Jalen Hurts said it several times in his post-game interview:

“Sophomore season starts tomorrow.”

It’s a hard ending for a true freshman who went 14-1 at a program that expects to go 15-0.

When Hurts rumbled into the end zone on a 30-yard run that gave Alabama a 31-28 lead with 2:01 remaining in the College Football National Championship Game, it looked like that would be enough to secure the Crimson Tide’s second consecutive championship and fifth in the past eight years.

But Clemson used all but one second of the remaining time to score the game-winning touchdown and now we can dissect what happened to the true freshmen quarterback who appeared to lose steam down the stretch.

Hurts was 1-of-1 for 68 yards and a touchdown throwing to a wide-open O.J. Howard –and 12-of-30 for 63 yards on every other throw. Bama was 2-for-15 on third downs and missed their final 12.

“I don’t think we were clicking,” Hurts told reporters afterward. “We just didn’t execute. There was no difficulty with the game plan, we didn’t didn’t execute it.”

Some might blame Nick Saban for dumping Lane Kiffin the week before this game but Hurts’ decline was already in effect. He played a lot of football this season, more than he ever has before, against men 3-4 years older and he wore down.

Hurts faced four top-15 defenses this season and didn’t throw for more than 138 yards against any of them. His legs saved him (and Alabama) against LSU and they almost saved him Monday, but Deshaun Watson would not be denied.

“It hurts, we’re on the other end of it now,” Hurts said. “You never want to be in that situation, but like I said, sophomore season starts tomorrow.”

As Booger McFarland told Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter, Hurts has to get better. Alabama had open receivers but he either couldn’t find them or was off the mark. He was also victimized by at least one drop.

But the book on Hurts is open. He’ll have to deal with questions about his ability to be an effective passer. No quarterback likes to be questioned as a passer and it should be more than enough additional motivation for Hurts to be ready to provide answers as a sophomore.

Alabama opens the season against Florida State in Atlanta in eight months.

But Hurts’ road to redemption starts tomorrow.