Why Alabama needs magical Jalen Milroe more than needing Nick Saban back

• Alabama doesn’t need Nick Saban back as badly as it needs Jalen Milroe to steal Bryce Young’s playbook and become Crimson Tide’s next great Houdini.
• Alabama’s cloak of invincibility slipped off its shoulders more than three years ago, but Bryce Young caulked the cracks.

Alabama doesn’t need Nick Saban back as badly as it needs Jalen Milroe to borrow Bryce Young’s playbook and become the Crimson Tide’s next great Houdini.

We’ve got to stop with this false narrative that Alabama lost its superpower the day Saban retired. That’s revisionist history. Alabama surrendered its crimson cloak of invincibility years before the GOAT called it quits in January.

NCAA rules shifted before the 2021 season to allow athletes to transfer freely and begin receiving payments from third-party boosters. Say goodbye to the Alabama Death Star. Say hello to Texas A&M, Tennessee and, gulp, Vanderbilt beating Alabama, and a slew of other teams giving the Tide all it can handle.

Bryce Young’s Houdini act led to Alabama’s last title game appearance

Let me take you back to a sweaty afternoon at The Swamp more than three years ago, when a not-very-good Florida team quarterbacked by Emory Jones pushed Alabama to the brink. The Tide survived in a 31-29 victory after stopping a 2-point conversion a yard shy of the goal line.

How did Alabama manage to reach the national championship game? Because Young provided persistent brilliance. He caulked the cracks. He won the Heisman Trophy. He kept pulling the elephant out of the vise. 

This Alabama squad needs similar sorcery, because like the 2021 Tide, Kalen DeBoer’s first team didn’t come armed with the impenetrable defense of Saban’s glory days.

As for discipline? Pfft, disciplined play left this program years ago. It’s been a flag-fest for the past few years.

Long-term, DeBoer must reignite the defensive ferocity Alabama lost during Saban’s last few seasons, while re-establishing Tuscaloosa as a home for disciplined football.

But, that rebirth won’t happen overnight, and whatever progress might occur in those areas this fall won’t be enough to save this season.

Saban left DeBoer with a thinner-than-usual defense, particularly in the secondary. One by one, Georgia, Vanderbilt and South Carolina exploited that deficiency. Alabama’s pass defense rates in the middle of the SEC, and its pass rush amounts to nothing special, either.

Saban saw this coming, too. Saban, in July, predicted Alabama would miss the playoff. Why? Because of deficiencies in the defense’s back-end.

Saban, though, also handed DeBoer the ultimate leg-up in Milroe, a quarterback talented enough to win his own Heisman.

No. 7 Alabama reaching the playoff will require Milroe to put this team on his broad shoulders and carry it to the finish line, just like Houdini – or Young, excuse me – did three years ago.

Milroe played brilliantly in Alabama’s 41-34 win against Georgia. He displayed pinpoint accuracy, made smart decisions, tore asunder Georgia’s defense and supplied nearly 500 yards of offense.

Once home to great defense, Alabama now ‘starts with their quarterback,’ Jalen Milroe

Against Vanderbilt and South Carolina, Milroe played well, but he stopped well short of any Houdini magic. He totaled four turnovers in those two games and committed a grounding penalty for a safety against the Gamecocks.

Alabama might require the quarterbacking magic Milroe showed against Georgia on Saturday, when the Tide will play at No. 10 Tennessee in a rivalry game steeped in playoff implications.

The loser will be shoved into a corner, unable to afford another defeat, while the winner will be included in any fair-minded playoff projection come Sunday.

In a striking twist, Tennessee now plays tougher defense than Alabama, but the Tide enjoys a slight game advantage because of its edge at the most important position.

Saban built his dynasty as Toughness U., but by the time he retired, Alabama quarterbacks had become the main course, complemented by a side dish of sloppy.

“Starts with their quarterback,” Josh Heupel said of Alabama. The Tennessee coach, while assessing the Tide, couldn’t stop complimenting Milroe.

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava might one day live up to his five-star recruiting billing. That day hasn’t arrived. He’s not as dynamic or as polished as Milroe.

Like Young at Alabama, Iamaleava arrived at Tennessee as the nation’s most ballyhooed recruit, with an entire state’s worth of expectations on his shoulders. In Iamaleava’s first season as Tennessee’s starter, he’s not blossoming as quickly as Young did in 2021, his first year as Alabama’s starter.

“He’s talented. You can see it’s there,” DeBoer said of Tennessee’s redshirt freshman quarterback. “He’s still, I think, growing and developing. We just have to make sure we disrupt him.”

Plus, make sure Tennessee’s run game doesn’t carry the day. The Vols look best with the ball in tailback Dylan Sampson’s hands.

Florida wanted to put the onus on Iamaleava last Saturday. The strategy paid off when Iamaleava coughed up two turnovers. Don’t blame the Gators’ defense for their 23-17 overtime loss.

And don’t blame DeBoer for the end of Alabama’s brute dominance. Alabama’s aura of superiority ended years ago, during that paradigm-shifting offseason in 2021.

Alabama still boasts more talent than most, but the advantage isn’t nearly as great as it was in 2020, when the Tide won its last national championship, or throughout most of Saban’s tenure.

With the scales more balanced, a handcuff-escaping quarterback would come in handy. Milroe’s talented enough to take up the Houdini act.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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