USC Trojans

Does Nick Saban have a QB controversy on his hands at Alabama?

Published Apr. 26, 2017 10:15 a.m. ET

Stewart Mandel

I'm guessing very few of you watched last weekend's Alabama spring game, because presumably you have better things to do on a spring Saturday. Like, not watch televised scrimmages.

But I did. And I'm not kidding when I say it was actually quite entertaining. It was like Alabama suddenly morphed into 2016 Penn State and just started chucking it downfield every other play. And the Tide were very good at it.

Is a QB controversy brewing is Tuscaloosa after the spring game? All it takes is one bad game or even drive by Jalen Hurts for 'Bama fans to start calling for Tua Tagovailoa.

— Jeff Hostetler, Pensacola, Fla.

While I do try to temper expectations based off a spring game, I've got to say, Tagovailoa — the Tide's five-star early enrollee from Hawaii — truly floored me with his arm strength. His passes get downfield in less time than it takes to say "Wow." He also exhibited nice timing and ball placement, particularly in his deep-ball hookups with fellow freshman Jerry Jeudy (one of my 15 breakout spring performers.)

Tagovailoa finished 17-of-29 for 313 yards, three TDs and one unbelievable pick-six off a swing pass.

But barring injury, I don't believe there will be a quarterback controversy at Alabama, for these three reasons:

1. It's not like Hurts went out there and stunk up the joint. Outside of one bad interception in the end zone, he looked darn good, too, finishing 16-of-25 for 301 yards and two TDs. Most importantly, he looked much more comfortable throwing downfield than at any point last season.

2. Hurts came within one second of leading his team to a 15-0 season as a true freshman starter. That's a remarkable accomplishment, regardless of his lackluster postseason performances, one that should afford him a considerably long leash no matter the hot shot freshman backup.

3. Most importantly, there isn't going to be a problem because Nick Saban isn't going to allow it. A QB controversy essentially consists of fans questioning whether their coach is starting the right guy. Alabama fans don't question Saban. If he says Hurts is the guy, Hurts is the guy.

Right up until the day he isn't.

Do you think this might be the year when losing two consecutive groups of high-profile underclassmen catches up with Ohio State? How do you keep replacing bunches of first- and second-round draft picks?

— David Filipi

Over the years, the only program I've seen withstand more than one year of huge defections without suffering a drop-off is Alabama. Miami in the mid-2000s eventually suffered for it. So did Pete Carroll's last USC team, Les Miles' LSU teams a few years ago and, albeit mildly, Florida State the past two seasons.

So I would not be surprised if it catches up to Ohio State at some point. The Buckeyes have seen a staggering 15 underclassmen leave early the past two years. But I also would not be surprised if the Buckeyes keep rolling simply because Urban Meyer is as deft at reloading as is Nick Saban.

The one area where you have to think Ohio State will see a dip this season is in the secondary. Last year it lost first-round CB Eli Apple and second-round S Vonn Bell, this year three projected high first-rounders, S Malik Hooker and CBs Marshon Lattimore and Gareon Conley.

Starting safety Damon Webb returns, and CB Denzel Ward was essentially a third starter. Sophomore Damon Arnette is already being hailed as next up in the cornerback assembly line. There's going to be a drop-off, but given last year's secondary was the best in the country it can drop off and still be pretty good.

I'm sure you heard the Colin Cowherd rant on A&M being the biggest underachieving school. Who would be your top five biggest underachievers since you started covering the sport?

— Trey Pearce, Richardson, TX

It would help if you and/or Colin defined what time frame we're talking about. Five years? Ten? Fifty?

Because he's absolutely right that A&M is the most underachieving program in the sport as of today. Just four years ago, the Aggies were the "it" team coming off the 2012 season in which Johnny Manziel won the Heisman and A&M posted its first Top 5 finish in 56 years. It supplanted Texas in the hearts of Lone Star recruits. Kevin Sumlin became one of the highest-paid coaches in the country, Manziel, Mike Evans and several other Aggies became NFL first-rounders. Myles Garrett may soon be a No. 1 pick.

And what do the Aggies have to show for it since then? A 15-17 SEC record.

How crazy is this? A&M has reached the AP Top 10 at some point in each of the past six seasons but has only finished in the Top 25 twice. That's underachieving.

If you stretch the timeline back a little further, I think you'd have to say Miami is the biggest underachiever of the past decade. With all those national titles, all those All-Pro alums and all those recruits in their backyard it's insane that they've yet to win even an ACC division title. Perhaps Mark Richt changes that here soon.

