BOL Round Table

Committtment of the year and one that I don't think will be topped from a pure needs perspective. You don't want a QB that comes in and expects to play or needs to play. You want one that comes in and wants to learn, work and continue to develop behind a proven guy and great coaching. I think we have that in Morris and Bateman.

Shurburtt: “When you look at the quarterbacks that have had success there, I think that stigma is a little unfounded. You have Greg McElroy who was there when Nick Saban got there and then you have A.J. McCarron who was certainly highly touted. That’s just one of those things that’s overstated a little bit. Phillip Sims was highly touted, as was Star Jackson.”

Shurburtt forgot to mention John Parker Wilson.

What a huge relief!

I felt like we were in really good shape with Bateman, almost from the start, but the fact that he was another West Coast kid, along with the huge increase from a needs perspective, after the transfer of PS, had me more than a little concerned that if we were to miss out on Coop, we could've found ourselves in a little bit of a tight spot as we'd have been staring 3 straight recruiting classes which didn't result in putting an elite level QB prospect on our roster.

Not that I don't believe in Alec Morris having the potential to do big things during his time here, or that I don't think we're built to win big whether we have a top of the line SEC QB leading our O or not, but as we saw last year as AJ got more & more comfortable in his abilities, we can be that much more deadly when we have a QB who can make the plays necessary to prevent these SEC defenses from bringing an extra defender into the box, & who's more than capable of taking advantage of all the weapons we've brought in in recent years when it comes to our passing game.

Just how fast is his fastball then?

The only thing I can think of that would be a significant learning curve adjustment would taking snaps under center and ALL the drops he's going to learn. Considering AJ could be here for another 2 years, IMO that's ample time to get adjusted to the under center adjustment, drops, footwork and most importantly the speed of the game. Let's not forget he will b going against the biggest and fastest defense in practice everyday. Kinda gets easier on game days lol

I just hope Bateman don't get home sick and want to move back to a school closer to home........thanks, Charles.......RTR