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Alabama football: 5 reasons Crimson Tide fans should feel optimistic about the 2023 season
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The seemingly endless, insanely arduous wait is over.
The long offseason that officially began on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, where Alabama finished off overmatched Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl, has finally given way to a new season, full of the usual promise and hope but with an unusual dose of fear and danger mixed in.
After 8 months of wondering and worrying, after spring football, A-Day, the dizzying transfer portal, fall camp and a quarterback dilemma that is still raging, the Alabama Crimson Tide have a game this Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
It is Middle Tennessee Week.
That wonderful reality might not sound like much, because it is Middle Tennessee and not Tennessee, or Texas (that comes next week). But the fact that Week 1 has arrived, no matter what overmatched team it brings to Tuscaloosa, is always enough for a town and a state that builds its entire sports being around 4 months, from Labor Day to New Year’s Day and usually a little beyond that.
Those 4 treasured months have arrived.
The lump in your throat on gameday mornings.
The sea of tailgaters, as far as the eye can see.
The Roll Tide chant rolling off your tongue about as much as you breathe.
The cheering, the boasting, the worrying, the winning and the fear of losing.
It’s back. All of it.
And in 2023, all of it is a little bit more than even usual, because the rival school to the east has ripped off the past 2 national championships, and everyone is wondering if Georgia has already surpassed Alabama before the Dawgs even begin the journey to an unthinkable 3-peat.
This particular football fall is going to take everything out of T-Town, because the proverbial clock is ticking on the Nick Saban Dynasty, which has never gone 3 seasons without bringing home a national title. This means that if there’s no natty waiting in early January, then the wrong kind of history will be made, and just maybe Saban’s disciple in Athens will be getting fit for the throne once again.
All of this makes the 2023 season the scariest in Saban’s tenure, because there is just so much on the line. The range of emotions that fans will be feeling will likely be at a weekly boiling point, as the result of each game tells Tide fans how to feel about all the good they’ve become so used to over the past 15 years.
So, in the dying days of August, with Week 1 beckoning, how should Crimson Tide fans really feel about the apocalyptic 2023 season?
Ecstatic? Pessimistic?
How about we meet somewhere in the middle and land on optimistic, because there are reasons to believe this team can do great things, even as it tries to replace legends Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr., even as it deals with having 2 new coordinators and, yes, even as it welcomes a new starting quarterback or quarterbacks (plural) into the fold.
Saturday Down South columnist Connor O’Gara recently gave his take on the Tide’s 2023 season in his Crystal Ball column.
So, with all of these thoughts and moving parts in mind, here are 5 reasons for a passionate and paranoid fan base to feel optimistic about the next 4 months:
1. Those rampaging running backs
It isn’t just senior Jase McClellan, who is on the preseason watch list for the prestigious Maxwell Award. He is the head of the snake or is likely to be if everything goes according to plan. But even if it doesn’t, even if McClellan doesn’t end up dominating like the Maxwell folks think he will this fall, then that likely means that fellow senior Roydell Williams ended up emerging and forming a formidable 1-2 punch with McClellan. Both of these guys not only have the talent, they also have a chip on their shoulder because they’ve both overcome torn ACL injuries and spent their Alabama careers waiting in the wings while others ran to glory. Talent and motivation are a dangerous combination.
McClellan and Williams will be pushing each other for playing time, to be The Guy in the backfield, especially with a new quarterback in the fold. But the duo will also be getting pushed from below on the depth chart, and that’s a great thing. Sophomore Jam Miller got a taste of the field in 2022, and he wants a bigger piece of the pie in 2023. And then there’s the dynamic freshmen duo of Justice Haynes and Richard Young, both with star potential as their time in T-Town gets going. Haynes already gave the fans a glimpse in April by putting on a show during A-Day.
The Tide’s running backs room is stacked 5 deep, and if it lives up to its lofty preseason billing then it’ll matter a lot less how the quarterback thing goes. These running backs might just will Bama back to the SEC title game and back to the Playoff by themselves.
2. Not every Bama QB can be Bryce
As we sit here in late August, we really have no idea how this whole quarterback triangle is going to work out. Will Jalen Milroe finally emerge after getting a taste of the field last fall when Young injured his shoulder? Will Ty Simpson, with his glossy 5-star billing, have a breakthrough season and make everyone forget that he entered this season with 5 career passing attempts? Or will it be the Notre Dame Guy, Tyler Buchner, who ultimately becomes Young’s successor and cashes in after following offensive coordinator Tommy Rees from South Bend to Tuscaloosa? Honestly, any of the 3 scenarios wouldn’t surprise, and just maybe 1 will be adequate enough to ease the transition.
Or … or it could end up being a quarterback mishmash, where 1 guy emerges then struggles, then another replaces him and thrives, and it becomes sort of a QB merry-go-round that keeps opposing defensive coordinators on their toes. This could very well happen, and it just might end up being enough for Bama. But what all of this will teach Tide fans is that it’s OK that none of the 3 quarterbacks will be Young, because Young was a shooting star, the kind of QB who comes along only once in a generation. If Milroe, Simpson and Buchner combine for enough production and not too many mistakes, they might not make Bama fans forget Young, but they might just be a part of a happy solution instead of becoming the problem.
