Many people have discouraged Mac Jones from ever going to Alabama. After all, the Crimson Tide already has a quarterback named Jalen Hurts a year ahead of him and another named Tua Tagovailoa in their 2017 yard class.
Why go to Tuscaloosa if you are not even the best QB they bring in?
Many people encouraged Mac Jones to leave Alabama. After all, halfway through his third season on campus in Jacksonville, Florida, the native tried a total of 33 passes. Oh, and Nick Saban signed a five-star recruiter from California, Bryce Young, who many believe would be the first day of the 2020 season.
Why stay in Tuscaloosa if you will never be a backup / insurance policy?
However, that was never how Mac Jones saw it. This is not how many players in Alabama see it.
And that’s why you see Alabama doing things like Friday, playing Notre Dame (31-14) in a semifinal to advance to their eight national championship games in the last twelve years.
Jones hit 297 yards and four times on Friday. He has now thrown 36 on the season, while completing more than 77% of his passes. He is a Heisman finalist and one game of engineering is a perfect national season.
The above paragraph would have stunned many people a few years ago when he was entrenched on the bench. Not even Jones might be willing to admit it all.
“I’m not very athletic,” Jones said after completing 25 of his 30 matches against the Irish. “I’m just trying to get the ball to the right people.”
He was asked if he was preparing a speech for the Heisman ceremony.
“It’s a rat poison question,” Jones said, dismissing everything but the team’s goals.
Jones may not be the obvious poster boy for the machine Saban built in Alabama – certainly not before the parade of powerful running rugby (like Najee Harris, who blocked himself up to 125 yards against the Irish) or gifted wide receivers (like DeVonta Smith, who pulled in three touches) or an offensive lineman (like Alex Leatherwood, who kept collapsing parts of the Notre Dame defense) … and we have not even come to the defense yet .
Yet he is them, and it is he, who is all part of what – in this era of transfer portals and opt-outs and instant gratification – makes Alabama so immobile at the top of the sport.
Jones ventured there and then ventured to stay, in part because Saban is not only looking for the most talented players, but for the most talented players who can possibly handle being surrounded by equally talented, even no longer talented players. . The Venn diagram on it is smaller than you might think.
It could be mega-recruits willing to wait and work for their turn, like Harris, a five-star who just got a rookie for 55 years but is now almost unacceptable; or Smith, who came on the field as freshmen in just six games but has now set an SEC record of 20 times on the season, and is also for the Heisman; or Leatherwood, who once saw only junk but is now an Outland finalist and possibly picks the first round.
Or it’s someone like Jones, who never knew if his glory season would ever dawn, but decides it’s worth it anyway.
Early on, Jones’ father devised a way for Mac to define himself while fighting for practice reps, let alone championship trophies. Mac was a “first string fullback who just waited his turn.”
That’s it. So keep going.
Sure, he would have been able to stick to his commitment to Kentucky and probably started earlier in his career, and he would certainly have been able to move to many schools and play right away, but Jones did not choose Alabama because it would be easy.
He chose it because it would be difficult.
And he did not stay in Alabama because he promised a starting job, but because he had to earn it and keep earning. The pressure for playing time never eases.
Hurts won the Tide a national championship, only to be in favor of Tagovailoa, who then won another. Jones finally filled out last season for an injured Tua and can now bring his own title back to campus with the other two.
On and on it turns.
In another era, when the numbers of the stock market could move about 150 or more to the biggest programs, and thus the playing time was harder to earn, Bo Schembechler in Michigan tried to maintain motivation by declaring that ‘those who will be champions’.
The concept was then easier to sell. This is now almost impossible. The transfer market is ruthless. And Schembechler talked about Big Ten crowns, not national, which is the only standard in Alabama these days.
Yet Saban has managed it, an old-school concept that seeks out old souls in this very prominent time for college football. Here, when everyone wants something now, patience is a prerequisite in the Tide football building.
Jones accepted it and finally seized his moment. So do Harris and Smith and Leatherwood and all the others.
They’re in their own way a male part of the rivals like Saban, who got an unsportsmanlike behavior flag against Notre Dame while having 24 points with just three minutes left and previously almost a non-working ESPN headset during ‘ broke a rest period. maintenance.
He never stops.
Neither do the guys who play for him. Or those who still hope to play for him.
Mac Jones was one of those guys and now he’s one game of everything – he had an undefeated national champion while drafting video games and spinning NFL scouting heads.
Maybe no one saw it coming, but he. But if you spend your time thinking about what anyone else is thinking, you will no longer be living in Alabama.
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