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Lang’s World: 10 Takeaways from a weird and wild Week 1 in college football

MEMPHIS – There are a lot of questions I’d like to ask Alabama coach Nick Saban.

I’d ask about how he’s made Alabama the nation’s preeminent college football program. I’d ask about how he’s managed to become a recruiting powerhouse while staying within the NCAA rules that have been the downfall of so many other teams. And, I’d also like to know who the starting quarterback is for the University of Alabama.

Because this seems to be the one question for which Saban doesn’t have an answer.

This is a valid question. Teams have one starter at each position, and Alabama entered this season with two proven entities, with Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa battling it out for the number one spot. Heading into Saturday night’s season opener, Saban refused to say which player was his starter. Which I get, I suppose, as a bit of subterfuge. Tagovailoa started and played great. Hurts also played well, although he didn’t rack up the stats that Tagovailoa did.

And then after the game, when ESPN’s Maria Taylor basically asked him to assess the performance of Alabama’s quarterbacks, Saban snapped.

The funniest thing to me is that the question Saban was asked was not about choosing a starting quarterback. I know in this post-truth era we often don’t even consider the source, and there are people on Twitter who will likely blow out a knee leaping to Saban’s defense. But those people aren’t paying attention. Taylor didn’t ask Saban which quarterback was better. She didn’t ask him to make a choice between the two, right there on live television, although she would have been well within her rights to do just that, being as her job description is literally to report from the sideline.

Taylor asked Saban, “What answers did you have about your quarterbacks after watching both of them play tonight?” That’s it.

Which is when Saban flipped his lid. After first saying he likes both men, which would have been a fine answer in and of itself, he then got angry: “Why do you continually try to get me to say something that doesn’t respect one of them?”

Chill, bro. Nobody asked you to say anything that didn’t respect anyone. But something about Saban’s “anger” during his answer, especially in the moments following a crushing 51-14 win in their season opener, just didn’t feel authentic. Saban later reached out to Taylor to apologize for his postgame reaction.

ESPN has been airing a lot of a reality show called “Training Days: Rolling with the Tide,” which is a hagiographic program about Saban and the Alabama football program. When I was on vacation last week, I watched many episodes, as much because I wanted to learn more about the best college football program in the country as because I couldn’t reach the remote.

One particularly revealing sequence occurred when Saban attended SEC Media Days, and on the plane on the way there, Saban admits that he knows he’s going to be asked a lot about the Alabama quarterback situation. He also says that he has an answer ready to go, as we then see a sequence edited together where Saban is asked a dozen times about the quarterbacks. And every time, he uses a variation of the phrase “someone has to win the team” to explain why he had not named a starting quarterback. It’s a mildly funny sequence, and hopefully illuminating to fans who don’t yet know that all coaches are actors, at least to some degree.

Saban not only trusts the process, he helped invent it. And if Saban wants to get a message across – to his team, to Alabama’s fans, to the world – he knows exactly how to do just that. Last Saturday night, he made sure everyone knew how angry he was that, from his perspective, he was being asked to be disrespectful to one of his players. Even though he had not been asked to be disrespectful to one of his players. Point made.

But if anything, Saban’s answer obscured the biggest takeaway from watching Alabama this weekend: Tagovailoa is the best quarterback on the Alabama football team. He finished 15-for-19 with two touchdowns, and much like in last season’s CFB Championship Game, Tagovailoa was the QB able to move the Bama offense up and down the field.

After watching Alabama’s opener, there shouldn’t be a quarterback controversy. But as long as Saban refuses to come out and say Tagovailoa is the starter and Hurts is the backup, he’s going to be asked repeatedly about his quarterback situation.

2.

College football coaches are always looking for a good idea, and any original thought that seems to resonate with a coach’s players will immediately go viral. One of the most recent additions to the college football canon is a “sideline award,” where when a defensive player records a takeaway and returns to the sideline, he is presented with some sort of prize, usually something mildly humorous and related to the school’s history or culture. University of Miami players are given what’s called a turnover chain; University of Georgia players get a set of giant shoulder pads and a huge bone; Boise State recently unveiled a turnover throne – not a toilet but an actual throne they set up on their sideline; and so on and so on.

Last weekend, Mike Norvell’s Memphis Tigers added their own sideline prize, and it is as unique and weird and awesome as everything else is in Memphis. World, meet the sideline Ric Flair robe…

I need one of these to wear around the house. Wooooo!

3.

Washington State coach Mike Leach is either a unique soul or a weirdo, take your pick. Wherever you land, I appreciate his commitment to innovation, intentional or not. Last weekend, he rolled out a formation that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, where the center (who is actually the wide receiver) is to the far right of the offensive line and then the ball is snapped diagonally.

This formation made me wish EA’s college football game was still around, just so I could try running this play. Keep the weird stuff coming, college football.

4.

I know that football at all levels is trying to legislate some of the violence out of the game in order to help the long-term health of the participants. But I don’t think there’s anything illegal about this hit from UNC’s Jonathan Sutton, who literally flipped Cal’s punt returner.

5.

And Texas Tech’s T.J. Vasher turned in the early leader for catch of the year. I’m sure someone will do something even more ridiculous eventually, but it’ll take something special to top this.

6.

Oklahoma had no problems with Florida Atlantic on Saturday, winning 63-14 and jump-starting Kyler Murray’s Heisman campaign. (Though to be fair, my office-mate Geoff Langham has been driving the Murray-4 Heisman train since the day after the Rose Bowl.) In fact, the only person able to stop Oklahoma yesterday was the back judge, who crushed Oklahoma wide receiver A.D. Miller as he sprinted across the middle.

7.

To compound things, Florida Atlantic celebrated their 49-point loss by mistakenly sending out a fundraising text message to their alumni where they wrongly claimed to have won the game. I like to imagine some FAU alum who turned the game off early getting that text and thinking they missed the greatest comeback of all time.

8.

Best punt return for a touchdown ever?

9.

A fun thing each week during college football games are the commercials each university produces that usually air around the start of the third quarter. This year, BYU rolled out a spot featuring the actor who played Napoleon Dynamite acting alongside an animated unicorn. Fine job, but I really wish they had him do the ad as Napoleon Dynamite alongside an animated liger.

10.

Let’s leave this week with new Florida coach Dan Mullen busting a move.

Go Dawgs!

The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Memphis Grizzlies. All opinions expressed by Lang Whitaker are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Memphis Grizzlies or its Basketball Operations staff, owners, parent companies, partners or sponsors. His sources are not known to the Memphis Grizzlies and he has no special access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being an NBA accredited member of the media.

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