FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Nick Saban was running out of ways to shock the college football world.

Fresh off his fifth national championship in nine years, Saban sat at his lake house and wondered how he could top that thrilling come-from-behind victory over Georgia.

“I’ve already tied Bear Bryant, and will probably pass him this year,” Saban said aloud. “Having a dominant defense is so 2011. What’s left for me to do?”

“You know,” Terry Saban said, “We could have our quarterback win the Heisman Trophy. That’d be fun.”

While that is a fictional conversation, it wouldn’t be totally shocking if it actually happened. Saban and Alabama are toying with college football at this point, and the one thing Saban doesn’t have on his resume is a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback.

Enter Tua Tagovailoa, who is on pace to shatter every possible quarterback record at Alabama. The best part is he’s only playing in three quarters or less every game. It was the same thing Saturday in Alabama’s 65-31 win at Arkansas.

Tagovailoa has thrown for 912 yards and 10 touchdowns on 43 of 58 passing (74 percent) and an efficiency rating of 263.12 in three games against SEC opponents.

Tagovailoa has directed 44 drives as the Tide’s starting quarterback this season, with 31 resulting in touchdowns and two ending with field goals. In those 44 drives, the Tide offense is 21 of 31 on third-down conversions and has accounted for 2,144 yards on 219 snaps for an average of 9.8 yards per play and 220 of the 302 points scored by Alabama’s offense.

It’s honestly not fair when you think about it, and there is likely nothing any team on Alabama’s schedule can do to stop it.

Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts on the field at the same time

One of the more interesting things to come out of this otherwise boring game was seeing both Alabama quarterbacks on the field at the same time.

Twitter came alive as Hurts motioned and took a handoff from Tagovailoa. Hurts then lined up at quarterback with Tagovailoa at receiver. Tagovailoa blocked for Hurts as he ran a quarterback draw. That’s a dangerous combination considering what Alabama could do with both on the field.

Hurts is one of the more talented open-field runners in the country. Tagovailoa is a natural athlete as well.

Alabama running back Damien Harris said Arkansas’ defense looked confused by the formation, adding that they were trying to guess what Alabama was going to do, but had no clue.

“We had a few more things we were going to do out of that, but we didn’t do it,” Saban said.

Saban is a smart man. The entire point of saying that is to give opposing defensive coordinators one more thing to think about.

First-half defensive struggles

Arkansas had a good bit of success moving the ball in the first half against Alabama’s defense. The Razorbacks piled up 236 yards and 14 points. There should have been more points, but a fumble at the 1-yard line took a potential score off the board for the Razorbacks.

Point being, Alabama didn’t look stout defensively. The Crimson Tide was lost at times in coverage, and they refused to cover the middle of the field.

Arkansas hit a few big plays on screen passes over the middle and the Razorbacks found their tight ends for scores. They also did a nice job of making plays in space when opportunities were there. Saban surely won’t be happy with the performance, but this does give him something to stay on the team about and keep them humble as they blow through this season.

At halftime, Saban said the defensive players looked “confused.” Following the game, Saban took responsibility, saying that he has to do a better job of coaching the players so they can play with confidence.

Alabama fans should be happy to know that Saban believes all of the team’s mistakes are correctable.

Alabama’s insane offensive numbers

At some point, we’ll run out of things to say about Alabama’s offense, but today isn’t that day. These numbers are truly remarkable no matter how you slice them.

  • Alabama has gone over 500 yards of total offense in every game this season (639 vs. Arkansas), the first six-game run of 500 or more yards in school history.
  • Alabama has scored 45 or more points in six consecutive games for the first time in school history. The 1945 Crimson Tide held the previous record with four in a row.
  • With three first-half scoring drives of 21, 50 and 12 seconds, 15 of the Crimson Tide’s scoring drives this season have lasted less than a minute, with seven lasting less than 30 seconds. Alabama leads the nation in scoring drives under a minute with 12 in its first five games.
  • With 463 total yards in the first two quarters against Arkansas, Alabama is now averaging 375.6 yards in total offense in the first half this season. The Tide has racked up 340 or more total yards in the first half in five of six games this season. The Tide had 340 vs. Louisville, 395 vs. Arkansas State, 418 at Ole Miss, 357 vs. Louisiana prior to the Arkansas game.
  • Through six games this season, Alabama is outscoring its opponents, 238-34 (39.7-5.7), in the first half. That total includes a 124-21 (20.7-3.5) first-quarter advantage and a 114-13 (19.0-2.2) difference in the second quarter. The Tide’s first-half average of 39.7 points would rank 27th nationally in scoring offense.
  • Alabama has scored a touchdown on its opening drive of the game in all six contests this season.