The last time Alabama football had a quarterback controversy, it was between an eventual Super Bowl winner and an eventual fifth overall pick.
This time, it’s between three players, two of whom struggled to beat South Florida and the third of whom lost to Texas last week.
Neither Ty Simpson nor Tyler Buchner played an impressive game against USF — with Jalen Milroe being benched after the loss to the Longhorns — in a game where the Crimson Tide scraped by with a 17-3 road victory.
Buchner, a Notre Dame transfer, started the game and went 5-of-14 for 34 yards without a touchdown.
Simpson did score on a one-yard run, but went just 5-of-9 for 73 yards, getting sacked five times.
Three weeks in, Alabama looks like anything but its usual dominant self.
And the quarterback position tops the list of reasons why.
“I know you’re going to ask about the quarterbacks,” coach Nick Saban told reporters. “We’re going to evaluate the quarterbacks that played today and evaluate Jalen Milroe in terms of how he played and decide this week who gives us the best opportunity to be successful as an offensive team. And that’s the way we’ll go.”
Milroe, a sophomore from Katy, Texas, was intercepted five times and sacked twice by the Longhorns as Alabama was upset last week at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Saban said it will be an “internal” decision as to who will start against Ole Miss last week, and told ESPN that Simpson had the best week of practice leading into the USF game.
“I thought he did OK,” Saban said of Simpson. “Made a couple big-play throws … I thought he played well, managed the game well.”
Saban said the offensive line has been “a consistent problem for us all year” — deflecting attention away from the quarterbacks and onto the line, which has indeed struggled.
With a loss already on their resume, the Tide will need to run the table in the SEC to avoid missing the College Football Playoff for a second straight season — which would be a first since the postseason expanded in 2014.
“Everybody has the opportunity to respond the right way when things don’t go like you want them to,” Saban said of the quarterback competition. “And we play the guys that practice the best all week long.”