Once you get into a much longer time frame than that, I believe you morph more into programs that seemingly have the resources/geography/cachet one needs to be successful but have rarely done it consistently. I actually gave my Top 5 in a mailbag two years ago: UCLA, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Arizona State and Maryland.

Last week alone, USA Today published three articles about Sam Darnold. The hype on Darnold is very high with him even being talked about at the NFL combine this year even though he wasn't eligible. Will he live up to the lofty expectations this season?

— Jeff Snyder, Ann Arbor, MI

I contributed to the hype in a very small way myself recently, following my own visit to USC.

The hype is well-earned. He was fantastic last season. Under no scenario would I expect him to come out and flop as a sophomore. But you can see where his story could easily derail.

First of all, USC's nine-game win streak to end last season was the result of far more than Darnold. The lifeblood of the team was all-purpose dynamo Adoree' Jackson. He's gone. So are two All-American tackles (Zach Banner and Chad Wheeler) and a stud receiver (JuJu Smith-Schuster). The Trojans may well struggle to replicate the chemistry and momentum that carried them in 2016, and if they fall short of expectations, Darnold will likely shoulder the blame.

But I'm more worried about what happens if and when Darnold does enter the draft. Inevitably, whenever a player garners that much hype that early in his career, the critics then pick him apart come the actual draft cycle. Frankly, it's a pet peeve of mine about the process in which a player's reputation suffers through no fault of his own.

Whatever behind-the-scenes people were talking him up at the combine as a potential No. 1 pick were likely doing so off the Rose Bowl and maybe one other game of his they saw. They're the same people who once talked up Jevan Snead, Christian Hackenberg, Brett Hundley, et al., before any of then produced a full three seasons of tape. Even Deshaun Watson went from surefire No. 1 pick as a sophomore to somehow below Mitchell Trubisky as a junior.

Darnold will endure the same build-up/tear-down cycle regardless of how he performs this season, but hopefully the peaks and valleys won't be too steep.

Stewart: Is it too early to start the eighth-year senior nominations? If not, I nominate Washington State's Luke Falk.

— Daniel, San Antonio

Nope, never too early. And he's definitely on there.

I'll throw out a few more out, then wait for your contributions: Oregon running back Royce Freeman, Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield, Georgia running back Nick Chubb, Iowa State receiver Allen Lazard, Virginia safety Quin Blanding, Auburn safety Tray Matthews, Arizona-turned-Baylor QB Anu Solomon and Tennessee-turned-Baylor running back Jalen Hurd.

And our team captain this year was a no-brainer: J.T. Barrett. He's been in college so long that I believe Charles Woodson picked him off in an Ohio State-Michigan game. … Just kidding. But he was in the same recruiting class as Ezekiel Elliott and Joey Bosa.

With Florida transfer Will Grier fully expected to be West Virginia's starting quarterback, do you see this equating to the Mountaineers building off of last season's 10-win effort and becoming a true Big 12 power, or are Oklahoma and Oklahoma State still clearly the class of the conference?

— Chris Errington, Seminole, Fla.

West Virginia had the quietest 10-2 regular season I can imagine being possible for a Power 5 school last year. Anecdotally, I feel like the Mountaineers get much less national attention now than they did in the old Big East. That likely stems from going to a conference with several big East Coast media markets to one with a bunch of Texas and Oklahoma schools with no natural connection to West Virginia.

Assuming Grier is cleared to start from Week 1 (we still don't have official assurance he'll be eligible following his NCAA suspension), I expect West Virginia to be as good if not better than it was in 2016. Grier is an upgrade from Skyler Howard, Justin Crawford is an underrated running back and coordinator Tony Gibson really improved that defense last year.

Given Oklahoma went 17-1 in Big 12 play the past two seasons and still has Baker Mayfield, the Sooners are the conference "power" until proven otherwise, though Oklahoma State will enter this season a Top 10 team in my book thanks to Mason Rudolph and James Washington. West Virginia rounds out the upper tier.

But know this: the Big 12 is going to be a lot tougher than it was last season. Kansas State, TCU and Texas should all be better. Would you put it past Bill Snyder or Gary Patterson to sneak up and win the conference? Would you put it past Tom Herman to have a monster first season in Austin?

All of which is a way of saying West Virginia could be a better team than it was a year ago and fail to post the same gaudy record. The Mountaineers' only conference losses last season were to the Oklahoma schools. They'll get stiffer competition in 2017.

Will another conference ever catch up with the SEC? It seems to me that each year the talent going to the NFL from the ACC is getting closer and closer to SEC in terms of number of draft picks. Will the SEC plateau?

