Chris Leak and Tim Tebow both made key plays to lead Florida to the 2006 national title. Their partnership worked. But it’s hardly a given that Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa would be just as successful in a shared role in 2018. What to do? That’s Alabama’s most pressing question.

It is both unusual and a testament to Alabama’s decade of dominance that one of the most fascinating stories in college football heading into fall camp is the quarterback situation on the Capstone.

Nevertheless, the defending national champions have a quarterback controversy, and it isn’t one that’s manufactured, no matter how much Nick Saban insists otherwise.

“The No. 1 thing you will want to talk about is the quarterback controversy you’d love to create, that you’ve already created,” the forever grim Saban growled at SEC Media Days, before conceding the premise of the question. “It’s still to be determined who will play quarterback at Alabama.”

Who plays quarterback at Alabama is to be determined, and it isn’t because of the media or some manufactured controversy. The controversy is real.

It’s real because Nick Saban, on the verge of losing a national championship and his vise grip on the SEC — to his protege no less — all in one star-crossed wintry Atlanta night, smartly decided to do what too many coaches wouldn’t have done. He benched his star quarterback Jalen Hurts, the 2016 SEC Offensive Player of the Year who had won him 25 games and a SEC Championship and who, but for one spectacular Deshaun Watson fourth-quarter drive, would have won him a national championship too.

In his place, he played the wunderkind freshman, Tua Tagovailoa, who arrived on campus the most prepared, most complete collegiate freshman quarterback to grace the SEC since Tim Tebow, but who, for all the hype, had played only seven games, all in mop-up duty, when he was called on to save Alabama’s season.

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

We all know what happened next, but until a decision is made at the quarterback position this autumn, we don’t know the rest of the story. The beginning of the rest of the story will play out in fall camp, but we won’t have any real answers until Alabama takes the field in Orlando to play Louisville Sept. 1 in Orlando. And probably not all of the answers even then.

In the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of college football, the consensus seems to be that Tagovailoa will emerge from camp the starting quarterback.

For argument’s sake, let’s assume that’s true.

What would that mean for Hurts, who is slated to graduate from Alabama a year early this December, or to Alabama, who including Tua and Hurts, currently have four quarterbacks on their roster?

Saban told ESPN at the SEC Coaches carwash that Hurts had assured him he’d remain at Alabama through at least this season, but that wasn’t really news. He was going to be at Alabama either way.

If Hurts wins the job, he’ll have to continue attending class at Alabama to be eligible to play football. Likewise, Hurts will also need to attend class if he wants to take advantage of the generous new NCAA “academic transfer” rule, which allows players who in good academic standing to graduate and transfer without restriction and without the loss of a year of eligibility.

The real question is whether Hurts would be willing to play a role as a backup, losing a precious year of eligibility in the process.

That’s where things get truly fascinating, and where Saban and the Alabama coaching staff, masters of “The Process” and planning for the unplannable, must navigate new terrain, even by their standards.

Job one — the one you can bet they’ll get right — is to pick the best player to start and help Alabama win football games.

The case for Tagovailoa centers around his prodigious skill set: the rocket arm, the ability to extend plays in the pocket, his precision as a vertical passer. What it doesn’t center on is film, beyond two quarters against a defense that had installed a game plan to defend Hurts.

For all of Tua’s magic at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, he’s still a true sophomore who has never started a football game. Defenses and defensive coordinators in the SEC and elsewhere have spent two years fixating on how to corral Hurts, limit his strengths and exploit his weaknesses. There’s not a defensive coordinator in America who has game-planned for Tagovailoa. What happens when they do? Does Alabama beat Georgia if Kirby Smart’s game plan had centered around Tagovailoa and not limiting Hurts? Maybe the Tide do win, but anyone who blindly asserts they are certain of that fact probably has a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

The case for Hurts is different, but no less compelling, and in a world without Watson, we’re probably looking at this debate altogether differently.

Hurts is 26-2 as a starter, and while it was fashionable to criticize his ability as a passer in 2017, advanced metrics indicate he was clearly a better quarterback as a sophomore than as a freshman, when he won SEC Offensive Player of the Year and went haymaker for haymaker with Clemson in the National Championship Game. Remember, his 30-yard touchdown run put Alabama ahead with just 2:07 left that night.

Hurts was 2 yards better on throws of 10 yards or more in 2017 than 2016 (9.3-7.4). He threw only one interception (a Power 5 low) in 2017 after throwing nine in 2016. He was also a more effective runner as a sophomore, averaging 5.6 yards a carry to 5.0 as a freshman. Hurts’ raw quarterback rating, adjusted quarterback rating, and yards-per-attempt all improved as a sophomore. And his performance against Mississippi State, where he nearly single-handedly led the team to a comeback win in a brutal environment against one of the SEC’s best defenses, was the fundamental reason Alabama made the College Football Playoff in the first place.

