good explanation max, i totally agree. there is a middle ground here that both sides can fall on. Marcus don't call me 'JA' is not as bad or as great as each say. He lies in the middle and it should be enough. Matt is a better athlete and ran much better regardless the racial stereotypes....his injury hurt this yet made him a better QB as most know. Matt was so bad in the UF game he lost it on his own pretty much. Marcus may do the same at AU as he did 2 years ago, he was awful yet he could be Matt Mauck v2.0 as we saw the new softare release from jimbo. EA Sports works with Jimbo to make a better product. 6.0 next year with jamarcus is much anticipated.
I believe our offense will be okay. Fisher and Saban have more to work with now than they did when Matt went down in the Florida game in 2002. Randall had several good games as a starter (S. Carolina, KY, parts of the Cotton Bowl, Arkansas), so I believe he can run the offense. (Granted, I was present for the carnage in Auburn and saw what happens we he gets frazzled. That's going to be Jimbo's big challenge with Randall, but I believe the kid has matured a lot since Auburn of '02.) I expect us to have a Saban defense, so, overall, we should be okay. I believe we all need a bit of a reality check, though. I believe we are a top 15 team right now. Saban's teams tend to get much better as the season progresses. I believe we'll play Georgia twice again this year and possibly play in another BCS bowl game. No matter how things go, I believe Saban and Fisher and company will give us a very exciting season and a team we can be proud of, even if it is not a BCS Championship team.
Saban and Fisher both said that Randall's arm strength is good enough to make all the throws so why would any of you guys question it? If the coaches fell he can make the throws needed to win then he can make them. And arm strength is the most overrated part of a QB's make up. The best QB's in college football history had average to less than average arm strength, guys such as Wuerfel, Ward, Fluttie, etc. Even Leinhart at USC has an average arm. It's where you put it that matters, not how it gets there. In college a good receiver will have 2-3 yards of separation and that is plenty enough and is the reason that UF had so much success with QB's that didn't have strong arms during Spurrier's reign. There strongest armed QB was Johnson and he was about the least productive of all their starters over the years.
SabanFan isn't just a fan, he's a "read between the liner" that interprets Saban saying, "Randall has great arm strength and can make the throws..." to saying, "Randall has average at best arm strength and SabaFan is really a deity sent here to shower knowledge onto us like so much manna from heaven...Do his bidding and drink this Kool-Aid..."
Actually cajdav1, that is an excellent post. The QB that epitomized that the most was Danny Weurfel Recievers had so much separation it wasn't even funny. Made us all think Danny was awesome. And under a college system, he was. Come time for the NFL, we found out he had no arm strength to speak of and was basically useless. So maybe now we must refocus our thoughts on whether our receivers get the separation needed in order for Randall to be successful.
I think a lot of folks here have it right. I agree on these points: 1. Randall has great arm strength and a long ball. Longer than Mauck. 2. Randall does not have great accuracy at long range. Neither did Mauck. 3. This is not the green Randall thrown to the wolves in 2002. He's a smart kid and he knows the system. He still has to prove he's as good as Mauck at running the offense. 4. When you recruit a Parade All-American QB, you expect him to come in and start like Leake at Florida. Randall is keeping Nick's All-American quarterback on the bench so far. 5. At the spring game everybody rated the quarterbacks: 1-Randall, 2-Russell, and 3-Flynn. 6. Jimbo made stars out of Josh Booty, Rohan Davey, and Matt Mauck in their last years by fashioning an offense that played to their personal strengths. Why would he not do just as well with Randall? Especially with all of the talent playing around him.
I don’t see the speed of the receivers being any better than last year’s team. However, I do see a big drop off in the level of experience. DH was a sub 4.4 guy and MC was a 4.5 range guy and both of them were high draft choices. If anything, this year I expect our productivity at the wide outs to drop off somewhat because of less experience. I hope I’m wrong though. As for as Randall goes, whether or not his arm is stronger than Matt’s arm was I don’t know, but I’ve noticed that a lot of his passes look like wounded ducks when traveling through the air. Whether or not he is going to work out for the tigers this year, I can only cross my fingers and hope. I just hope he doesn’t perform like he did in the LA Tech game last year, when he couldn’t lead the tigers to a single touchdown for a whole half against the worst defense we faced. Basically, I’ll hope for the best and reserve judgment until after I see him play, but I do know this, Saban has two very talented quarterbacks backing Randall up and anxious for their shot, if Randall doesn’t perform up to speed, I don’t believe Saban is going to exhibit very much patience with that much talent ready to go sitting on the sideline.
