When Tua Tagovailoa was injured against Tennessee, the first question everyone had was if he would be healthy for the LSU game (no offense, Arkansas).

Thanks to both the local and national media, we’ve had “Tua Watch” at practice pretty much every day of the last two weeks. It sometimes feels like the fact that Tagovailoa was practicing so soon after ankle surgery is lost in “Tua Watch” ahead of Saturday’s marquee top-five showdown.

All injuries are unfortunate, but it could be considered fortunate for Tagovailoa that he’s familiar with rehabbing from the tightrope procedure. Nick Saban shared on Thursday’s “Hey Coach & The Nick Saban Show” that he’s noticed a difference between Tagovailoa this year and last year.

“I think this time around he had a lot more confidence early on because he’d actually been through it once before,” Saban said. “So, he was more aggressive in rehab and just had a lot of confidence that he wasn’t going to hurt himself any worse.”

Tagovailoa had the tightrope procedure performed after the SEC Championship Game last year. He returned to lead Alabama to a 45-34 victory over. Tagovailoa threw for 318 yards and 4 touchdowns in the Orange Bowl CFP semifinal. The Crimson Tide will be in business if Tagovailoa is able to put up similar numbers on Saturday.