Everyone and their mother has a chance to weigh in on whether Tagovailoa or Jalen Hurts will be Alabama’s starter lately.

The way spring unfolded with Tagovailoa suffering a hand injury and Hurts struggling in the spring game only added to the belief that the starting job will belong to the sophomore. Trent Dilfer even told SDS that he thought Tagovailoa could not only be the starter, but that Alabama could beat everyone 50-3 and that he could see him never losing a game in his college career.

But apparently not everyone is penciling in Tua Tagovailoa as QB1 on Alabama’s depth chart.

ESPN college football analyst Trevor Matich said “he’s not quite as certain as some people that Tagovailoa is going to be the guy.” Matich was on the sidelines for the national championship, so he had an up-close view for Tagovailoa’s second-half takeover.

So why is Matich not completely sold on the second-year signal-caller as Alabama’s QB1?

Here was Matich’s complete response (via AL.com):

“The thing is I’m not quite as certain as some other people that Tua is going to be the guy,” Matich said. “I’m pretty sure he’ll be the guy. What I am certain of is whoever plays at that position, Alabama will have something they haven’t had in a while, and that is a credible, exciting deep passing game, because with Dan Enos as the quarterback coach, he legitimately is the quarterback whisperer. If anybody can draw that aspect of the game out of Jalen Hurts, he can do it. But if Jalen Hurts doesn’t improve enough at that, then Tua will be the guy. One way or the other, either a vastly improved Jalen Hurts is throwing downfield or Tua Tagovailoa.

“And the thing about that for defenses, you go back to the Georgia game in the national championship. In the first half, I was on the sideline watching that whole thing, and Georgia stacked the line, which is what everybody does against Alabama, right? And whenever that ball would leave Jalen Hurts’ hand to go down the field, nobody on that Georgia sideline was too worried about it because they knew it probably wouldn’t be a consistent threat to be a big play. When halftime came and Tua came in, everything changed. In the second half, when the ball left Tua’s hand, everybody on that Georgia sideline held their breath because they knew there was a great likelihood that it would drop in for a big play.

“So now they’re conflicted, right? Now if they keep guys up at the line to stop the run, they’re going to get torched in the back end. If they drop people back to cover the deep pass, they’ll get ground to a pulp at the line of scrimmage, and that balance is something Bama hasn’t had at credible rate for a while. I think whoever starts at quarterback will be able to complete it down the field because Jalen will either get a lot better or Tua will be the guy, and defenses will be weeping and gnashing teeth.”

That might not be a popular opinion, but Matich makes an interesting point about Hurts still having the ability to improve as a passer. Perhaps some summer strides could give Hurts the downfield passing element that he lacked throughout much of 2018.