Scouting Tyler Buchner and Tommy Rees
Nick Saban curiously reunited the quarterback and play-caller from Notre Dame's Gator Bowl victory over South Carolina in Tuscaloosa. What can we learn from their last performance together?
The offseason saga of Alabama’s offense has been fascinating and a bit jarring to behold. The most recent chapter, in which Alabama came out of spring eager for another option at quarterback and landed Notre Dame prospective back-up Tyler Buchner, really threw Tide fans for a loop.
Then we got this from my On3 colleague J.D. Pickell:
This prompted a crack from yours truly about Alabama returning to the “halcyon days of Greg McElroy.” That wasn’t really accurate though, Buchner is not Greg McElroy and now that I’ve studied another game by him I’d say he’s a lot closer to Blake Sims. I guess you could also make the Stetson Bennett comp, both of those are a little generous and don’t really capture the good and bad of what Buchner brings as a quarterback.
I think we all understand the main gist of this to be that Alabama wants a steady caretaker of the offense who can keep the trains running on time and unlock talent around him.
The thing is, Buchner ain’t exactly a steady hand at the wheel. He took part in seven touchdowns in this game and two of them were for the Gamecocks. I dove into the game film from Rees and Buchner’s last hurrah together in South Bend in order to get a glimpse into what their future together in Tuscaloosa might hold.
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