Former Alabama football quarterback Jalen Milroe had multiple signature games during his time as the starter the past two seasons.

There’s the fourth-and-31 pass to beat Auburn. There are the times he ran wild against LSU. He also won the Crimson Tide the SEC by beating Georgia in 2023. Then Milroe beat the Bulldogs again in 2024.

But none of those games is the one he would want NFL teams to note first and foremost ahead of the NFL Dra

Milroe made the trip to New Orleans this week ahead of the Super Bowl, and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk asked Milroe which game the quarterback would want NFL scouts to study to tell his story the best.

Milroe mentioned the game that he didn’t even play in: Alabama’s 17-3 victory over South Florida on Sept. 16, 2023 in Tampa.

“USF,” Milroe answered. “Of course human nature would be your best game, but how about the game that you learn from? That you grow from? A theme in my life is 1-0. It’s improving and getting better each and every week that I have. The thing that I’ve tried to highlight is, if I didn’t have the proper mindset, the proper preparation, I wouldn’t have been able to bounce back to lead our team against an Ole Miss team that was really talented on offense and really talented on defense as well. The leadership aspect that came up.”

Milroe was benched for the USF game, after the loss to Texas in the second game of the season. So when Alabama traveled to Tampa, Tyler Buchner got the start and Ty Simpson also played later. It led to an overall disastrous offensive performance for most of the day against South Florida.

The poor showing resulted in Nick Saban naming Milroe the starter for the rest of the season, beginning with the Ole Miss game. The quarterback led the Crimson Tide to a 24-10 victory over the Rebels that day as he completed 17 of 21 passes for 225 yards and one touchdown.

“It’s just the growth aspect going from Texas to Ole Miss,” Milroe said he wants NFL teams to note.

The NFL Draft is set to start April 24, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.