Alabama Football: Nick Saban addresses poor QB play in Crimson Tide spring game
By Jack Crosby
The annual Alabama Crimson Tide spring scrimmage on Saturday, better known as A-Day, was by no means an offensive clinic. Part of that was due to the poor play of QB Blake Sims, the back up to AJ McCarron last season and the projected front runner to challenge Florida State transfer Jacob Coker when he arrives on campus this summer.
Today though, Sims did absolutely nothing to help his case to take over the Tide come this fall, as he struggled mightily. On the afternoon, the veteran finished just 13-of-30 for 178 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.
After the scrimmage, head coach Nick Saban addressed Sims’ poor outing and chalked it up to the speed of the game being a factor.
“Blake had a really good spring and did a really good job in the scrimmages,” Saban told ESPN. “I thought … the game speeded up today and he tried to speed up with it, rather than just staying in his rhythm.”
Saban then mentioned the eventual arrival of Coker on campus, as well as the fact that Sims will still have his chance at being the man under center in Tuscaloosa.
“As I said all along, we recruited a guy,” Saban said of Coker. “Blake knows this and Blake embraced the guy before the game. They’re going to compete through the summer and through fall camp, and we’ll see what we need to do at the position to have a guy be effective.”
If today was any indication, and if Coker plays anywhere close to the way he did in Florida State camp last year when he nearly beat out Jameis Winston, this won’t be much of a competition at all.