It’s been a busy few days for SEC football social media and graphics teams. There have been a flurry of announcements regarding starting quarterbacks over the last three days with four different teams announcing their starting signal caller will be for their first game.
One of those teams was Alabama, which announced Saturday that Keelon Russell will start the Tide’s Week 1 matchup against East Carolina. The highest-ranked recruit in program history beat out veteran backup Austin Mack for the job.
Both Mack and Russell are extremely talented, but it feels like the decision to start Russell is based more on where each quarterback could take this year’s team as opposed to where either quarterback currently is in their development.
That’s not to say that Russell is a project or that the staff is taking a gamble in starting him over Mack. It’s just that the ceiling for this year’s team is higher, and maybe significantly so, with him under center.
This year’s Alabama team enters the season with the most modest preseason ranking they’ve had in decades and one of the least experienced teams they’ve had in years.
They return just three starters and are ranked 95th in the country in returning offensive production at just 30%. They also have just seven seniors on the team, which is the fewest of any team in the SEC. Even their win total is alarmingly different from what we are used to for Alabama.
The Tide’s win total currently sits at 8.5 wins according to Fanduel which is lower than Georgia, Texas and LSU.
On paper, there are several valid concerns about how good this year’s team can be. There’s no more important position in all of sports than the quarterback. But, games in this league are won and lost in the trenches. And, Alabama has a ton of holes to fill there and quite a turnaround needed from last year’s underwhelming units.
Between the offensive line and defensive front seven, Alabama returns just two combined starters out of 12 positions. That includes four new starters on the offensive line.
Despite all of those concerns, none of that means the expectation for the program has changed in Tuscaloosa, internally or externally. That’s one of the reasons why naming Russell as the starter gives a little more hope for Alabama to exceed expectations this upcoming season.
The Tide will have one of the best wide receiving corps in America and now will have a dynamic playmaker getting them the ball. Russell is a plus-runner and a very accurate thrower. Where he really shines is his ability to extend plays and create explosive plays by forcing defensive break downs. Several people around the program have compared that part of Russell’s game to former Alabama Heisman trophy winner Bryce Young.
Similar to this year’s team, Young had a questionable offensive line in his first year as a starter requiring him to be Superman week after week for that year’s offense. That team was able to get to a national championship game because of Young, not with him. Now Keelon Russell has a chance to do the same.
