Bryce or Jalen?

Max or Haynes … or maybe even Conner?

The dueling quarterback mysteries entering Texas A&M’s visit to Alabama have everyone guessing. It’s like a murder mystery dinner with a side of rhetorical gamesmanship as two coaches with, let’s say significant history, navigate a multi-pronged week.

Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher are carefully wording not just statements regarding the health of starters injured last Saturday but also how each would prepare defensively.

For Texas A&M, starter Max Johnson injured his throwing hand in a loss at Mississippi State while Bryce Young sprained his passing shoulder the same day at Arkansas. Neither injury was a season-ender, thus leaving the door open for the kind of speculation coaches love to heap on defensive game planners.

You could almost hear the echo as both coaches addressed the starting QB situation Monday entering the 7 p.m. CT Saturday game in Tuscaloosa.

Saban on Young: “He’s gonna be day to day.”

Fisher on Johnson: “We’ll go day-to-day.”

By Wednesday, matching “day-to-day” assessments were repeated by both in the SEC coaches teleconference. Saban expanded by saying Young was doing “some things” in practice.

Quarterback talk was heavier Monday and both coaches would reach varying levels of agitation with multiple news conference questions on the topic.

It got to the point Saban responded to the same question by saying he might as well call Fisher with the game plan before pivoting to take issue with a newspaper headline that claimed he’d like to keep the quarterback situation a mystery.

Fisher, later that afternoon, said almost the same thing.

“What do you want me to do, call Nick and tell him?” Fisher said with a smile. “I mean, guys, come on man.”

So what does it mean if Jalen Milroe plays instead of Young or Haynes King goes instead of Johnson?

Saban was actually asked about Milroe’s progress on his radio show last Thursday, before Young’s injury, and his answer gave some direction to how they’d approach a situation like this. He said Milroe’s entered games where they’ve asked him to run the offense more in Young’s image than what fits his skillset.

“If he had to play, we would probably feature things that he could do better,” Saban said last Thursday, clearly before it became so topical, “so I think he’d be even more effective, I think. But his ability to extend plays, run and scramble and make plays with his feet is something that’s really, really difficult for defenses to adjust to.”

That was clear three days later when Milroe’s 77-yard scramble helped bail Alabama out of a 23-point Arkansas scoring run and preserve what became a 49-26 win.

And a different approach, one Alabama hasn’t shown much on film, would only complicate the preparation for the Texas A&M defense.

Fisher, on the other hand, didn’t stop at the top two on the depth chart. He threw up no stop signs when asked if freshman Conner Weigman could enter the conversation.

“We feel very comfortable if he’s in,” Fisher told reporters in College Station, adding another layer to the onion. “We could play very well if Conner is in the game and win. I think he’s going to be one heck of a player and I think he’s doing very well right now.”

There’s going to be more tape of King at A&M than Milroe at Alabama since he was the starter for the first two games of the season. He was benched after Appalachian State upset the Aggies in Week 2, paving the way for LSU transfer Max Johnson to take over.

“We’ve seen a little bit of both guys,” Saban said Monday of Johnson and King. “We don’t really know the circumstances of the situation but we have to prepare for both guys. I mean, we do this a lot, especially when the skill-set of the two guys is a little bit different. We have no way of knowing if (King) plays, if they’re going to do something different with him. We just have to prepare for what we know they’ve done in the past and be ready to adjust in the game if there’s something different.”

King was hurt and missed last year’s win over Alabama while Johnson faced the Tide as LSU’s starter. He was 16-for-32 with 160 yards, two touchdowns and an interception in the Crimson Tide’s 20-14 win.

Fisher on Monday noted the fact A&M was very much involved in the recruitment of Milroe, a product of Katy, Texas.

“Very athletic. Strong. Could throw the heck out of it,” Fisher said of Milroe. “Came to our camp, great body, great competitor. I mean, did a heck of a job.”

How much they’ll prepare differently for the possibility of seeing Milroe remains to be seen and no clues are coming out of either camp. As per Alabama’s media policy, practices no longer have media viewing periods but the school releases its own edit of workout footage every Monday and Tuesday. That routinely involved clips of quarterbacks throwing to receivers until this week.

Clips from Tuesday’s workouts showed receivers running short routes with passes delivered from an unidentified passer throwing from outside the camera frame.

The clip was viewed nearly 90,000 times on Twitter as of early Wednesday afternoon.