Written by Andy Staples at SI.com
The drive that followed got most of the attention—and rightfully so—because it brought Clemson a national title and cemented Deshaun Watson’s legacy as one of college football’s all-time great quarterbacks. But perhaps we should examine the penultimate touchdown drive of the national title game more closely and consider what it might mean for the quarterback who engineered it.
Remember the circumstances? Clemson had just taken a 28–24 lead thanks to a Wayne Gallman touchdown run. Alabama got the ball back on its own 32-yard line with 4:38 remaining. A true freshman quarterback, who had struggled for weeks to throw the ball with any accuracy, had to drive his team 68 yards for a touchdown. Against one of the most ferocious pass rushes in college football. With a playcaller who had been on the job for eight days. In the national title game.
And he did it.
Forget everything else about Jalen Hurts’s first season as Alabama’s quarterback and just think about that drive. When the Crimson Tide absolutely, positively needed a touchdown against a defense that had shut down the offense for most of the second half on the game’s biggest stage, Hurts delivered that touchdown. That drive ended with him sprinting 30 yards up the middle and into the end zone. And if almost anyone other than Watson had been the other quarterback, Alabama would have another national title.
Hurts, who will begin his first spring practice as an incumbent starter on Tuesday, might be the most intriguing player in college football. At the start of last season, he looked as if he might make Alabama invincible. By season’s end, his throwing was the Crimson Tide’s biggest liability. But even though Hurts only completed one pass on that last drive—remember, ArDarius Stewart hit O.J. Howard for 24 yards on a trick play—the march down the field showed a spark that suggests Hurts can become exactly what we thought he could be when he first took over the starting job.
When Hurts won the starting job with his performance against USC in Alabama’s season opener, he appeared to be the one who would bridge the gap between the pro style offense Alabama ran for years and the spread-out, read option-heavy up-tempo schemes that had taken over the game. An offense that could combine those schemes would be virtually unstoppable—especially when paired with the kind of talent Alabama can collect. But then something strange happened. Either smart defensive coordinators figured out how to make Hurts uncomfortable as a thrower or Hurts regressed as a passer after hitting a freshman wall or Alabama’s coordinators deliberately played more conservatively with Hurts.
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