McElroy, McCarron, Sims, Coker... all of them had three years or MORE in the system before they were ever asked to take a meaningful snap at Bama. Let that sink in for a moment.

Jalen is YEARS ahead of all of them. He was asked to start last year because he gave the team the best chance to win. HE DID NOT ASK FOR THAT. THE TEAM ASKED THIS OF HIM.

There is no title run Without Hurts last year !

Barnett was awful ! Bateman was awful ! Cornwell was awful !

Without Hurts Bama loses to Ole Miss, LSU, etc., etc..

Yes they struggled last season against the elite D's of the nation. So does almost every other college QB !

It's not reasonable to think Hurts as a true fresh was going to shred those D's ! Do you understand this ?

Now everyone is ready to assume that Hurts has not
progressed because he did not shred the best D Bama will face all season in FSU ? :FACEPALM:

Look, the gameplan was to win the turnover battle, and play D like savages. Check, check, won the game. Get it ?

There was no pocket ! There was too much pressure ! Their D was legit ! First round draft picks all over their D ! Understand ?

Now if he doesn't shred Fresno today maybe we do have a development problem, but lets wait and see, mkay ?

Understand that until the coaching staff runs someone else out there he is the best option we have to win, and try not to bash the 18 yo every post you make, mkay ?

By the way if you couldn't see that his touch on his passes had indeed improved vs FSU then you shouldn't be commenting on football at all.

A hold penalty prevented a TD pass, and a true frosh WR dropped another perfectly thrown TD pass, or we aren't even having this conversation. Not to mention the hold call that was actually a pancake block that ended another drive.

The FG kicker left 6 points out there also so there is about 20 points outside of Hurts control the TEAM did not cash in.

At this point the kid reminds me of a composed Tim Tebow. Who the frick is not ok with that ? All he does is remain calm, and win ballgames. He may not play on Sundays, but he is a winner at the college level ZERO DOUBT ABOUT IT. HE HAS PROVED IT !

He ran the go ahead TD in himself in the freaking title game ! He put our defense on the field with a chance to win a title. As a true freshman. Something that has not been accomplished in decades.

I simply can't begin to comprehend how some of you can be so unbelievably harsh on the kid who was denied the chance to go through his growing pains behind closed doors like 99.9% of all other QB's at the D1 level.

The fact he's only lost one game, and actually had the team in position to win that game even with a new O.C. that asked him to throw the ball 30 plus fricking times for some unknown, bizarre reason I have no idea how anyone can bash that.

Run the ball, Bama wins. Run the clock, Bama wins. Defense makes a stop, Bama wins. WR's catch all those third down pass drops, Bama wins.

Its a TEAM game !

Yeah, its a message board, point out where he needs to continue to develop thats fine... but give all the bashing a break. Its getting old, and some of you are making idiots of yourselves. Hurts is nowhere near as bad as you are making him out to be, and it is making it painfully obvious for the rest of us that you have no idea what you are talking about.

I do believe in folks rights to bash players that suck. I've done it before. I'm not a "never say a cross word about an Alabama player" guy. In fact those type of sunshine pumpers are annoying to me. The thing is Hurts simply does not deserve all this bashing. He has had an amazing run so far in his career, and he certainly does not suck, and if you cant realize that you should probably not post as much about it because you're in over your football comprehension head.