Former Alabama QBs from Jalen Hurts to Bryce Young talk what it takes to win the starting job

The process hasn’t changed much over time, but the culminating moment is a bit different for each person. Mac Jones got the full experience in 2020.

Competition is in the DNA at Alabama, and earning a starting role is tough for any position, but particularly at quarterback. Jones had a feeling it was coming, given his play from 2019, but he wasn’t officially named starter until he had a sit down with coach Nick Saban ahead of the season opener against Missouri.

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Jones had started four games the previous season, but Alabama had recruited five-star Bryce Young, the top-ranked dual-threat QB prospect in the country.

“Honestly, it was good,” Jones recalled. “For me, it was just about focusing on my part. Don’t get caught up in anything. Understand that each game is a game on its own. You can’t look at last year or the next game, just focus on beating Missouri. And we did that.”

For Greg McElroy, there wasn’t much of a moment at all. He won the backup quarterback competition in 2008 and following then-starter John Parker Wilson’s graduation, knew he had a chance to take the job and run with it in 2009. Admittedly, there wasn’t much of a competition, so there wasn’t a need for a formal conversation naming him starter.

“I never relinquished a starter rep,” McElroy said. “First day of (spring) practice was before spring break, and I had a really good practice. Then it kind of carried over a little bit after spring break and had another really good practice and just had a really strong spring and it really was never in doubt. (Saban and I) never sat down and talked about it.”

From McElroy to Young, there have been eight first-year starting quarterbacks under Saban. This Saturday’s season opener against Middle Tennessee State will mark the ninth. Saban’s QB plan remains unknown, but it appears to resemble the 2016 season when Jalen Hurts, Blake Barnett and Cooper Bateman all played in the opener against Southern California. Hurts seized the opportunity in-game and never looked back that year. His Alabama journey, and eventual transfer to Oklahoma, is well-documented, but what he drew from that experience is still a guide in his NFL career.

“Just go play their game, I think that was my approach,” Hurts said. “My approach was to go in there and play my game and just do my job. My approach then is no different than my approach now in how I viewed the game and how I viewed doing the job.”

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As past Alabama starting quarterbacks reflect on their respective journeys, anecdotes would fit whoever becomes the starter this season among Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson and Tyler Buchner. And whoever does earn the job initially, while it’s an “awesome” feeling as Jones described it, it’s also fleeting, because that’s only the beginning.

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“It’s not about the conversation — it’s about what you do with the conversation,” Jones said. “I was focused on trying to beat Missouri. If we beat Missouri, I knew I’d get another chance to play. If you don’t beat Missouri then they might turn (to someone else). So I understood what the situation was.”

Saban’s challenge to the quarterbacks throughout the competition has been to play so well that it forces the staff’s hand. Naturally, there’s pressure to make standout plays. Young understands that feeling, and though he had dazzling plays that led to his 2021 Heisman Trophy, he notes there’s a fine line between highlight reel plays and the right decisions.

“The competition isn’t going to be won off one throw or one day of practice,” Young said. “It’s going to be off of consistency and who can maintain and who can execute. Sometimes when you have those competitions, you’re looking (at) who can make the ‘wow throw’ and you might play out of body because of that. Sometimes you’re, ‘Aw, I took the checkdown, maybe Coach doesn’t want to see that.’ But who can make the best decision is really what people are looking for.”

There’s no bigger element to decision-making than ball security. Alabama’s offense has evolved since Saban’s arrival, and subsequently, so has the amount of responsibility and workload of the quarterbacks. But the consistent thread between each previous starting quarterback is taking care of the ball.

Per Pro Football Focus, Alabama’s starting quarterbacks since 2014 (as far back as tracking goes) have a turnover-worthy play average of 2.99 percent. The lowest include Young in 2021-22 (2 percent), Jones in 2020 (2.4 percent), Blake Sims in 2014 (2.6 percent), Hurts in 2017 (2.6 percent) and Jake Coker in 2015 (3.4 percent). Alabama will likely rely more on the run game this year, and Saban has emphasized the importance of the entire offense elevating its play to help the quarterback. But the starter still needs to be risk-averse.

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“Alabama has, at worst, the second- or third-best roster in the SEC,” McElroy said. “But the quickest way to neutralize the talent advantage that you have is to turn the football over. You start putting the defense in a tough spot. … If you start to turn it over then your time in the field will diminish significantly.”

The play on the field is one thing, but the right temperament is perhaps the most important element; and mentality has been a talking point by Saban throughout preseason camp. The innate pressure of playing quarterback is magnified at a program like Alabama, where there’s a constant external microscope. The personality types have varied over the years from vocal, engaging personalities like Tua Tagovailoa to quieter, lead-by-example types like Hurts and Young, and some in between. Each handled the scrutiny in their own way, and ultimately played well on the field, which is how one earns the respect of their teammates.

“The biggest thing is just that the expectation is going to be really high,” Jones said. “So you’ve got to go out there and just focus on how you can run each play effectively. I know that sounds cliché, but everyone expects you to win every game. They expect you to win the national championship, the SEC championship, and if you don’t, it’s like your season is over. I kind of learned that the hard way (in 2019). And then (in 2020) we went all the way.

“So you can’t chase it, you can’t set the bar too high. I know that sounds weird, but you’ve got to let everything come to you, and it’ll work out.”

Tough skin is required inside the program as well, especially when dealing with Saban and his fiery personality. It can be a steep adjustment for newcomers or players engaged in an intense position battle.

“Coach Saban, it’s no secret, he’s intense. He’s passionate,” Young said. “It’s because he wants you to be the best version of yourself and to have the best team and the best chance to win. But yeah, you have to have rough skin. You have to be able to push through those things. But I think when you have that, you realize it comes from a place of love and he wants what’s best for you. And you have to take the message and be able to act without the emotion that’s attached to it.”

The question for this year’s quarterbacks, like any other group, isn’t talent level but consistency. Saturday might reveal a declarative answer for Week 2 against Texas and beyond, but even then it’s not final. Saban has consistently emphasized that the competition will continue past naming a starter and he expects each quarterback to continue pushing to start. History has shown that quarterback situations at Alabama can be fluid.

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Coker won the quarterback competition to start the 2015 season, only to lose the starting spot after two weeks before regaining it permanently after a Week 3 loss to Ole Miss. Hurts was a starter for two full seasons and was pulled from the national championship game against Georgia in favor of Tagovailoa; then famously came off of the bench in the following year’s SEC Championship Game to lead Alabama to a comeback win. And as recently as last season, Milroe replaced an injured Young to help Alabama to wins over Arkansas and Texas A&M.

The goal is to have a perpetual battle in which the backups are pushing the starter to his limit, and as a result elevates his game. Alabama has had more wire-to-wire starters than not, but that’s because they did enough after winning the job to maintain it. Others, like Hurts, who kept a starter-like preparation even after losing his position, were able to take advantage of an opportunity presented. And an opportunity like that could be on the table this year for whoever is not the starter initially.

This year’s competition, like others before, has had its phases from spring to now, but the most important element is on the horizon with real game situations. Past quarterbacks, like the public at-large, are anxiously awaiting to see how it plays out. Their biggest piece of advice: Just do your job.

“It can be a lot if you think about, ‘I have to do this and I have to do that,'” Young said. “But really at the end of the day, it comes down to being consistent, executing and doing your job. Coach talks about the standard, the beliefs. He never talks about someone having a great game or someone going and doing something special, he talks about just doing your job.

“It may seem like a lot from the outside, but when you just hone in on doing your job, being who you know you are and doing what you’re coached to do, that’s where the execution comes from.”

(Top photo of Bryce Young in 2022: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

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