Alabama Football: 3 reasons Mac Jones is dominating the SEC in 2020

1. The football intelligence and nuances that Mac Jones shows

Nuances to the position oftentimes come naturally. There are traits that can be learned, of course, like footwork and the mechanics of throwing the football. However, the nuances? These are a good bit more difficult to teach.

When I say the nuances, I mean the ability to look a defender off of the route and then rip a touch pass over a receivers head for a touchdown. Oh, lookie there.

On this throw, look at how Jones starts out by looking to the middle of the field. Georgia is playing basic cover two, and the idea of cover two is to keep the play in front of the ground you are defending. It allows the defenders to play “downhill”, limiting the complexity of the reads and allowing defenders to play faster and more confident.

When Jones starts in the middle of the field, that deep right safety drifts to the left and away from DeVonta Smith — who is running a slow-developing wheel route. Because the safety’s job is to read the quarterback, Jones uses his eyes to move the safety away from where the ball is going. Then he comes back to the right and lets a beautiful “bucket” throw go into the end zone for the touchdown.

Using your eyes to move defenders is a harder skill to teach. Mac Jones is showing the ability already to manipulate coverage with his eyes. That’s smart football. LSU fans can call me crazy, but it’s almost like Joe Burrow.

There has to be a point in time when we start to consider Jones for the Heisman Trophy. He’s having an incredible season, even better than the last two quarterbacks at Alabama.

He looks like an NFL quarterback.