Cooper Bateman was almost Alabama’s starting quarterback by default last season.

A new feature by AL.com chronicles how Jake Coker’s decision to wrestle with ArDarius Stewart almost drastically altered Alabama’s 2015 championship season.

In a playful wrestling match, Stewart grabbed Coker’s leg. The quarterback then kicked a nearby trash can, resulting in a broken toe two weeks before the Crimson Tide’s opener with No. 20 Wisconsin.

Team doctor Normal Waldrop gave Coker two options: Let the toe heal in a cast and sit out for six weeks, or take a risk and undergo surgery and try to be ready to play in two weeks.

Coker obviously chose the surgery, which meant having two screws placed in his toe. Matt Zenits writes that the screws caused extreme discomfort:

The screws weren’t removed until after Alabama’s Pro Day in March. Why’s that impressive? Imagine the feeling of two pebbles inside your toe. The more pressure you put on the toe or the tighter a shoe is, the more you feel those pebbles pushing on the skin. Coker battled through that discomfort.

It also hurt a lot whenever the toe and screws were stepped on, which happened against Michigan State in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

Coker felt that pressure every time he dropped back to throw.

“For a quarterback, the big toe is the most important toe on either foot because it’s the plant toe and because there’s so much pressure on it every time you drop (back) and stop your drop, and then there’s so much pressure there when you plant to throw,” David Morris, Coker’s friend and quarterback coach, told Zenits.

Waldrop was impressed that Coker willed himself to play after surgery.

“Jake is easily one of the toughest guys that I’ve been around,” Waldrop said. “I think he was doing individual stuff in practice two days after surgery and then went through a full practice three days later. I don’t know many people who can do that. His toe was black and blue and gigantic, and he had just had it operated on. He had some soreness and some discomfort as we got going through the year, but he never complained. Never complained about it. And he never asked for time off from practice.”

Some teammates might have been worried about the reaction from Nick Saban. One can’t imagine the coach being amused in the least over potentially losing his starting quarterback to a locker room wrestling injury. It actually didn’t go so bad.

“He was pretty concerned,” Coker said. “I think he knew that I was more upset than anybody and that there was nothing that he needed to say. We knew the situation. It was what it was, and we had to move on. I acted like an idiot, and we just had to move on from there.”