Bill O'Brien, Bryce Young Impress Nick Saban on First Day of Spring Practice
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — As Alabama football began its spring practice season on Friday, head coach Nick Saban already had a lot to say about his team just hours after the Crimson Tide’s pursuit of its 19th national championship got underway.
Chiefly among those that Saban mentioned from his first press conference of the season were sophomore quarterback Bryce Young and new offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien, both of whom have big shoes to fill this upcoming year.
For Young, he has the difficult task of taking over the quarterback position from the 2020 Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award-winner Mac Jones. Young didn’t see much action in 2020 due to not only Jones having a record-breaking season but also a tough 10-game SEC schedule that didn’t provide Young with many opportunities to come into games.
According to Saban, Young impressed in his first day in practice and learned from being the team’s backup last season.
“We wanted to play Bryce more last year,” Saban said. “Probably didn’t play him as much as we wanted or would have liked to because we were playing 10 SEC games and we didn’t have any other games that we could sort of work him into more. But I thought he did a good job. I thought at time he was feeling his way out there — not playing with the kind of confidence that we would like for him to play with but it’s part of his development.
“He learned from it and he’s been much better in practice. Like today — and this was the first day that we could actually throw — and I thought he did a good job of throwing. The players have been throwing on their own some, which we don’t get to see but he did a pretty good job today. He looked a lot more comfortable sort of managing and executing the offense and playing fast so I think that was really encouraging.”
Young played in nine games last season and completed 13 of his 22 passing attempts. In total, he threw for 156 yards — 7.1 yards per completion — and make one touchdown pass. Notably, Young also did not throw any interceptions.
While Young is impressing Saban early on the field, O’Brien seems to be impressing him off of it. O’Brien joined Alabama in January to replace former offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, who moved on to become the new head coach at Texas. Like Young and Jones, O’Brien has large shoes to fill that were left behind by Sarkisian.
Under Sarkisian, Alabama had the fourth-best offense in the country in 2020. In its 13 games played, the Crimson Tide gained 7,041 yards on 902 plays — and average of 7.81 yards per play. Alabama also led the country in offensive touchdowns with 79, an average of one touchdown per 11.42 plays.
O’Brien is up to the job, though. He brings to the Crimson Tide a plethora of knowledge and experience from his decades at both the college and NFL level. O’Brien served at multiple offensive coaching positions for the New England Patriots from 2007-2010 before taking the head coaching job at Penn State. In 2014, O’Brien then served as both head coach and general manager of the Houston Texans before being relieved of duties during the 2020 season.
Like Young, Saban is impressed with what O’Brien brings to the table for Alabama in 2021.
“I think Bill’s a really, really good coach,” Saban said. “He’s coached with some really good coaches. He’s had some really good success at what he’s accomplished and what he’s done. I think it’s really difficult when you have somebody come in and try to learn our system, which he has done a really good job of, to try to implement that system and tweak it to where we can fix it and make it better based on the quality control that we did last year.”
Following a year that saw Alabama have its best offensive season in program history, the task will be a difficult one for both O’Brien and Young. With expectations higher than ever before, both coach and player will need to bring their A-game in the 2021 season.
To Saban, the big thing that he has had to emphasize with new coaches to focus on doing their job and for players to avoid making comparisons from last season and focus on the here and now.
“The big thing I’ve tried to emphasize with the new coaches is that it’s kind of human nature to want to try to come in and make an impact and do something that’s great,” Saban said. “We just need you to do a good job of coaching our players and getting them to play the best that they can play. Getting the players to understand our system and what we do in a really positive way. There’s no expectations. We shouldn’t be making comparisons to what we did last year on offense and how we are going to be next year on offense.
“I think the focus needs to be on how do we get the players that we have to be the best offensive team that we can be, and we’ll all work together to try to do that. And so far that’s worked out really well.”
Gallery: Alabama Football Hosts First Spring Practice of 2021
