Jalen Milroe Should Take it from Someone Who Knows: Just Go Out and Play

Two-time national champion Jake Coker talks quarterback battles, lessons learned, and offers some perspective on the 2023 Alabama Crimson Tide.

On September 16th, more than two weeks into the 2023 college football season, the Alabama Crimson Tide football team was in a quandary behind center.

Jalen Milroe, who had endured a position battle that was subject to no small amount of discussion around the sports world, and started both the season opener and a marquee matchup against Texas, didn’t get the nod in the team’s third game. Instead, it was Notre Dame transfer Tyler Buchner who trotted out onto the field to start the first true road game against a mid-major since Nick Saban became Alabama’s head coach. Buchner struggled to move the offense and was lifted for Ty Simpson in what became one of the program’s ugliest wins in recent memory.

It was hardly the statement anyone decked out in crimson and white wanted to display in the immediate wake of a 10-point loss to the Longhorns that initially called Milroe’s status into question. Neither of the other two quarterbacks could set set himself apart, either, and Milroe didn’t get the chance to reaffirm himself in Raymond-James Stadium. His clean road uniform was free of grass stains for the duration of the contest.

The last time the season-opening signal caller sat for a prove-it game this late into a season while later being named the starter again came in 2015. A great many in the Crimson Tide fan base remember it well. In the third game of that campaign, the man who had started the previous two took to the sideline at the beginning of an absolutely massive SEC West contest. It was against Ole Miss, under the bright lights in Bryant-Denny Stadium, one year after Hugh Freeze and Bo Wallace orchestrated an upset over the Crimson Tide in Oxford, Miss.

That man was Jake Coker. He had come to the program after starting his career at Florida State, where he was recruited out of St. Paul's Episcopal School in Mobile, Ala. It was in Tallahassee that he got the first of two national championship rings, but as the backup to a freshman quarterback from Bessemer named Jameis Winston, who won the 2013 Heisman Trophy.

“Coach [Saban] told us that Friday before the game who the starter was gonna be, and I think the rumors kinda went through the locker room, and everybody kinda figured it out,” said Coker, who backed up Cooper Bateman to start the game. “When you work that hard for years and years, and you don’t get that job, I was doing my absolute best to keep in the frustration and the anger with not playing. The last thing I wanted to be was a distraction for the team.”

Opposite Ole Miss, Saban went with a relatively unproven commodity over someone who had only started a limited number of games with the program. That’s eerily familiar to what played out this past weekend. As South Florida coach Alex Golesh said, Tyler Buchner has played a lot of football, just not at Alabama.

Bateman threw for just 87 yards and had an interception, while Ole Miss took a big early lead. Enter Coker, who had the opportunity to securely plant his flag as the 2015 Alabama quarterback, and did just that even though the Crimson Tide didn’t win. Coker played short of perfection, with a pair of interceptions, but he stepped out into the Tuscaloosa night with it all on his sleeve and dispatched the mistakes to the back of his mind.

“When I finally got that opportunity [to enter the game], I didn’t really care about throwing interceptions. I didn’t care about a thing,” he said. “I was just going out there and playing, and letting it all go, and I think that was the ultimate deciding factor in me being the starter throughout the rest of the season.” 

He added that at some point players might come face-to-face with the proposition that mistakes or not, they’d have to take ownership and play their game.

“That’s the kind of mentality you have to have,” he said. “I still threw some interceptions and didn’t make all the right reads, but at least I was getting the ball out and not worrying about mistakes.”

Milroe was not the player tasked with revitalizing the offense in Tampa, but he will get his own spin on staking his name for the starting job against, almost fittingly, Ole Miss. He’s been named the starter again, and he’s also the quarterback who bears the endorsement of the former national champion who reclaimed his own position against the same foe.

Coker expressed surprise at Buchner’s performance against South Florida. That was his pick to start coming out of fall camp, owing to the connection between Buchner and Tommy Rees, the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame before Alabama. 

“It’s very hard to come in in the summertime and come into a whole new locker room, take over as a leader, learn the offense and become the starter,” Coker said. 

As for Simpson, the odd nature of the game, coupled with the weather and lackluster pass protection (which gave up five sacks), meant that not enough was seen of the player Coker described as “really talented.”

“Jalen, I think, you have to name the starter,” Coker said. “Quarterback play takes experience … If we can kinda build his confidence up — luckily, now, he’s the starter and we know who the starter’s gonna be — hopefully, that team can unify and come together and play with a lot more cohesiveness.” 

Coker touched on other necessary areas of improvement for the 2023 team, including pass blocking and establishing the run game, attributing those among the reasons why this year’s quarterback competition is different from those in the past. He also highlighted some of Milroe’s marquee moments this fall, including the touchdown pass to Jermaine Burton against Texas that he described in a positive way as a “hellacious throw … one hell of a throw.” Coker believes Milroe is talented enough that with continued improvement, he can turn around the entire narrative tied to his passing talents.

