With Jalen Hurts, Jacob Eason, there is no QB controversy at Alabama, Georgia
Alabama’s Jalen Hurts was SEC Offensive Player of the Year as a freshman and mere seconds away from winning a national championship.
Georgia’s Jacob Eason was one of the more celebrated recruits in program history just a little more than a season ago. While he didn’t experience the same level of success that Hurts did, he flashed perhaps even more long-term potential.
So why are we trying to convince ourselves that there are legit quarterback controversies for the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs, respectively? Instead of focusing our attention on how special Hurts and Eason can be as sophomores — really special, by the way — there has been too much talk about Tua Tagovailoa at ‘Bama and Jake Fromm at UGA.
There’s a lot to be excited about with Tagovailoa and Fromm, although there’s maybe even more to be excited about with Hurts and Eason.
Don’t forget that this is the best conference in America. Historically, freshmen are chewed up and spit out pretty viciously. Even the Manning brothers, who both ended up going No. 1 in the NFL Draft, were so-so straight out of high school.
Hurts completed 62.8 percent of his passes — better than Chad Kelly of Ole Miss (62.5) and Austin Allen of Arkansas (61.1) — with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 23-to-9. But it was his skill as a ball carrier that took coach Nick Saban’s offense to the next level, as he also ran for 954 yards and 13 more TDs.
His right arm was ultimately exposed, especially with that 13-of-31 stat line in the national title game, but Hurts can only get better.
As for Eason (below), he didn’t have nearly as much help around him. The tailback tandem of Nick Chubb and Sony Michel failed to perform as expected, the receivers were consistently inconsistent and the offensive line was a mess.
Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Nevertheless, throwing for 300-plus yards twice and multiple scores on four occasions is quite impressive for any first-year field general in the SEC, let alone a true freshman. Only once did Eason fire more than one INT in a game — the regular-season finale vs. Georgia Tech — and he played clean in a Liberty Bowl win over TCU.
The respective fan bases for these two signal callers should be anxiously awaiting Year 2, yet some want to turn the page already.
To quote the late Al McGuire, who was a terrific college basketball coach and maybe even a better television analyst, “The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.” That adage works in football, too.
Just because the button-pushing Lane Kiffin is gone at coordinator — heir apparent Steve Sarkisian followed him out the door — and Brian Daboll is taking over, that doesn’t mean Alabama is looking to hit the reset button offensively. If anything, Hurts was a selling point for Daboll leaving the pros and relocating to Tuscaloosa.
With a powerful O-line, talented targets out wide and an embarrassment of riches in the backfield, Hurts will want for nothing.
Back to Eason, he should have considerably less weight on his shoulders in 2017 since both Chubb and Michel decided to return for their senior seasons. Isaac Nauta looks like a find at tight end. The blocking, frankly, can’t get any worse.
Most important, he has a full year in the system under his belt — this is his second spring, as he was an early enrollee last January — and Greyson Lambert, who started the 2016 opener as a senior, is out of eligibility. Matthew Stafford, who Eason is compared to, saw his TD-to-INT ratio go from 7-to-13 as a freshman to 19-to-10 as a sophomore.
Nevertheless, just like attention spans, fans’ patience with young players gets progressively shorter as time goes by.
Tagovailoa was the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback prospect available in the latest recruiting class, so he was rated even higher at the prep level than Hurts. Presumably, he didn’t fly in all the way from Hawaii to ride the pine.
Credit: Twitter.com/969thegame
A 6-foot-1, 215-pound lefty, Tagovailoa (above) also enrolled early — it’s actually become the norm, not the exception, for QBs to come to campus a semester ahead of schedule — and by all accounts seems worthy of his 5-star billing. There’s a reason why schools closer to home like UCLA and USC wanted him, as well.
Still, to suggest that he’s pushing Hurts for the starting job is nonsense. One way or another, he has to wait his turn.
Back between the hedges, Fromm was a 4-star signee, so he didn’t arrive in Athens with as much fanfare as Eason. Coach Kirby Smart’s initial task upon getting the gig was securing his commitment since Eason originally was a Mark Richt guy.
That being said, Fromm has earned rave reviews thus far and appears to be a quick learner. Unlike his former boss Saban, who declared Hurts the starter at the outset of camp, Smart has hinted that there’s genuine competition — most likely as a ploy to get more from each of them — at the top of the depth chart.
This is a Dawgs team that started Faton Bauta under center at the Cocktail Party in 2015, so I guess anything’s possible.
But as I see it, it’s little more than the last bit of steam from National Signing Day in February carrying over to spring ball. Redshirting is out of the question. Fans want to play with their new toys immediately.
On the list of things Alabama needs to get to a third straight College Football Playoff — a short list indeed — a new quarterback isn’t one of them. Hurts is unfinished, not fatally flawed. Eason has a longer road to get Georgia back to national relevance, but there’s no reason to believe that another QB is part of the equation.
Freshmen have growing pains, especially when taking snaps from center. No team should be anxious to go through those again.
John Crist is the senior writer for Saturday Down South, a member of the FWAA and a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Send him an e-mail, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