In other words, this debate isn’t as simple as what happened in the second half and overtime of the National Championship Game against Georgia. The new four-game redshirt rule affords Alabama even more time than they would have previously had to sort the debate out, as both quarterbacks can play throughout September while the Tide decide who will give them the best chance to win games in November, December and January.

The problem with that thinking is the schedule isn’t particularly helpful: the best defense Alabama will play in the opening four games might be Arkansas State (56th S & P+ defense), and only Texas A & M (71st) was also in the top-75 of Division I defenses in 2017. The other two opponents, Ole Miss and Louisville, are plain woeful on the defensive side of the football.

In other words, the four-game stretch to figure it out within the confines of the redshirt rule isn’t exactly a murderer’s row. The rule allows play in any four games, so it could drag out beyond that. The million-dollar (band) question is: Is settling on one quarterback the best play for Alabama?

Would Nick Saban and new offensive coordinator Mike Locksley consider a two-quarterback system, like the one that helped Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen win a national championship at Florida in 2006? Are the situations even comparable? Would Hurts accept a secondary role? Would Tagovailoa?

As tempting and in some ways conceptually simple as it might be to go with Tagovailoa in pass-heavy formations and Hurts in run-heavy, the comparison with Florida in 2006 isn’t a perfect fit, in my view.

Yes, like Hurts, Florida had an established and proven quarterback on its roster in Chris Leak, who had been an All-SEC player as a freshman and led the SEC in passing as a sophomore. Leak, however, was not a perfect fit for Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen’s run-dominant spread offense, and the two had retooled Florida’s offense during a bye week in 2005 to better suit Leak’s skill set.

Credit: University of Florida Athletics

In 2006, bolstered by a recruiting class that featured Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin, Florida was closer to having the personnel it wanted to run Mullen and Meyer’s true offense. But Leak was still not an ideal fit for a pure spread, and Tebow, for all his sizeable talent and maturity, wasn’t quite ready. After a heated summer camp, Mullen convinced Meyer to compromise on a hybrid-system where Leak was the primary quarterback and Tebow was used to handle certain tasks that Leak was poorly fit to perform.

It was a gamble, and one that required immense maturity from Leak, a senior and three-year starter, but it worked beautifully, with the two complementing each other throughout a magical season.

Tebow’s vital runs on 4th-and-short against Tennessee, and his goal-line jump pass and QB power play-action touchdown passes against LSU, were keys to two of Florida’s biggest wins in the regular season. Likewise, with Florida on the ropes against a 6-5 Florida State in Tallahassee and Tebow largely-rendered ineffective, it was the senior Chris Leak who saved the season, leading Florida with his arm on a crucial fourth-quarter drive that sealed a 21-14 win.

In the national championship game, Leak played his finest game as a Gator, earning BCS National Championship Game honors as Florida clobbered Ohio State 41-14, delivering on his personal signing-day promise to win Florida a national championship and ushering in a decade of SEC dominance in the process.

It’s a great story, but is it one that makes sense at Alabama?

Certainly, coordinators won’t be able to simply decide Alabama is passing when Tagovailoa is in the game and running when Hurts is in, even if that type of division of labor is most likely. LSU tried this against Tebow and Leak, for what it’s worth, and as noted above, the freshman Tebow threw two touchdown passes and Leak raced for a critical first down with his legs late.

Still, just because it is viable at Alabama doesn’t mean it makes the most sense.

For one thing, it may be a year too late. Had the Tide used Tagovailoa last season to throw seam routes when the Tide were behind the chains and gone back to Hurts when they were on schedule, it’s unlikely anyone would have given it a second thought. After all, Florida had proven that to be a pretty intelligent way to break in a 5-star freshman when you have an established starter.

But Tagovailoa is a sophomore now, and one that just rescued a national championship. And Hurts has the benefit of a transfer rule that didn’t exist in Leak’s era. That distinction matters.

Fans like to think of players as selfless, and by all accounts, Tagovailoa and Hurts are friends and admirers of one another and great teammates. Here’s the thing: Just because you are a great teammate doesn’t mean you have to forget about yourself.

It’s hard to see either Tagovailoa or Hurts accepting spot-duty throughout the season, giving up a year of eligibility that could be used elsewhere just so Alabama could play both dependent on the game situation.

In the end, having two quarterbacks with this much ability is a “good” problem, but that doesn’t negate the existence of a controversy. Expect the Tide to use September to find the best guy and if, as expected, that guy is Tagovailoa, expect to see Hurts play football at Alabama again only if (heaven forbid) Tagovailoa suffers a serious injury. Otherwise, expect to see both start at quarterback in 2019, albeit at different institutions.