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So the joke goes something like this: Nick Saban is the only person who successfully stopped Jalen Hurts.
But before we get into rehashing the past or who did what and why, maybe the fall and rise of Hurts can be a teaching moment for college football quarterbacks of the now generation.
Maybe, if we look real close, Hurts isn’t the outlier. He’s part of an undeniable quarterback trend that can no longer be ignored.
“There’s untold value in failure,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart told me last summer.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of that.
Somewhere, amid the hustle and bustle of free player movement and NIL deals, and if it doesn’t work here, there’s always the transfer portal, is a story of reality everyone needed.
The story of the young quarterback from suburban Houston who arrived at Alabama in 2016 as a midterm enrollee, and it took all of one quarter in the season opener for Saban to realize Hurts had to be on the field. If you think that’s an improbable ride, consider these next steps:
— But for an improbable, two-minute touchdown drive from DeShaun Watson and Clemson, Hurts would’ve been a national championship quarterback as a freshman.
— A year later, after leading Alabama to 25 wins in 27 starts, Hurts was benched at halftime of the College Football Playoff national championship game against Georgia for freshman Tua Tagovailoa.
— A year after that, after the humility of losing the starting job again in fall camp, Hurts stayed at Alabama and eventually replaced an injured Tagovailoa in the SEC championship game. And led a comeback victory.
Only then did Hurts transfer to Oklahoma, where he led the Sooners to the College Football Playoff and was a Heisman Trophy finalist. Only then did he persevere five more years before finally completing the road to redemption with a Super Bowl…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-quarterbacks-learn-jalen-152732813.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2025-02-11 15:27:00
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