Debate on Which School Can Claim Jalen Hurts Focused on Wrong Things: All Things CW

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, Alabama Crimson Tide fans will claim the quarterback because they consider him to be a football hero.

Christopher Walsh | Feb 1, 2023

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Alabama Crimson Tide

The All Things CW notes column by Christopher Walsh appears in five parts each week, with the latest on the Alabama Crimson Tide. This is ...

Take 3

Those who are suddenly weighing in on which school should be able to claim Jalen Hurts as a player are a couple of years too late as the issue was settled long ago

Hurts himself has said he claims both. That's the end of it.

Now that he's a starting quarterback for a team playing in a Super Bowl should have nothing to do with it, and quite frankly fans need to start getting used to players being associated with multiple college programs. Thanks to the changes in the transfer rules it's becoming pretty common.

It's not like wide receiver Jameson Williams suddenly forgot about his time at Ohio State before he played at Alabama, and the same holds true about Landon Dickerson and Florida State. But no one is arguing this week about whether the offensive lineman is really a Seminole just because his team, the Philadelphia Eagles, will play in the Super Bowl.

In 2020, when BamaCentral did its initial Saban Top 100 (which will obviously have to be revisited soon considering the wealth of talent Alabama continues to have), Hurts was No. 17.

Here was his Crimson Tide resume:

2016 SEC Offensive Player of the Year
2016 All-SEC
First freshman quarterback to start under Nick Saban
Finished fourth all-time at Alabama in winning percentage at 92.9 percent (26-2)
Owned the all-time record for rushing touchdowns by an Alabama quarterback with 23 through his 42 career games
Ranked second in career rushing by a quarterback with 1,976 yards and finished second in program history touchdown responsibility with 71
Accumulated 7,617 yards of total offense, third in Alabama history. Totaled 48 career touchdown passes, third most all-time

He even appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated three times.

Hurts, of course, finished his collegiate career at Oklahoma and finished second for the 2019 Heisman Trophy. He not only left with Saban and Alabama's blessing, but they helped him go. Crimson Tide fans subsequently not only cheered for him from afar, but hoped to see him in the National Championship Game (both teams lost in the semifinals).

Hurts also got his degree at Alabama, an important distinction that for some reason is being overlooked.

But it's not the biggest thing that's being ignored in this debate.

Alabama's 2018 quarterback room of Hurts, Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa is already legendary as all three quickly became starting quarterbacks in the NFL. But only one could start, and Tagovailoa won the job.

By the end of October he was leading the nation in passer efficiency and on pace to set a new NCAA record in the category it uses to determine the annual passing champion.

Alabama was shattering school records left and right, and at times seemed nearly unstoppable. For example, of the first 61 possessions the Crimson Tide had with Tagovailoa at quarterback it scored 41 touchdowns and five field goals (74.2 percent). He was averaging a touchdown pass every 6.1 attempts, or 6.4 for his career.

With the overall production off the charts by Alabama’s standards, the Crimson Tide finished October leading the nation in offensive scoring and was second in total offense by averaging 564.3 yards per game.

Meanwhile, there was Hurts.

A lot of players in a similar situation would have been a negative influence in the locker room after being replaced in the National Championship Game, or left the team and gone elsewhere with two years of eligibility remaining.

Hurts didn't. He stuck around and kept working.

And he continued to make strides as a quarterback.

“Those two push each other to go harder,” cornerback Trevon Diggs said at the time. “He’s grown a lot. I see a lot of improvement from him.”

Diggs was talking about Hurts with the latter part of that comment, who was the SEC Offensive Player of the Year in 2016, and while notching 26 wins as starter led Alabama to title games. His passer rating rose so much that he was second behind Tagovailoa in the SEC. Had he enough attempts to qualify nationally Hurts would have been third.

Sports Illustrated cover Jalen Hurts, Dec. 12, 2016

Tagovailoa later admitted that he never envisioned a scenario in which he was the starter and Hurts was behind him on the depth chart.

“You got it, it’s your team,” Tagovailoa said Hurts told him when the starting job was announced. “I said no.

“To have someone like Jalen stick with it, knowing that I’d been the starter for two years and to have someone come in front of me now ... the kind of character that he has, and the kind of maturity that he’s shown throughout the year within our team, I think that’s something special.”

They both played.

They were both successful.

They both became better quarterbacks.

“Jalen has certainly improved in the pocket,” Saban said during the 2018 season. “There's no doubt about that. There's never been any question about his arm talent. It's always been making decisions, choices, second reads, that type of things, which I think he's really made a lot of improvement on.

“When he's done those things, he's had really good success. And I think consistency in continuing to do those things is the key to him in the future.”

It’s just that Tua … well, he was that good.

Even Saban said that the quarterback exceeded his expectations, to which Tagovailoa told reporters that he must have been joking with them.

He wasn’t. But it helps explain the context to what happened in the SEC Championship Game against Georgia, when a battered Tagovailoa wasn’t able to continue due to ankle injuries and Saban had to call on Hurts down 28-21 with roughly 11 minutes to go.

Eleven months after he had been pulled from the national title game — against the same team, and in the same location, Atlanta — Hurts threw for one touchdown and ran for another, to lead No. 1 Alabama to a 35-28 comeback victory over the No. 4 Bulldogs.

"I've probably never been more proud of a player than Jalen," Saban said at the time.

He later, looking back on the season, commented: “I've always said how much respect I have for both the guys. How you handle things when you're in a difficult situation I think speaks volumes of who you are.”

That's what everyone should focus on about Hurts, and why Alabama fans will also claim him regardless of what he may have done after leaving Tuscaloosa and what anyone else thinks.

Christopher Walsh is the founder and publisher of BamaCentral, which first published in 2018. He's covered the Crimson Tide since 2004, and is the author of 26 books including Decade of Dominance, 100 Things Crimson Tide Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die, Nick Saban vs. College Football, and Bama Dynasty: The Crimson Tide's Road to College Football Immortality. He's an eight-time honoree of Football Writers Association of America awards and three-time winner of the Herby Kirby Memorial Award, the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s highest writing honor for story of the year. In 2022, he was named one of the 50 Legends of the ASWA. Previous beats include the Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, along with Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Originally from Minnesota and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, he currently resides in Tuscaloosa.

Take 3

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