Alabama may not have much experience at the quarterback position heading into the 2017 season, but that doesn’t mean the Crimson Tide aren’t loaded with talent.

Rising sophomore Jalen Hurts is coming off a 2016 campaign that netted him SEC Offensive Player of the Year honors and highly rated recruits Tua Tagvailoa and Mac Jones are now in the mix.

However, after Tuesday’s spring practice session, coach Nick Saban said the job is Hurts’s to lose.

“We have one year of starting experience for our quarterbacks combined,” Saban said during his press conference. “So that’s more of a dynamic than having a starting quarterback back. I think that because we do have a starting quarterback back it’s easier for us to self-assess what we need to do with him, for him, to help him, to coach him, so that he can develop in areas that would be helpful to him becoming an even more complete player — mostly in the passing game.

“That’s something that we are going to work hard on in the spring and also in the fall. If he can do that and be sort of a dual-threat guy, I think it would be really really difficult for defenses to defend him.”

He added that, even with the lack of experience at the position, he’s confident heading into the rest of the spring session.

“The other two guys that are freshmen, they are going to have to grow into being adequate backups by the fall,” Saban said. “This is the least amount of experience we’ve ever had at quarterback, regardless of having the starter back, but I like all the guys. I like their attitude and I think they all three have a lot of potential to be really good players.”

The Crimson Tide would be foolish not to give Hurts a chance to improve on his impressive freshman campaign, but Saban has shown (after starting Hurts last year) that he’s not afraid to take a chance on a talented freshman if the team is struggling offensively.