Alabama has a quarterback problem

The Alabama Crimson Tide were able to escape South Florida with a 17-3 win on Saturday afternoon in a game that was shockingly closer than the two-touchdown margin of victory might have you believe.

The game was very much in doubt until the final minutes of the fourth quarter and showed that the Crimson Tide have a pretty big problem at the most important position on the field.

Quarterback.

Having already benched starter Jalen Milroe following a tough game in last weekend's loss to Texas, Nick Saban went through two more quarterbacks on Saturday and still did not seem to come any closer to finding a solution. 

Tyler Buchner, who received the Week 3 start, was benched at halftime after a brutal first half showing that saw him go just 5-for-14 for 34 yards while leading zero scoring drives. 

He was replaced by Ty Simpson, who did not fare much better, completing 5-of-9 passes for 73 yards while also taking five sacks. Simpson also had a rushing touchdown in the third quarter. 

Saban explained the decision after the game by saying he was simply looking for a quarterback that could play winning football.

“We said we wanted to see if we had a quarterback that could play winning football and thought we struggled a little bit,” Saban said of the first half. “Maybe it was the rain. I don’t know. Ty was the guy that practiced the best this week as a backup player, so he has a chance to play.”

Alabama was fortunate that its defense was able to force two turnovers and that its running game finally broke through in the second half, led by Roydell Williams, who finished with 129 yards on 17 carries and a touchdown. 

But those developments cannot mask the larger problem for the Crimson Tide that is quarterback, especially as the meat of the SEC schedule looms ahead. It is one thing to be able to sneak by South Florida, but that sort of performance and quarterback play is not going to cut it when the stakes get higher and the competition tougher.

Alabama already saw what happened against a team like Texas. It will not get any easier with teams like Ole Miss, Tennessee and LSU still on the schedule. 

Given how sluggish the offense looked with Buchner and Simpson on Saturday, it is worth asking if Milroe will get another opportunity in the near future. He was not particularly efficient against Texas in terms of his accuracy and he did have two costly turnovers, but Alabama's offense at least showed an ability to consistently move the ball against a top team. Simply moving the ball was a struggle with the other two on Saturday against South Florida.