ATLANTA — His name is Tua Tagovailoa, and until the Alabama offense took the field for the second half of Monday night’s College Football Playoff national championship game, the true freshman was known mostly in his native Hawaii and his adopted Tuscaloosa.
As popular people on campus go, it’s tough to beat the backup quarterback, all pristine potential without the visible warts. Cue the talk-radio callers now: Imagine what our offense could do if only the coach would put him in the game.
Introducing Nick Saban, the head coach of Alabama.
This is what Georgia — coached by Saban disciple Kirby Smart, yearning to become what Alabama is — forced Saban to do: Make the most stomach-turning, script-flipping move a head coach can make, changing quarterbacks midstream.
Saban did it in full stride. He did it to win the second half against Georgia. He did it to win a national championship.
The Crimson Tide won its fifth national championship under Saban in unlikely fashion, beating Georgia — poor, poor Georgia — 26-23 on Tagovailoa’s masterful missile, a 41-yard strike to wide receiver DeVonta Smith on the Tide’s second play of overtime, the final play of the game.
Sort it out, because it has ramifications for these two programs, their spent fan bases, for Saban’s legacy, for what remains a conquest for Smart and his on-the-rise Georgia program. But distill it to this, too: Jalen Hurts was the starting quarterback all year for Alabama. And Jalen Hurts watched all but one play of the second half and overtime, because in the moment, Tagovailoa — whose last start came for St. Louis High in Honolulu — was the better choice.
What a throw. What. A. Throw.
But someone had to give him the opportunity to make it.
Not everyone has the — uh, how to put this delicately — conviction to pull this off. But Saban made this move, and it is a testament to his ability to assess the situation in the moment and do whatever he deems necessary to put his players in the best position to win. Hurts, at the half, had completed just 3 of 8 passes, had thrown for 21 yards. This game was going to take more than that.
But don’t mistake this as simply Saban having some gumption. Georgia forced Saban to do this. Georgia so controlled the game that it controlled who appeared for Alabama. And once Tagovailoa entered, the way the Tide attacked offensively fundamentally changed.
Here was a player who had never appeared in a game Alabama didn’t lead by at least 10 points appearing in the Tide’s most important game when it trailed 13-0 at halftime. Here was another player, Hurts, who had started Alabama’s last three College Football Playoff games, winning twice and being beaten only by the heroics of Clemson’s Deshaun Watson in last year’s title game.
And here was a coach, arguably the best the college level has ever seen, assessing the situation coldly. Hurts’s best quality is how he protects the ball at all costs, what with 248 pass attempts this season heading into Monday night and all of one interception.
But protecting the ball when Alabama leads is one thing. Alabama, at the half, didn’t lead.
So with one move, Saban changed what happened next.
And what was next was 14-of-24 passing for 166 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception from Tagovailoa.
A legend was born because of another legendary move by Saban.
