After watching three quarterbacks — Blake Barnett, David Cornwell and Cooper Bateman — transfer out of Tuscaloosa over the past year, the Alabama Crimson Tide will have to go into the 2017 season with a young backup for starter Jalen Hurts.

Fortunately for Nick Saban’s squad, the two freshmen in the mix for the backup job are highly rated signees.

After Saturday’s scrimmage, Saban said he’s been impressed with what Tua Tagovailoa and Mac Jones have done this summer (via AL.com):

“I think Tua has really progressed nicely,” Saban said. “He had a good day today. Probably had a few more opportunities, made a couple of explosive plays. He’s making very good progress. I think Mac is doing the same.”

For now, it seems as if Tagovailoa has the edge on the backup job, but Saban said that doesn’t mean Jones won’t get plenty of work in practice:

“We have to sort of say ‘OK, who are we going to get ready to play here?'” Saban said. “We have the first quarterback, Jalen, then we have a guy that we have ready to play as a backup. Then we have to bring Mac along the best we can. He’s made good progress. He had some opportunities today and didn’t do a bad job.”

The Crimson Tide are confident in Hurts, who is the reigning SEC Offensive Player of the Year, but having a backup who is ready to play is a good thing for any squad.