College Football News: Why Jalen Hurts will win the Heisman
By Andrew Olson
Published:
There’s a lot of buzz in Tuscaloosa about freshman QB Tua Tagovailoa and how much playing time he’ll receive this season, but Pete Fiutak of USA Today’s College Football News is predicting that incumbent starter Jalen Hurts will bring the Heisman Trophy back to Alabama.
In his “What’s Going to Happen” article, Fiutak explains why a number of potential Heisman candidates getting preseason buzz, such as last year’s winner Lamar Jackson, won’t win the award. In his opinion, it’s a matter of Hurts being on the right team and having the right Heisman highlights thanks to new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll making the Tide signal-caller a better passer:
He’s going to be on the biggest stages, the team is going to be in the national title hunt, and he’s going to have enough sensational moments to look the part.
He might have struggled throwing the ball in the SEC Championship vs. Florida, and his problems in the College Football Playoff games were well documented, but he proved he could hover around the 70% passing mark at times late in the regular season. If he can hit around 65% – he was at 62% at the end of the season – and keep on running in big wins, the stats will be fine.
New offensive coordinator Brian Daboll appears to be turning Hurts into a better passer mechanically, but he’s not going to limit the running plays meaning he’ll be the signature superstar on the No. 1 team in the country all year long.
Fiutak believes Hurts will seal the deal early in the season, very early in fact:
Hurts will be the difference in the season-opening win over Florida State, and then the Crimson Tide will roll from there with a relatively – for the SEC – easy schedule.
Alabama will keep winning big, the Florida State game will be what everyone remembers, and in the end, Hurts will be the star player on the star team with the star stats.
We’ve seen a lot of early Heisman frontrunners fade in the second half of the season over the years, but the Alabama-FSU game is arguably the sport’s biggest season opener of all time and likely to stick with people.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
