Tide Takes: It’s time to let someone else try at quarterback

Every Monday, we present “Tide Takes”, where we’ll get into a different topic on the Crimson Tide, break down the previous game, preview the upcoming game, and everything in between.

The roller coaster that has been the 2024 season for the Alabama Crimson Tide has taken another turn with a 24-17 loss in Knoxville to the Tennessee Volunteers, pushing Alabama’s playoff hopes to the brink.

In order to have any hope at playing in the postseason, the Tide will have to win every game for the remainder of the regular season, something that does not feel particularly likely. In fact, it feels more realistic that Alabama loses its next two games to Missouri and LSU than it does for them to win out.

While the narrative for a large part of the season has surrounded the defense and it not being good enough — which had been true — the defense was not the reason Alabama lost on Saturday. Perhaps a better performance from Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava would have opened up that avenue, but ultimately the unit did its job and was good enough to win.

The offensive side of the ball, and specifically the quarterback, was an entirely different story. I don’t say this lightly, because Jalen Milroe has meant so much to this team over the last two seasons and delivered some of the most memorable moments over the last decade of Alabama football — but the obvious cannot be ignored any longer.

He’s just simply not a good passer of the football. He has never been elite as a thrower, but somehow even under an offensive minded head coach this season who everyone said was poised to take him to the next level, Milroe has regressed.

Saturday’s performance was the greatest indicator yet that, for as strong as he is as a runner, he is just as weak as a passer.

Last season, Tommy Rees did a good job of being able to mask his issues, but a new system has made that harder to do rather than easier. Kalen DeBoer is the coach that Alabama chose to hire, but the job came attached with a quarterback who is not capable of running his offense at a high level.

It needs to be understood that there are of course other factors at play here, such as how the locker room will react if their leader and team captain is benched. But at what point is enough enough? The team is continuing to trot out a quarterback who is below average at best doing the most basic and important thing a quarterback has to do: Hitting open receivers.

All this to say, Milroe is likely going to be the starting quarterback when the team takes the field against Missouri on Saturday afternoon. But with zero room for error at this point, perhaps someone else should get a chance to prove they can run DeBoer’s system more effectively than Milroe has to this point.