A two-time national championship quarterback with Alabama is ripping the current team, saying that players care more about social media than their play on the field.
It hasn’t been the easiest first season for the Crimson Tide after former head coach Nick Saban retired. Under Kalen DeBoer, Alabama is 5-2 and fell eight spots to No. 15 in The Associated Press Top 25 Poll after losing to Tennessee last week.
Alabama, No. 1 at the time after beating top-ranked Georgia, was also upset earlier this month by Vanderbilt. The Crimson Tide were 22.5-point favorites going into the game.
Things won’t get much easier when they take on No. 21 Missouri this Saturday. If they lose one more game this season, Alabama’s playoff hopes will go up in smoke.
Former Alabama quarterback trashes team
Former Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron, who won national championships back-to-back in 2012 and 2013, has seen enough from this team.
During an appearance on the “McCready & Siskey” podcast, McCarron said that players are more focused on NIL and social media.
“Everybody’s worried about f****** TikTok and having a reel and being on highlights for their personal self and personal gain, and how much money they can get from NIL,” McCarron said, via the New York Post. “We just didn’t have that s*** back then. It was a team sport. You came together as a team because you had one common goal, because you knew that’s how you were going to make your money, was by winning.”
Former Alabama QB AJ McCarron on different things he has noticed around the Alabama program … 😳 pic.twitter.com/FfeU1SMOMy
— Roll Tide #18™ 🐘 (@jerrysandersRTR) October 24, 2024
He continued, “Winning attracts people to that program, it attracts scouts, it attracts GMs, it attracts ownership to allow yourself that opportunity to go make yourself a lot of money and change your family tree for a long period of time. You can just tell. It’s not the same. I would think ‘Bama fans should get used to that in a way of, hey, it’s not gonna be what you knew from 2008 up until last year, where there was just a certain standard. That’s not a knock on the coaching staff or a knock on anybody.
“It’s just a different era. I think it’s something that they’re going to have to buckle up if they’re not ready for it.”
During his four years at Alabama, McCarron threw for 9,019 yards, 77 touchdowns and only 15 interceptions.
McCarron was selected in the fifth-round of the 2014 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals. Over his eight NFL seasons, he started four games and played for the Bengals, Oakland Raiders, and Houston Texans.
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