Alabama had their A-Day yesterday. The offense was underwhelming as the Tide are trying to break in two quarterbacks (A.J. McCarron and Phillip Sims) that aren't up to the starting quarterback level yet. At least, not what Bama fans have been used to in the past few years anyway. This is not a situation that will be settled by game one of the regular season.

McCarron was 21/38 for 222 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT. He also lost a fumble. Sims threw for 229 yards and 1 INT on 19/38 passing. McCarron and Sims played for both teams in the spring game. However, Sims is getting the edge from me. McCarron's lost fumble on the 1 yard line was huge as Mark Barron returned it 96 yards for a TD. McCarron's TD pass to Trent Richardson (who is definitely the go-to guy this year) got him back to even scoring wise. On Sims' drives, his side scored 10 points. The difference becomes marked when we go to the Positive Impact Factor. McCarron turned in a PIF of 14.2 while Sims had a 39.5. Digging further we find that McCarron threw an incompletion, was sacked, or fumbled on 58.3% of his touches. Sims had such plays occur on 50% of his touches.

To commemorate their 2009 BCS championship, Alabama also unveiled their Nick Saban statue in the Walk of Champions. It was kind of a big deal as you can see from the news clip above. The statue stands nine feet tall, which is only a *little* larger than life size. The crowd that turned out (92,310) was a new record.