While seemingly rolling to another masterful performance and maintaining front-runner status in the Heisman Trophy race, Tua Tagovailoa exited No. 1 Alabama’s victory over Missouri on Saturday after re-aggravating a right knee sprain.
With a light brace on the knee, Tagovailoa left the pocket on a 3rd and 10 and picked up nine yards before sliding, but he remained down as the trainers came out to check on their star quarterback. He stayed on the turf momentarily and left with a slight limp before heading into the Tide’s sideline tent. Jalen Hurts took over with Alabama holding a 20-point lead and finished out the 39-10 victory.
The severity of the injury seems minor at first blush, but that sprain is clearly an issue that Tua and the Tide will need to monitor as they continue their push towards another appearance in the College Football Playoff.
Prior to exiting, Tagovailoa was off to another fantastic outing, making college football look much easier than it’s supposed to. He finished the day 12 of 22 for 265 yards and three touchdowns, including an 81-yard scoring strike to Jerry Jeudy on the second play of the game.
Big plays early in games have been a huge part of Tua’s success thus far. He is averaging 14.3 yards per attempt, which is absolutely astronomical. For comparison’s sake, Tom Brady’s highest yards per attempt for a full season in his NFL career is 8.57, so what Tagovailoa is doing with the rest of the Alabama offense seems otherworldly.
He also has 21 touchdown passes without throwing a single interception. It’s hard to poke a hole in his game to this point, which is why he’s the clear favorite to take home the most coveted piece of postseason hardware later this year in New York City. The only other player within any sort of Heisman striking distance seems to be Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins, who threw for another 412 yards and three scores in Saturday’s win over Minnesota.
But West Virginia quarterback Will Grier’s outside chance took a big hit Saturday as the No. 6 Mountaineers were upset by Iowa State, 30-14. He was a dark horse candidate who could have made a case had West Virginia maintained that perfect record, but he had a very rough day in the loss, which should close the door on his chances.
Unless a late contender emerges, it’s a two-quarterback race and it had seemed as if only a loss would move either down the pecking order. But the Tagovailoa injury now makes things a little more interesting. Alabama coach Nick Saban is certainly playing the long game with this season and won’t be pushing his young star out there if he’s in any danger of making his knee worse off for the back end of the year.
Luckily, Alabama has probably the most competent backup quarterback in the nation with Hurts, whose resume is superior to almost every starter. Hurts has also been terrific in his backup role this season, completing 74 percent of his passes for 568 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.
Tua’s current spot atop the Heisman race isn’t debatable. What will be is how he’s used in the short-term and how Saban elects to pace him with so much on the line and the team about to enter the toughest stretch of its SEC schedule. But what he’s done through seven games is still the most amazing story of this 2018 season and the only thing that seems to be able to stop him could be a nagging injury.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
