Nick Saban raves about former Texas QB commit Jalen Milroe

While the bulk of the spring games around the college football landscape have already concluded, second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program are still waiting to take part in theirs. The annual Orange-White spring football game is set to take place for Texas on April 23.

One of the more important spring games to watch around the college football landscape for those Texas fans interested in doing so was with the Alabama Crimson Tide and head coach Nick Saban. The former employer of Sark a couple of years ago, prior to him taking the Texas head coaching job, had some interesting storylines with some relevant ties to the Longhorns this spring.

And one of those interesting storylines had to do with a couple of former key Texas commits trying to make their way up the depth chart in spring ball for Saban and the Crimson Tide. Two names of note here are rising sophomore quarterback Jalen Milroe and incoming freshman four-star running back Jamarion Miller.

Milroe and Miller are both former blue-chip Texas commits from the past few recruiting cycles that wound up flipping to the Crimson Tide for various reasons. In the case of Milroe, it was Texas getting a commitment during the summer of 2020 from the Southlake Carroll quarterback Quinn Ewers that caused him to flip his commitment to Alabama at the time.

But as we know now, neither Milroe nor Ewers would wind up committing to Texas coming out of high school.

Moreover, Miller flipped to the Crimson Tide after there was growing momentum between him and Alabama last fall. The fact that Texas already had one blue-chip running back commit in the mix in the 2022 class with Klein Cain product Jaydon Blue could’ve also played a role in Miller flipping.

It appears as if Saban is high on what both Miller and Milroe bring to the table for the Alabama offense at the conclusion of spring ball. He specifically mentioned Milroe as someone that stood out in Alabama’s spring game (also known as A-Day) over the weekend.

Nick Saban likes what he sees from the former Texas football QB commit Jalen Milroe

In his post-spring game press conference, Saban mentioned that “Jalen can make plays running the ball” and that he “made some good throws” too.

And in terms of his progress as a whole, Saban noted that Milroe essentially made some necessary strides in needed areas of his game during spring camp.

All in all, it sounds like Saban is happy with his quarterback room at the moment post-spring camp. And that comes with good reason. Alabama has a deep and talented quarterback room highlighted by the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and rising junior Bryce Young.

Behind Young in Alabama’s quarterback room are the to-be sophomore Milroe and the incoming freshman five-star recruit Ty Simpson. That trio has to make the Crimson Tide faithful feel good about their situation in the quarterback room at the conclusion of spring ball.

It will be interesting to see if Milroe can secure the backup job this fall for the Crimson Tide. During his first season playing for Alabama, Milroe took nearly three-dozen snaps at quarterback, mostly in garbage time. He served in the third-string role for most of last season behind Young and sophomore Paul Tyson.

But with Tyson gone by way of the NCAA Transfer Portal to the Arizona State Sun Devils this offseason, the door should be open for Milroe to secure the backup job this fall. Simpson will be his main competition for the backup job.

Alabama was one of the more than 20 schools to hold their spring football game last weekend. Coming up this weekend is essentially the rest of the spring games that have yet to take place around the college football landscape including that of the Longhorns, Oklahoma Sooners, LSU Tigers, and USC Trojans, among many others.