Alabama's Mac Jones eager for his second Iron Bowl opportunity

Crimson Tide photos / Alabama redshirt junior quarterback Mac Jones leads the Southeastern Conference in efficiency, having completed 77.1% of his passes and having racked up 18 touchdowns and only three interceptions.

There have been five fortunate folks who have signed football scholarships under Alabama coach Nick Saban and earned the coveted opportunity to quarterback in an Iron Bowl.

AJ McCarron, Blake Sims and Jalen Hurts ascended to the starting role as four-star signees, and they preceded five-star talent Tua Tagovailoa, who guided the Crimson Tide to a 52-21 rout of Auburn two years ago inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. Tagovailoa suffered a dislocated hip two weeks before last season's showdown in Jordan-Hare Stadium, which thrust Mac Jones into the starting role.

Jones, a three-star signee in Alabama's 2017 class out of The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, was more than up for the task in Auburn's eventual 48-45 victory, and he will get a second crack at the Tigers on Saturday afternoon.

"People always give you a rating in high school, but once you step on campus, it doesn't really matter," Jones said this week. "We're just trying to get better every week, so you can only look back to see how far you've come. You can't really focus on, 'I was a three-star, or this or that.' People are going to criticize you or give you too much praise every week.

"You just have to stay even-keeled and do your job."

It's hard to find anybody in college football who is doing his job better than the 6-foot-3, 214-pound redshirt junior.

Through Alabama's 7-0 start, Jones has completed 155 of 201 passes (77.1%) for 2,426 yards with 18 touchdowns and three interceptions. He became the first quarterback in Crimson Tide history to assemble three consecutive 400-yard aerial outings, torching Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Georgia with a 79.1% accuracy rate.

His efficiency rating of 205.1 leads the Southeastern Conference, and he is a big reason the top-ranked Crimson Tide have been favored over the No. 22 Tigers by as many as 25 points. Alabama was a 3-point favorite entering last November's game.

"I thought he did a solid job last year, especially when he had time," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "You can see that he's really confident, and their offensive line is probably one of the best I've ever seen in our league. The thing that really sticks out is his timing with the receivers."

Said Saban: "The improvement is pretty obvious to everybody who watches the games. He's been very efficient in his decision-making, and we've been very pleased with the progress he's made."

That progress includes overcoming a pair of obstacles that the Crimson Tide encountered even as they've whipped all seven opponents by at least 15 points. The first notable hurdle occurred on the opening kickoff of the 48-17 win at Tennessee on Oct. 24, when junior receiver Jaylen Waddle was lost for the season with a broken ankle.

Waddle had 25 receptions for 557 yards and four touchdowns through Alabama's first four games, averaging a whopping 22.3 yards per catch.

"I don't think you can replace a guy like Jaylen Waddle," Saban said. "I think he's an explosive player - an Allen Iverson type of guy who scores lots of points and puts a lot of pressure on a defense because he can take the top off a defense. I think we've adjusted very well, and other players have picked it up for us.

"We're certainly going to need for that to happen down the stretch here so that we can continue to be effective in how we throw the ball."

Senior receiver DeVonta Smith continues to be a weekly star, having amassed 65 catches for 903 yards and 10 touchdowns and having set the SEC's career receiving touchdown mark during last Saturday's 63-3 ripping of visiting Kentucky. Smith averages 13.9 yards a reception, and Jones is having to adjust to opposing defenses after a brilliant start to the season in terms of his accuracy deep down the field.

"People are kind of playing us a little bit different and maybe a little more conservative, and rightfully so," Jones said. "Each week, a team is going to have a different plan for us, and a lot of teams have kind of been backing up more and more, so we have to find ways to squirt the ball out and get it into the flat. Even with my decision-making, I have to find a way to check the ball down and get the yards that we can get.

"That's been on me the past couple of games. You can get a little bit greedy, but when you have the people we have on our team and it's one-on-one, I'm going to take the shot."

It would be hard to find a more memorable Iron Bowl debut than the one Jones experienced last November. He completed 26 of 39 passes for 335 yards and four touchdowns but had both of his interceptions returned for touchdowns.

The last Alabama quarterback to lose two consecutive Iron Bowls was John Parker Wilson, who succumbed in the 2006 and 2007 meetings before leading the Crimson Tide to a convincing victory in 2008.

"Last year's game was obviously a really good game, and we wished it was the other way around and we could have won," Jones said. "We've kind of moved on from that, but it has been a good a learning experience. We've had to take what we've learned and apply that throughout this year so far, and we just have to continue to do that."

Odds and ends

Alabama holds a 46-37-1 series advantage, though Auburn is 20-18 in the rivalry since Bo Jackson's freshman season in 1982. Malzahn said Tuesday that starting tailback Tank Bigsby and starting tackles Alec Jackson and Brodarious Hamm remain questionable for the game following their injuries in last Saturday's 30-17 topping of Tennessee.

Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.