And if that happens, then nobody will really stress about which of the 3 actually won the job.
3. Dallas takes charge of the defense
Dallas Turner has talked tough in the preseason, and that alone should excite the fan base. This is assuming, of course, that the junior linebacker can back up his words with action. Turner has already proclaimed, loud and clear, that he’s the best defensive player in the SEC, and that certainly could end up being the case. If it is, or even if Turner is merely 1 of the best — which he absolutely should be — then the angst felt by the loss of Anderson will float away because Alabama will have its new star linebacker in a long line of them. Turner learned a lot from Anderson by playing beside him, and this fall we’re going to see how that translates when Anderson isn’t by his side.
Turner will need to do a lot for this Alabama defense, but at the top of the list will be getting home again, because last season — for whatever reason — he saw his sack total slashed to 4 after rolling up 8.5 as a freshman in 2021. If Turner can consistently find his way home again — and we think he will — then everything else falls into place, and his preseason bravado will have the backing of his own possessed play. You can tell Turner is hell bent on becoming a star. He needs it, and Alabama needs it to happen this fall. He’s not the only potential standout on this defense (think cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry), and there are others ready to break out in ’23 (think fellow linebackers Chris Braswell and Deontae Lawson).
But the key to the whole thing working on the defensive side is Turner, and he will back up his words this fall by going from star-in-waiting to star. It doesn’t mean Anderson won’t be missed by the Bama faithful. It just means the Bama faithful will be watching someone play this fall who reminds them of Anderson.
4. Saban’s ability to adapt
Tricky seasons like this — with holes to fill at key areas (quarterback, safety), with 2 new coordinators to mesh with and with anxiety running wild because of the Georgia Thing — are when having the greatest college football coach of all time comes in handy. Bama fans boast about Saban being the best all the time, or at least they should, and so in 2023 they can take comfort in the fact that they have their best man on the case. Saban earns his money (and there’s a lot of it) every single season. He’s a perfectionist, a tireless, demanding figure, and so a season like this, with all the changes and all the pressure, will test him like none other. And Lord knows Bama fans should give him the benefit of the doubt, based on the past 15 years of excellence, that he’ll come through.
It’s not going to be easy this fall, because even the greatest of seasons have their shaky moments. But any Alabama football fan who has been around for a while, who remembers some of the lean years before Saban arrived in 2007, should be endlessly grateful to have Saban around for a season like this, when there is so much on the line and so much uncertainty along with it. Nick Saban was built for challenges like this, for the whispers about his “fading dynasty” and his own coaching mortality. You just know he’s had more than a few moments throughout the offseason when those whispers, when those impending challenges, have spurred him to work just a few more hours, until the sun is ready to come up.
There are no guarantees that this season will go great for Alabama, because nothing is ever guaranteed. But what Bama fans can be absolutely sure of and optimistic about is that they have the best college coach of all ime in their possession. And that factor alone gives the Tide the best chance to overcome all the obstacles they will inevitably face this fall.
5. Winning culture finds a way
This final reason for Bama fans to be optimistic amid all the doubts piggybacks off the previous reason. That’s because Saban has built such a winning culture in Tuscaloosa that it’s imbedded in the muscle memory of every player he coaches. Ever wonder why certain pro teams always seem to win a lot of games each season, even if it feels like the due date has come for them to start losing finally? It’s that winning culture (and maybe some big-market money spent on free agency) that allows those organizations, or collegiate programs like Alabama football, to win and then win some more, until the winning stretches for years and even decades.
That’s where the Crimson Tide are now. That’s where Saban has brought them. And that alone should make nervous Tide fans feel a little less nervous about what they’re going to see this season, with no Young, no Anderson and 2 new coordinators. This might not be the best Alabama team in the glorious Saban Era, a reality that’s pretty much assumed by all. But it doesn’t mean it won’t be a team that’s once again in the mix for all the marbles, from the SEC West title to the SEC title to the national title. There is that stable of talented running backs, there is plenty there at wide receiver, there is potential for a quality offensive line despite the departures there, and there are Turner and McKinstry as the anchors on defense. There is plenty on this roster, veterans, transfers and freshmen, for yet another double-digit-win season and another run at Saban’s elusive 7th national championship at Alabama.
And when it all comes to a head, in the biggest moments this fall, the Tide’s winning culture will surface — and it won’t hurt to have Will Reichard around again to kick a few huge field goals. A winning culture doesn’t guarantee that the winning will continue forever — just look at the 2023 St. Louis Cardinals for an example of that — but Alabama isn’t even close to reaching the end of this glorious run. The winning culture will be present again this fall, and so will the winning.
We’re not saying national championship, but we’re not ruling it out, either.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
