defense shut things down.

That formula worked for McElroy in 2009, but it remains to be seen if McCarron can repeat that feat.

What we’ve seen out of the sophomore signal-caller in the last two games hasn’t been all that encouraging, as he failed to throw for over 200 yards and failed to hit a touchdown strike against both LSU and Mississippi State.

Part of that has to do with the fact that Alabama has been feeding the ball to Trent Richardson like crazy lately, but it may also show some lack of trust in McCarron to get the job done through the air.

We know the former four-star recruit has a world of potential, and strictly talent-wise, he’s a better overall quarterback than McElroy, but potential and production are two very different things.

If McCarron doesn’t start producing more soon, it’s going to be hard for this team to win a national championship with him at quarterback, whether that’s this year, or next season when Richardson and most of those big-name defenders will likely be in the NFL.