Alabama will have a new quarterback this fall, with Mac Jones entering the NFL draft after leading the Crimson Tide to a championship and breaking several records along the way.
The only other quarterback who saw the field last season without Jones’ name was then freshman Bryce Young, who played 9 of 13 games, including the title game against Ohio State. As Nick Saban said before, he wanted to play more with Young during the 2020 campaign.
“We probably didn’t play it as much as we wanted or would like, partly because we were playing 10 SEC games and we didn’t have any other games where we could work more with him,” said Saban after Friday’s first spring training. “But I thought he did a good job. I thought that, at times, he was feeling around, not playing with the confidence that we would like him to play, but it is part of his development and he learned from it.
“He has been doing much better in practice, as he does today. This was the first day that we were able to actually shoot, and I thought he did a good job of shooting. “
The country’s best recruit in 2020, according to 247Sports, Young tried 22 passes in his first year of college football. He completed 13 of them (59.1 percent) for 156 yards and a touchdown during a 63-3 victory over Kentucky. But the fact is that the Pasadena, California, product has secured the backup role behind the famous single-season program in passing yards.
Now, Young will participate in his first spring training since the COVID-19 pandemic ended Alabama’s spring season before it even started, leaving the quarterback and the rest of the first enrollees to train at home until they return to Tuscaloosa in the end summer’s. .
He will try to use the 15 days of spring exercise to get closer to winning his initial job and holding his teammates in the second year of the red shirt Paul Tyson and the real freshman Jalen Milroe.
Young and his teammates spent the weeks leading up to Friday’s inaugural practice playing on their own, said Saban, who the coaching staff was unable to monitor. But after the first day back on the field, the 15th year coach was satisfied with his young caller.
“He did a very good job and seemed a lot more comfortable managing and executing the attack and playing fast,” said Saban of Young. “I think it was very encouraging.”
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