Jalen Hurts was an amazing college player, but there was a moment when the idea of him leading a team to a Super Bowl win seemed a bit crazy.
Jalen Hurts has gone from benched to a possible Super Bowl champion
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Sorry if this take sucks, it’s not my fault …
I still see no reason to pivot off my unshakeable belief that Danny Wuerffel would win as many Super Bowls as Peyton Manning.
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And as a freshman, coolest … hair … ever for an Alabama starting quarterback
If you had told me late in the evening of January 8th, 2018, that Jalen Hurts would one day lead a team to a Super Bowl win …
(At least I think he’s about to, and become the Super Bowl MVP.)
Really? That guy?
I was on the field in Atlanta watching Hurts compile an intriguing combination of worm burners and air mail – completing just three of his eight passes for 21 yards – before being replaced by Tua Tagovailoa at halftime of the 2018 National Championship against Georgia.
College football history changed forever after that game, and because of what Tagovailoa did, and with Hurts eventually transferring to Oklahoma, now we’re here just a few days before the Super Bowl.
Now it seems obvious that Hurts was going to be amazing, but it sure didn’t when DeVonta Smith was running through the end zone in Atlanta.
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I was a massive fan of Hurts as a college player. Did I ever think he’d be an NFL starting quarterback? Yeah, after he was done at Oklahoma, but after 2018? No way, no how, no chance.
There was no questioning Hurts’ leadership, personality, or ability to run an offense, but compared to Tua – and later Mac Jones and Bryce Young – when it came to his potential as an NFL passer, I will fully admit that I didn’t see it when he was at Alabama.
Tagovailoa was going to be the main man for the Tide in 2019, and Hurts wasn’t transferring, so my cockamamie suggestion was to turn him into a jack-of-all-trades runner/backup quarterback – or maybe even a safety – just to get 2 and 13 on the field at the same time.
That didn’t happen, and it took a while, but things turned out just fine.
Outside of the national title games, Hurts was a better college passer than he got credit for with the Tide – he hit 65% of his throws with 48 touchdowns and just 12 picks, just one as a sophomore, in what amounted to 2.5 seasons of work – and was deadly on the move with close to 2,000 yards and 23 touchdowns.
I can’t quite remember, but I think he made the third slot on my Heisman ballot in 2016 after Deshaun and Lamar.
Beyond that, he had a flair for making big things happen at the right time, most notably to save the team’s bacon in the 2018 SEC Championship win over Georgia, and in the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship against Clemson.
It’s totally lost in history how he almost had one of the greatest national title-winning drives of all-time.
Hurts only hit 13-of-31 passes against Clemson, but down four with just over two minutes to play, he calmly rolled the offense 68 yards, finishing up with a 30-yard touchdown run that appeared to give the Tide the title. And then one epic Deshaun Watson drive – and a pick play for a touchdown with one second to go – erased it all.
Of course, Hurts became legendary for the genuine happiness and class with how he handled being replaced by Tagovailoa in that national title game, and obviously the move to Oklahoma was huge as he took his skills up a few notches.
But this? Carson Wentz was supposed to be the star of the show when the Eagles selected Hurts.
We should’ve seen it coming. Some players are just different. Some just have it, and that’s obviously Hurts.
Green Bay took Jordan Love in the first round, and Hurts was the next quarterback off the board 27 picks later. That was a mega-miss in the draft, but that Joe Burrow guy seems to be okay at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was hardly a bad pick talent-wise for Miami at the five, and Justin Herbert has MVP upside as the sixth pick for the Chargers.
And now all of them are about to watch Hurts lead Philadelphia in the Super Bowl.
He was a good guy as a young freshman – mature and poised beyond his years – when thrown into the national title level fire, and now he’s the young Face of the Franchise MVP-caliber quarterback every NFL team would love to have.
There’s still going to be that January 8th, 2018 side that won’t quite believe it, even when he’s telling the world his plans to go to Disney World.
