Five years after Tagovailoa supplanted Hurts as Alabama's starter, they meet on an NFL field as two of the league's best. Here's how they arrived at this moment.
Laura Rutledge and Dan Orlovsky break down the QB matchup between Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts as the Dolphins face the Eagles in Week 7. Tim McManus covers the Philadelphia Eagles for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2016 after covering the Eagles for Philadelphia Magazine's Birds 24/7, a site he helped create, since 2010. You can follow him on Twitter @Tim_McManus.
The decision sparked a chain reaction that reverberated well beyond that championship game. It ultimately set Tagovailoa and Hurts on divergent paths to stardom, in college and the NFL. Those paths will cross for the first time Sunday night when Hurts and the 5-1 "I can just remember Jalen after spring ball, a private conversation we had where he basically said, 'I'm going to make all transfer,'" Locksley said."And I'm looking at him like, 'That's a bold statement for a true freshman.'
"When I got there, it was like, 'OK, I don't want to mess up what we have here, so I'm going to try to find where I fit,'" Tagovailoa said."But then it's also one of those things where if you aren't strong mentally, you either had to be ... or figure it out. Or you wouldn't have made it there." "Anybody that remembers those two or three practices, man, we looked like a different team," Locksley said."I could just remember the two or three days of practices where the ball didn't ever touch the ground."
"And at the end of it, he was not happy that he didn't play, but he obviously stayed on, and thank goodness he did." Hereford added:"It was very quick. You couldn't even really soak it in. The call was made, Tua comes out and it's just like, 'Well, that's how we're going to play it.'" For the time being, the answer was to stick at Alabama, earn his degree in public relations and information sciences, and play the supporting role.
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