That's probably the best-case scenario at this point because midseason quarterback battles are a confusing endeavor, where each person is often looking around at their counterparts wondering who “the guy” is going to be. “Everybody’s kinda looking for some continuity, and when the starter is finally named, I think everybody can take a sigh of relief. We know which direction we’re going.”

Coker’s assessment that he performed better without saddling himself with worry holds a considerable degree of merit, especially when taking into account the fact that he went on to win another national championship, this time  as a starter. On paper, he’s undefeated as the Crimson Tide’s starting quarterback. Coker took the reins all the way through the remainder of the 2015 season, creating many memorable moments, like his truck stick on Texas A&M’s Nick Harvey and his long touchdown pass to ArDarius Stewart in the Iron Bowl. The final five games, including the entire postseason, saw nine touchdown passes and zero interceptions.

He also had the distinct advantage of knowing how to handle quarterback battles long before he watched Bateman falter in his stead. Winston outpaced him in the summer preceding the Seminoles’ 2013 conference title-Heisman-national title sweep. Many had Coker penciled in as the heir apparent to one AJ McCarron in 2014, until Blake Sims won the job after years of waiting in his own right, and led the team to an SEC title and top-seeding in the first College Football Playoff.

“As the [2014] season progressed, it was more and more evident that Blake was gonna be the starter,” Coker said. “He deserved it.

“He’s one of the best teammates I’ve ever had.”

It was then that the new entry to the Crimson Tide program drew on messages first shared with him while he was dressing out in garnet and gold. “You can’t go out and do anything, worrying about screwing something up. I don’t think you’ll ever reach your full potential. Jimbo [Fisher] and Coach Saban used to talk about not fearing failure.”

Fast forward a year, and Coker said that while he felt that he had pole position, he cemented himself when it came down to him to prove it on the field. He thought the battle was won after that year's Wisconsin game, a convincing 35-17 win in the season opener, but proved himself to the coaches weeks later in the season's lone losing effort.

“Coach Saban likes to leave no doubt within the facility who the guy is, and I can respect and appreciate that,” he said. “When I didn’t start against Ole Miss, [I went] in there not giving a damn about the consequences of any throws or what’s gonna happen next week, I felt like that was when I just took over.”

For Milroe, much like Coker, this weekend’s Ole Miss game is a chance for him to do just that. 

Jake Coker, 2015

Opponent	Comp.	Att.	Pct.	Yards	TD	Int.	Rating
vs. Wisconsin	15	21	71.4	213	1	0	172.3
Middle Tennessee	15	26	57.7	214	1	1	131.8
Ole Miss	21	45	46.7	201	3	2	97.3
Louisiana-Monroe	17	31	54.8	158	3	1	123.1
at Georgia	11	16	68.8	190	1	0	189.1
Arkansas	24	33	72.7	262	2	2	147.3
at Texas A&M	19	25	76.0	138	0	0	122.4
Tennessee	21	27	77.8	247	0	1	147.2
LSU	18	24	75.0	184	0	0	139.4
at Miss. State	15	25	60.0	144	1	1	113.6
Charleston So.	11	13	84.6	155	2	0	235.5
at Auburn	17	26	65.4	179	1	0	135.9
Florida	18	26	69.2	204	2	0	160.5
Michigan St.	25	30	83.3	286	2	0	185.4
Clemson	16	25	64.0	335	2	0	203.0
Totals	263	393	66.9	3,110	21	8	147.0

Jalen Milroe, 2023

Opponent	Comp.	Att.	Pct.	Yards	TD	Int.	Rating
vs. Wisconsin	15	21	71.4	213	1	0	172.3
Middle Tennessee	15	26	57.7	214	1	1	131.8
Ole Miss	21	45	46.7	201	3	2	97.3
Louisiana-Monroe	17	31	54.8	158	3	1	123.1
at Georgia	11	16	68.8	190	1	0	189.1
Arkansas	24	33	72.7	262	2	2	147.3
at Texas A&M	19	25	76.0	138	0	0	122.4
Tennessee	21	27	77.8	247	0	1	147.2
LSU	18	24	75.0	184	0	0	139.4
at Miss. State	15	25	60.0	144	1	1	113.6
Charleston So.	11	13	84.6	155	2	0	235.5
at Auburn	17	26	65.4	179	1	0	135.9
Florida	18	26	69.2	204	2	0	160.5
Michigan St.	25	30	83.3	286	2	0	185.4
Clemson	16	25	64.0	335	2	0	203.0
Totals	263	393	66.9	3,110	21	8	147.0

See Also: A Crimson Tide Quarterback's Advice to Tommy Rees and Jalen Milroe