Joel Klatt: Notre Dame’s Week 0 dominance creates serious question for Alabama offense
After Notre Dame dominated Navy in Week Zero, with offensive firing on all cylinders, there are some questions about Alabama, according to Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt.
How are the two linked? Tommy Rees left Notre Dame for the OC position with the Crimson Tide and brought Tyler Buchner with him eventually.
But at this point, it looks like Notre Dame has a far better offense in 2023 than last year Klatt wonders what Alabama will look like under last year’s Fighting Irish offensive regime.
“If it looked that much better, what does Alabama have,” Klatt said on his podcast. “Tyler Buchner transfers to Alabama, Tommy Rees, the coordinator, goes to Alabama. Now Alabama fans, and rightly so, I’m not saying that you’re doing this blindly, Alabama fans will say, ‘We’re Alabama. We still have Nick Saban will be fine’ and to a large degree, I absolutely agree with you. I absolutely agree with you.
“Tommy Rees didn’t go down to fix Alabama’s offense. He went to be a part of the Alabama program. So there’s a little you’re not relying on Rees to go in there and revamp the offense. He’s gonna run what Nick wants him to run.”
However, both Notre Dame and Alabama have vastly different quarterback scenarios. Sam Hartman is dealing with Notre Dame while Alabama has yet to pick a quarterback.
“The bigger question though is this quarterback scenario,” Klatt said. “Notre Dame went and got Sam Hartman. They went and got Sam Hartman and it was clearly an upgrade. Bama had to go get Buchner after spring ball. They did that, I believe, because they weren’t comfortable with their quarterbacks in spring ball.
“If Jalen Milroe had played great in the spring, Tommy Rees would not have called his former quarterback and said, ‘Hey, come on down here.’ For what? To be a backup? No, no, that’s not that’s not how this works. Tyler Buchner did not transfer to be a backup. He transferred because there was a legitimate spot open.”
Based on the first game, Klatt really questioned what Alabama would be offensively compared to Notre Dame this season.
“So the question remains after we watched Notre Dame beat Navy, I immediately started thinking to myself like yikes, what are we going to see for Alabama,” Klatt said. “Now all of a sudden, I’m desperate to know. I’m desperate to know and to see what happens at Alabama at quarterback and offensive coordinator and what that’s going to look like.
“Again, I’m gonna fall back on this, do I trust Nick Saban? Absolutely I trust Nick Saban. So it’s gonna work out in some way, shape or form. I just can’t wait to see how that works out.”
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