— Paul Madsen

The SEC already plateaued, and the ACC already caught up to it last year. That held true last season in every measurement you could think of, from non-conference record to bowl record to computer ratings to, of course, head-to-head, straight through to Clemson over Alabama in the national championship game.

The question is whether that proves to be a one-year aberration or whether the ACC is about to enter into its own golden age like the SEC's the previous decade.

In February I wrote about the reasons behind the SEC's downfall into non-Alabama mediocrity last season, from questionable coaching hires and massive staff turnover to poor quarterback play and more. Even with all that, though, chances are you'll see the conference dominate this week's draft just like it has in years past, because overall the SEC still has the best players. And that, of course, is because the best recruits live in SEC states.

But of course, there's a lot of overlap there with ACC states.

I don't particularly think there's much of a gap right now between the SEC/ACC/Big Ten/Pac-12, with the Big 12 a step down from those. Any of the first four could be the best conference in a given year. But the ACC has the best opportunity for a sustained run because of its access to talent. The Big Ten now has the nation's best lineup of coaches, but they'll always be at a disadvantage in that regard.

But even the ACC has a ceiling. It would really help if one or more of Miami, Virginia Tech, Louisville or someone else can join the elite realm of Florida State and Clemson. Because while right now the SEC only has one of those programs, it's got five or six others capable of contending for national championships again with the right coach in place.

Why is the Pac-12 the best conference in the nation, and when will the Ducks win a championship?

— Josh Boyd, Chicago

Did you read what I just wrote about conferences? And did you read my interview with Willie Taggart? The former is much closer than the latter.

Although I hardly think college football will ever be hurting financially, the news about ESPN layoffs and cord-cutting do lead me to wonder if TV deals will at least not be quite as over-the-top in the future. Will over-the-top spending (Texas lockers, 20 20th consultants) get cut?

— Kale R Fithian, Mercer, Pennsylvania

Sports TV rights have been a bubble waiting to pop for at least a decade now, and it sure feels like that day has arrived. In the span of just a few years, live events went from being must-have programming in the age of DVR ad-skipping to being viewed as a drain on large corporations' bottom lines.

College football won't be affected any time soon mostly because the conferences were smart enough to lock in long-term deals last go around. The ACC, SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12 have TV deals in place well into next decade if not longer. The College Football Playoff's $7 billion contract with ESPN, which goes predominately to those same conferences, runs through the 2025 season. CBS and Turner last year extended their NCAA tournament deal through 2032.

All of those checks will keep getting cashed no matter how many subscribers cancel their cable contracts in the interim. So if someone wants to build their own $10,500 lockers, knock yourself out.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has always been seemingly three steps ahead in the TV game, and he interestingly, purposefully signed a shorter, six-year deal with ESPN and FOX that begins this coming year. He must be confident the money will still be there in 2022 whatever the delivery mechanism.

Unfortunately, as is frequently the case these days, the guys that truly have to worry are the non-Power 5 leagues. Only a few years ago, various cable networks were so desperate for programming they'd throw money to show a Mountain West or Ivy League game. That's dried up. Conference USA saw its TV revenue decrease last year by a considerable amount. One of the four networks involved in that deal, the American Sports Network, recently got folded into a new venture.

Of course, at that level, you're not worried about whether you can install waterfalls in the training room; you're just trying to keep from having to cut sports teams. Sadly, that's where the cord-cutting trickle effect ultimately lands.

How do you see Colorado doing this year after last season's stellar showing?

— Scott Pirie, Regina, Saskatchewan

The Buffs winning 10 games and a Pac-12 South title after so many years of ineptitude was arguably the best story of the 2016 season. Unfortunately, I think Mike MacIntyre's team will take a couple of steps backward this fall.

Colorado was the rare upstart that did it predominately with defense, not offense. That unit ranked in the Top 20 nationally. But at its core was a special group of seniors, many of them third- or fourth-year starters, like cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, safety Tedric Thompson and linebackers Kenneth Olugbode and Jimmie Gilbert. CU loses eight starters on defense, as well as decorated coordinator Jim Leavitt, who left for Oregon.

That's a lot to replace.

The Buffs could compensate by becoming a more dynamic offense behind QB Steven Montez, who had his moments last year filling in for the now-departed Sefo Liufau. CU has a stacked receiving corps with veterans Devin Ross, Shay Fields, Bryce Bobo and spring standout Kabion Ento.

If CU can score enough points to compensate for an expected regression on D, then I could see it remaining in the top half of the Pac-12 South.

How will Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s retirement affect the TaxSlayer Bowl?

— Ryan Smithson, Atlanta

If nothing else, the playing field should be in better shape.