re: My thoughts regarding our QB play tonight

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As far as stretching the field, that deep ball to Jones looked on point to me

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It wasn't as impressive as you might think. Jones was able sit under for about two seconds (he was that wide open). The DB was completely lost, had no idea where the ball was, and kept making a weird "S" pattern while running to where Jones was waiting for the ball to land.

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But we have no idea if Coker can do any better.

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Yeah, but the reality is that Saban and Kiffin have an idea...and their idea is that Coker can't do any better. Not at this point, anyway.

Right now, there isn't any competition for the QB job. Oh sure...there's competition in that every day at practice guys have to compete to keep their position. But as far as open competition for the job, there isn't any. There was in 2011 when McCarron and P. Sims shared time in the opener. The QB job right now is clearly Blake Sims' to lose. There won't be a change unless Sims can't do the job at some point...very possible...or Coker makes big strides that he obviously just hasn't made yet...very unlikely, IMO.

I don't know how much has changed. There was never a time in the game that Coker could go in. The outcome was always in question, and if you pull Sims and then Coker really sucks you've shown Sims and the team that you didn't have confidence in his ability. I think they had to stick with Sims Saturday but I am not sure the competition is over. I do, however, believe that Sims made a pretty strong case and that Jake is going to have to show clear separation in the next couple of weeks in order to take the job, and so far we have seen no reason to believe he can do that.

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It wasn't as impressive as you might think. Jones was able sit under for about two seconds (he was that wide open). The DB was completely lost, had no idea where the ball was, and kept making a weird "S" pattern while running to where Jones was waiting for the ball to land.

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Not saying it was a great play or anything. Just that it was a deep ball and it was on point. Not sure how people are concluding he can't throw deep balls when that's the only one I can remember and it was fine.

I guess people are concluding that since we didn't really attempt to stretch the field that BS isn't capable of doing it. I think that's a bad assumption. This was his first start and he was probably more comfortable taking what the defense was giving him rather than trying to make a big play. That's also probably what CNS has been beating into his head for 4 years. The underneath routes were open all night long and I bet Coker would've done the same things if he had been in the game.

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Not sure how people are concluding he can't throw deep balls


Most aren't doing that. It's more of a "we don't know" type thing.

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It's just logical reasoning. If he could do it, we believe we would have seen it. We would have at least seen a few attempts. In our minds, it isn't "we don't know". The coaching staff knows. So we know.

GMac's debut game against VT. Could he do it? Yes. We found out because he did it.

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. I was simply suggesting that he would've taken what the defense gave him

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I don't disagree, but it's appropriate to ask. "Why?"

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And there's a difference between doubting Sims' deep ball and outright stating that he is incapable of stretching the field which, contrary to what you claim, several people have done.

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Depends on what you mean by several. Casuals/homers on Twitter? Of course. But they don't know what they're talking about.

I've seen a few here.

That's a great point.


My stance is still "I don't know" though. I'm not saying he can't do it, but I'm not saying he can either.

What happens over the next two weeks if Sims has a similar (but scaled down with less attempts) game as he did against WVU, and Coker does a lot of things the same except he can stretch the field? Coker is a guy who has athleticism too now.

I don't know that Coker can overcome what we've seen from Sims. But I think he's gonna have two weeks to show what he can do. I'd love to hear the conversations Saban/Kiffin are having about the situation.

I'd also like to know the extent of Coker's leg "injury". I don't know that he's actually injured. His leg was taped, but that could have been for a variety of reasons. Could have got a mean bruise or something. Clearly he could play through it because Saban told him to warm up when Sims got rattled.

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People can discuss it all day, and different terms may mean different things to different people, but for me the bottom line is this: What we saw out of Sims last night is exactly what he's capable of. He wasn't given more than he is capable of. Saban and Kiffin are extremely aware of what he can and can't do. If they felt that having Sims throw more deep balls was something that the percentages were good that he could be successful doing, we would have seen it. We didn't. I think we can be certain that if Saban and Kiffin thought Blake Sims could be successful making those kinds of passes, we would have seen it.

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I don't see it that way. CNS has always preached taking what the defense gives you and the underneath routes were open all game long. And let's not kid ourselves, even with AJ and GMAC we would typically take 2-4 shots downfield per game. Sometimes less. We took 1 last night. Wouldn't read too much into it.

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I'd also like to know the extent of Coker's leg "injury". I don't know that he's actually injured. His leg was taped, but that could have been for a variety of reasons.

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I also think that it's safe to say that if there was anything to it, Coker wouldn't have seen the field...not even for a couple of mopup plays.