Jalen Milroe has played his final game in an Alabama football uniform after announcing last week that he would forgo his senior season and declare for the 2025 NFL Draft.
Milroe leaves behind a somewhat complicated legacy. On the one hand, he took over the reins from Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young and guided Alabama to the College Football Playoff in 2023 — just over two months after he was benched and didn’t play in the Crimson Tide’s ugly 17-3 win at South Florida in Week 3.
Behind a resurgent Milroe, Alabama reeled off wins against Top 25 teams Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU, and No. 1 Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. He also made one of the most memorable plays in Crimson Tide history when he hit Isaiah Bond for a touchdown on 4th and 31 for a last-second win at Auburn (“The Gravedigger”).
Milroe’s critics will point to Alabama’s loss to Michigan in the Rose Bowl of the CFP semifinals, as well as regular-season losses to Texas in 2023, and to Tennessee, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt this past season. Losing to a much different Michigan team in his final college game didn’t exactly help win over any of those critics, either.
During his weekly appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning on Birmingham’s WJOX-FM Monday, SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum was asked by co-host Greg McElroy about criticism of Milroe from Alabama fans and college football analysts alike.
Finebaum called criticism of Milroe “unfair.”
“I believe that’s unfair, Greg. Jalen Milroe did a lot of good things. He’s a quarterback. He’s the face of the program, but ultimately I tend to blame the coaches. If they don’t think he’s capable, then he shouldn’t play. We went through that last year [Milroe being benched]. We didn’t go through that this year.
“But to me, it’s a little bit of piling on. No matter what we say this morning, I’m afraid I know how the narrative is going to be written and remembered because that’s just the legacy of quarterbacks. We tend to remember whether you won a championship or not, whether you fell short in the biggest games. And I think for Jalen Milroe, people will remember the end of the Rose Bowl game and sadly, they will remember the end of the ReliaQuest Bowl game.”
SEC Network host throws fresh dirt on Alabama football, Kalen DeBoer
Asked specifically about Alabama’s 19-13 loss to Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl to end the 2024 season, Finebaum said that he felt the loss would “haunt” Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer.
“I don’t think Kalen DeBoer could have dialed up a more inopportune way to finish the season. Had Alabama won, there wouldn’t have been a lot of credit given for the win because of the opponent, but you can’t fight 10 wins. You can live off that. It takes you into the offseason. It gives you some momentum as you’re building your roster toward the upcoming season. But a loss, especially one that looked so inept, I believe is going to haunt Kalen DeBoer.
“And I understand that he isn’t going to get fired, and I think it’s absurd to even have that kind of conversation, but to say he’s on some sort of a hot seat I think is accurate. That doesn’t mean very much, but all it means is people are watching him very closely. And this season, in Year 1, in my mind was a failure because he didn’t make the playoffs. Everyone already knows all the other things so I’ll spare you the stats, but he has a more difficult road ahead based on that loss.”
Finebaum pointed to Nick Saban’s two teams that didn’t qualify for the Playoff in 2019 and 2022 and said that Saban had salvaged momentum by ending those seasons with a win in Alabama’s bowl game: against Michigan in the Jan. 1, 2020, Citrus Bowl and against Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl (New Year’s Eve 2022).
“Nick Saban was very masterful the couple of times in the two seasons he didn’t make the playoffs… by winning that last game and getting momentum. Kalen DeBoer has done the opposite,” Finebaum said.
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