Another team offering a scholarship to an Alabama commit is usually not a big deal, but Oregon’s recent offer to Tua Tagovailoa could be trouble for the Crimson Tide.

Tagovailoa is a four-star prospect from Saint Louis School in Honolulu, Hawaii, the high school of former Oregon quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota. The connections between Tagovailoa and Mariota go well beyond attending the same school.

A December 2014 profile in The Oregonian describes how Tagovailoa and Mariota were first introduced:

As a fourth grader, Tagovailoa attended a Saint Louis football camp in Hawaii. Hardly satisfied with competing against the kids his own age, the young athlete stepped in with the bigger boys, including then-Saint Louis freshman Marcus Mariota.

While the rest of the older boys laughed, Tagovailoa explained, Mariota took a liking to the confident kid and began to give him private instruction off to the side during drills.

“Everybody would kind of look at me different, but the one person who stood out was Marcus,” he said. “He didn’t really separate me from everybody. He would teach me. While everyone else said, ‘Get out of the way,’ Marcus would just pull me aside – and he was one of the best quarterbacks there. Just to get taught by him and him giving me attention I didn’t deserve, it was just awesome.”

At the time, a chance to play for the Ducks sounded like a dream for Tagovailoa:

“If I got offered from Oregon… oh, geez,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for that for the longest.”

But Oregon did not offer until when the school could have easily landed Tagovailoa’s commitment. Former Ducks offensive coordinator Scott Frost targeted another quarterback, Ryan Kelly, and Tagovailoa looked elsewhere, committing to Alabama on May 2. Despite a high recruiting ranking (No. 2 dual-threat prospect) and being named to the Elite 11, Tagovailoa was described as “a steal” for the Crimson Tide by quarterback trainer George Whitfield at the “Elite 11 Finals” last week:

“Through a very rigorous process, a thousand plus quarterbacks (are) evaluated, two dozen drop in here and he outshines the two dozen,” Whitfield told 247Sports’ Luke Stampini. “It just feels like Coach Saban and the Tide got a steal, which is weird that they would steal something, but they got a steal with him.”

It’s unknown if Tagovailoa will follow his childhood dream or if he feels Oregon had its chance and blew it by not offering until very late in the process. In the event Tagovailoa decommits, however, Alabama will not be empty handed at quarterback for the 2017 class. The Crimson Tide recently flipped Kentucky pledge Mac Jones, also a four-star signal-caller.