Despite getting benched for Tua Tagovailoa at halftime of last year’s national championship game, Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts has been nothing but supportive of his teammate from then until now.

Leave it to Tagovailoa to shed some more light on just how gracious Hurts has been.

In his first meeting with the media this season, Tagovailoa offered an anecdote about how Hurts reacted once the team returned to Tuscaloosa for the second game of the season, once it was known which one of them was the team’s starting quarterback.

“Jalen told me to go in front of him (during warmups) because now I’m the starting quarterback,” Tagovailoa said during his Tuesday media availability. “I told him no. I told him that he still belongs in that role just because of everything that he’s done. That was a very mature move of him, trying to do that. I would have never thought of doing that but just the maturity that he has. I thought that was something very special.”

Hurts has been all class since his benching, so while this story is touching, it’s not necessarily surprising. Even as Tagovailoa engineered Alabama’s comeback and threw the game-winning touchdown in overtime of last year’s title game, Hurts could be seen giving words of encouragement and even smiling on the sideline.

So while other quarterback controversies have produced transfers (looking at you, Clemson), the relationship between Tagovailoa and Hurts appears as strong as ever.