Alabama football head coach Nick Saban expects big things out of quarterback Bryce Young entering his second season with the Crimson Tide.
With Mac Jones leaving Tuscaloosa for the 2021 NFL Draft, that leads the door wide open for Bryce Young to be the next star quarterback of the Alabama football team. His head coach Nick Saban understands fully that he did not play very much as a true freshman last year but eagerly anticipates what a full offseason can do for Young ahead of his first season as a starter.
Young is a former five-star recruit from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California. According to the 247Sports Composite, Young was the No. 2 overall player in the 2020 recruiting class. Serving as the Davey O’Brien Award winner Jones’ backup a season ago, Young completed 59. 1 percent of his passes for 156 yards and a touchdown. Here is what Saban had to say about him.
“Probably didn’t play him as much as we wanted or would have liked to, a little bit because we were playing 10 SEC games and we didn’t have any other games that we could sort of work him into more,” said Saban. “But I thought he did a good job. I thought, at times, he was feeling his way out there, not playing with the kind of confidence that we would like for him to play with, but it’s part of his development and he learned from it.”
“He’s been much better in practice, like today. This was the first day we could actually throw, and I thought he did a good job of throwing. … He did a pretty good job and he looked a lot more comfortable sort of managing and executing the offense and playing fast. So I think that was really encouraging.”
Bryce Young faces huge expectations as the Alabama football star quarterback
Though the Crimson Tide roster is loaded, per usual, Young faces a great deal of pressure ahead of his first season as a starter. With Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa and Jones before him, this is the new standard of Alabama quarterbacking, one that Young has to live up to. While the dual-threat playmaker would have started at most other schools, keep in mind the challenges with COVID-19.
Even if Alabama is starting someone new at quarterback in Young, the Crimson Tide are still the favorites to come out of the SEC and possibly repeat as College Football Playoff champions. While Saban will not divulge a depth chart just yet, it is safe to say that Young will be the signal-caller under center taking cues from new offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien this college football season.
Look for Young to at least guide Alabama back to Atlanta to face the SEC East champion in 2021.
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