College Football

Nick Saban uses portal to plug QB hole, but Alabama appears to be returning to bully ball

Updated May. 3, 2023 10:59 a.m. ET

As of May 1 at 2:30 p.m. ET, 2,623 players had entered the transfer portal. That's 297 more than entered the portal last season.

More than 75% of those are undergraduates, which is significant because they all need to enter the portal within the defined window, whereas grad transfers can enter the portal at any time. Among those undergraduates was former Notre Dame quarterback Tyler Buchner, who has since committed to transfer to Alabama.

With his transfer, Buchner reunites with former ND offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, who joined Alabama earlier this spring. While Buchner earned the starting job to start the season at Notre Dame and played admirably in the Fighting Irish's season-opener at Ohio State on the road, an injury sidelined him for most of the 2022 season.

After Sam Hartman elected to grad transfer to ND following the 2022 season, he showed promise in ND's spring game, completing 13 of 16 passes for 189 yards, while Buchner completed just eight of 18 with an interception in April before opting to transfer.

However, in his last game as a member of the Fighting Irish, Buchner completed 18 of 33 passes for 273 pass yards, with three TD passes and three INTs in a 45-38 loss to South Carolina in the Gator Bowl.

"Tyler was certainly a guy that was gonna be the starter last year at Notre Dame, got injured, played in the bowl game, played really well," said Saban on ESPN's College GameDay last week. "So we thought he would add a lot of competition, and we think he's got the right kind of character and attitude to be a positive influence on our team."

Alabama made room for Buchner following the end of its spring practices — giving the Tide five scholarship quarterbacks heading into the summer — because none of their quarterbacks secured the job. While underclassmen Dylan Lonergan and Eli Holstein were not expected to win the QB derby, redshirt freshman Ty Simpson and redshirt sophomore Jalen Milroe were.

"We wanted to give our quarterbacks in our program every opportunity to win the job in spring practice," Saban said.

None did.

Milroe is the only returning quarterback with a start at Alabama, and that came against Texas A&M when 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young was out due to injury. And Milroe did not look entirely comfortable in the role.

He completed just 12 of 19 passes for 111 yards with three TDs and an INT, and rushed for 81 yards on 17 carries, but fumbled the ball twice in a narrow win against an A&M team that would go 5-7.

That neither Simpson — a former five-star quarterback — nor Milroe succeeded in locking down the job this spring is a tacit acknowledgment of just how crucial Young was to Alabama's success over the last two seasons.

Young, who won the Heisman Memorial Trophy in 2021, was both elusive in the pocket and capable of making great throws that bailed out the offense. His teams weren't as talented as the 2020 national title team, but Young did pass for more than 3,300 yards — with 32 TDs and just five INTs — on an 11-win team that knocked off Big 12 champion Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl.

With Milroe or Buchner behind center, plus a talented group of tailbacks in the backfield — Jase McClellan, Roydell Williams and Jam Miller — the offense might become much more dominant with a Rees' understanding of downhill run schemes, vertical play-action passing and familiarization with the offensive system in place at Alabama. It might also take some pressure off of Kevin Steele's defense in Year 1, though it was stout in 2022, too.

Alabama ranked 13th in total defense (318.2 yards per game allowed), ninth in scoring defense (18.2 points per game allowed) and sixth in passing efficiency defense (108.0) last season, but will have to replace six starters from that defense, including No. 3 overall pick and EDGE Will Anderson.

With the move to bring in Rees after former offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien chose to return to the NFL as the New England Patriots' offensive coordinator for a second time, Saban's decision to hire Rees reflects a desire to retool the offense around a dominant rushing attack, where the talents of the quarterback are not as important as they have become over the last seven years — dating back to Jalen Hurts making his first start at Alabama on Sept. 10, 2016.

Notre Dame rushed for 2,458 yards on 532 carries (4.62 yards per rush), and amassed 25 TDs in 2022. Alabama still rushed for more yards (2,542) on fewer carries (458) at a gaudy 5.5 yards per carry, because the Tide was explosive between the 25-yard lines. They were not as successful as Saban would've liked on short-yardage run plays, however.

Saban wants to play more bully ball, grinding teams down not unlike his protégé and two-time defending national champion coach Kirby Smart.

Now, in addition to being able to build through elite high school recruiting, Saban has proven adept at pulling transfers who can help right away, and he certainly hopes that's the case with Buchner.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young and subscribe to "The Number One College Football Show" on YouTube.