Recently, Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts made national headlines for venting a bit about the quarterback competition, the transfer rumors that emerged this offseason, along with Nick Saban and his coaching staff.
“No one came up to me the whole spring, coaches included, no one asked me how I felt,” Hurts said, per AL.com. “No one asked me what was on my mind. No one asked me how I felt about the things that were going on. Nobody asked me what my future held.”
On Wednesday, Saban had a chance to respond, and it doesn’t sound like he holds a grudge whatsoever about what Hurts said.
“Every player has a right to express what he feels and what he thinks,” Saban said, via Michael Casagrande of AL.com. “And I think he has every right to do that with every coach or anybody in the organization that he has a relationship with, which we certainly do quite often with all players at all positions.”
Saban also made it clear that Hurts’ comments won’t have any impact on the competition that’s ongoing between him and sophomore Tua Tagovailoa. He said that Hurts’ comments are “probably a lot more important to people outside this organization than it is to people inside” and that he doesn’t think it will have “any effect on our team” after speaking with team leaders.
“The same parameters that we’ve talked about before in terms of who wins the team. And winning the team goes along with execution, leadership, players having confidence and belief. And that’s not going to change. I don’t really have any more to say about it than that. I don’t think it is anything that has affected our team one way or the other.”
So, essentially, Saban is saying it’s going to come down to football. Pure and simple.
For what it’s worth, we’ve projected Tagovailoa to start, or to at least take the majority of snaps under center for the Crimson Tide this fall. He’s the most talented pure passer on the roster, and he is plenty athletic as a runner, to boot.
It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. But in the end, no matter who’s throwing passes for ‘Bama, we do know this team is one of the favorites to win the title when it’s all said and done.