Alabama Football Should’ve Sat Bryce Young in the 2022 Sugar Bowl

Would Alabama football have been better served sitting junior quarterback Bryce Young against Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl this past season? On the surface, the answer is an emphatic no. The then-junior quarterback started two seasons as Alabama’s starting quarterback and threw for 8,200 yards in those two seasons with seventy-nine touchdowns and only twelve interceptions. The unquestionable leader of the offense, Young opted for the NFL this past season where he was taken second overall by the Carolina Panthers where he is presumed to be the week one starter.

In 2021, Young set the single season passing record for touchdowns with forty-seven. Young also holds the record for the Crimson Tide for most career five-touchdown games. Young ranks second in career passing yards with 8,356 (including the 156 from his freshman season). Young’s biggest individual accolade was winning the Heisman Trophy in 2021.

Most astoundingly, Bryce Young and co-captain Will Anderson both opted to play in the Crimson Tide’s Sugar Bowl game last season against the Kansas State Wildcats. In an era where unless a team is in the College Football Playoff, its highly uncommon to see standout players who go as high in the NFL Draft as Anderson and Young participate in a team’s bowl game. Doing so for the Tide shows the impressive level of selflessness head coach Nick Saban instills in his players.

With all that being said, the truth of the matter is that for a team like Alabama football, a Sugar Bowl win or loss meant very little last season as the Tide did not qualify for the College Football Playoff, and the game wasn’t part of it.

Alabama Football should’ve sat Bryce Young in the 2022 Sugar Bowl

Fast forward six months and very big question marks at the quarterback position linger for the Tide heading into the 2023 season. Two of the three quarterbacks that appear to be the front-runners to take over as the starting quarterback for the Tide in 2023 are junior Jalen Milroe and sophomore Ty Simpson. Milroe has seen a little more game action than Simpson getting a spot-start last year against Texas A&M where he led the Tide to a 24-20 victory against the Aggies throwing for 111 yards, rushing for eighty-one with three touchdowns and one interception. Simpson was third-string last season and saw very limited action late in games.

So, with two unproven quarterbacks known to be the competition entering the 2023 season, would it have made sense to get a “leg up” so-to-speak, sit Bryce Young in last year’s Sugar Bowl and play Milroe in one half and Simpson in another? It may have not given us a long enough look at anything, but it may have been worth a chance to see them in game action after neither failed to separate themselves in Alabama football’s 2023 spring game. Yes, the spring game is a live scrimmage, but the argument can be made that there is nothing better to assess a player than live game action, which the Sugar Bowl was.

Due to the lack of separation by one of the two quarterbacks, Saban has now brought in Notre Dame transfer Tyler Buchner who followed his former offensive coordinator, and now Alabama OC Tommy Rees. Here enlies another debate in that if the Tide had played Simpson and Milroe in the bowl game, maybe Saban would have seen enough to not feel the need to sign a third quarterback to bring into the mix.

On the other side of the coin, if a player with the accolades of Bryce Young opts to play in a non-College Football Playoff bowl game, it should’ve surprise anyone that Saban and the Tide were thrilled to have him as the starter and you can’t blame them for starting a player that set so many records and led the program the way he did through two seasons.

Depending on how the Tide do in the 2023 season and if they falter, this could be something to look back on at least to think – “what if?”