Alabama's Message To Austin Mack as Backup Quarterback

Senior quarterback Austin Mack came up short. The veteran quarterback gave up his senior year of high school to enroll early at Washington to play for Kalen DeBoer. He left Seattle after a year and followed DeBoer through the transfer portal to Tuscaloosa. Mack sat behind starting quarterbacks Jalen Milore and Ty Simpson for two more seasons as he waited his turn to start in DeBoer's offense. Unfortunately, Mack's patience did not pay off, as the upperclassmen lost the preseason quarterback battle to sophomore Keelon Russell, spelling another season as a backup in DeBoer's system.

DeBoer gave Mack every opportunity to sieze the reigns of Alabama's offense, but in the end Russell's playmaking ability was too much to ignore. DeBoer shared his message to Mack after making his decision to start Russell this season.

"That I expect him to continue to just be elite in how he approaches everything," DeBoer said. "His car was, if not the first, one of the first here the next day. That's just who he is. He's an extremely hard worker. I mean, this guy's a phenomenal quarterback. To me, he didn't lose anything. He didn't fail in any way. We had a really good quarterback in Keelon that we had to pick, and he won the job. That's just what I've told him.

"This is tough stuff. This is grown man stuff. He's never fallen off. He's never wavered about how he's going to approach things. He's a pro. He loves this team. He has a great relationship with Keelon, and he's been out there supporting him already, but it doesn't take away from the fact that he's invested so much into it, just as a human being and the human aspect side of it, it's going to hurt. But he's going to be ready when he needs to be. If a helmet comes off, he's got to be ready to make a play on a fourth down. I wouldn't expect anything less from him because of who he is as a person, and he's a great football player too."