Not many in the majority crowd of 101,821 in Bryant-Denny Stadium Saturday were happy at halftime. But that's why they play a full game, because when it was over most of them were smiling or laughing, maybe singing a happy tune, and skipping along.
And the primary reason for that was the performance of a left-handed sophomore quarterback from Hawai'I. A large number of Alabama supporters may not have been able to pronounce his last name, Tagovailoa, at this time last year, and now they don't need to. "Tua" is just fine.
Tua Tagovailoa propeled Alabama to a 52-21 victory over Auburn Saturday, which gives the Crimson Tide a perfect regular season record at 12-0 and a Southeastern Conference mark of 8-0, earning a berth in the SEC Championship Game next Saturday at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. That game will pit last year's national championship finalists in the same venue, and it was there last January 8 that the nation first became aware of Tua Tagovailoa – who is also known in the world of sports as just plain Tua.
Late Saturday against Auburn in Tuscaloosa, Tagovailoa's opened the second half directing Alabama to touchdowns on drives of 5 plays, 75 yards, 2:03, ending with a 46-yard pass to Jerry Jeudy and 4 plays, 69 yards, 1:34, ending with a 33-yard pass to Josh Jacobs.
"He was outstanding, and I think it was really important that we had two big plays to start the second half and score really quickly," said Alabama Coach Nick Saban. "I think that changed the game quite a bit. We got up 31-14. He was obviously responsible for both those explosive plays. I think that was a real turning point in the game."
Although Tagovailoa is not prepared to address Heisman Trophy talk, many, many others consider him to be the leader for the trophy that goes to the nation's best college football player.
"It was a good team win," Tagovailoa said of Heisman conversation. "I'm not too focused on any of these awards. We still have another game, the SEC Chamnpionship. We can worry about those later. I'm just worried about what I can do to make this team successful."
Saban did talk in sentences that included Tua Tagovailoa and Heisman Trophy.
"Tua has had an outstanding year for us," said the coach following Saturday's game. "He's done a great job. Doesn't seem txo ever get flustered in a game. Things don't go well, we miss a couple of passes, get a little pressure in the pocket, he always responds exactly the way you want your quarterback to respond. He always keeps playing, plays the next play. He's into it, excited, excited for his teammates.
"His leadership is important to the other players on the team and the other players have a lot of confidence in him.
"You don't get to win a Heisman Trophy, you don't get recognized for being the best performer in anything if you don't have the right stuff.
"Kobe Bryant got asked when he was here what motivated him more, 'How much you love to win or how much you hate to lose?'. He said 'Neither one. I get motivated because I want to be the best player I can be.'
I think we have some guys on our team and I think Tua is one of them who is motivated to be the best player he can be. I know he loves to win, and I'm sure he hates to lose and he's always working to try to get better."
Which brings us to the numbers.
Tua Tagovailoa led Alabama to win over Auburn (Photo: Stuart McNair, 247Sports) His passing statistics line Saturday was completing 25 of 32 passes for 324 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions.
He also ran 4 times for 26 yards and had a rushing TD.
Which brings us Tua's place in the Alabama records book:
It's stating the obvious that the Crimson Tide has had its share of outstanding quarterbacks. Tagovailoa is in his second season and first as the Bama starter.
Tagovailoa's six total touchdowns against Auburn (five passing, one rushing) is a new Alabama school record. The previous record of five scores was held by five players, the most recent being Jalen Hurts, who had five touchdowns (four passing, one rushing) vs. Mississippi State in 2016.
Those five TD passes equals the Alabama game record set by Gary Hollingsworth against Ole Miss in Jackson on Oct. 7, 1989.
Tagovailoa increased his his touchdown responsibility total for the season to 41 (:36 passing, 5 rushing), breaking the school record of 36 set by Jalen Hurts in 2016 (23/13). Tua also is fourth on the Alabama CAREER touchdown responsibility list at 54, 47 passing and seven rushing in 21 games.
The five touchdown passes – 4 yards to Henry Ruggs II, 46 to Jerry Jeudy, 33 to Josh Jacobs, 40 to DeVonta Smith, and 22 to Ruggs – marked the fifth time this season Tua has thrown for four or more touchdowns in a game this season, a new school record. His five four (or more) TD games is second for a career, trailing the seven by AJ McCarron (2010-13).
He also extended his record of games with 300 or more yards passing in a game with his fifth of the season. The old record was three by Hollingsworth, McCarron, and Jay Barker.
He is now second on the Tide single season passing yardage list with 3,189 this season, second behind Blake Si.ms who had 3,487 in 2014. He is tied for second on the career touchdown passes list at 47 with John Parker Wilson. McCarron is the career leader with 77.
Tagovailoa has directed 99 drives as the Tide's starting quarterback this season with 58 resulting in touchdowns (58.6 percent) and eight culminating in field goals for 66 total scoring drives (66.7 percent). In those drives, the Tide offense is 46-for-79 (58.2 percent) on third down conversions, accounting for 4,718 yards on 536 snaps for an average of 8.80 yards per play and 431 of the 543 points scored by the UA offense.
Leading by only 17-14 at the half, Tagovailoa said, "We made some adjustments. We knew what we wanted to do going to the second half with what we had seen of their defense. We just went out and executed. It was just a good team win."
He said Auburn didn't do anything he hadn't seen on film, but gave the Tigers coaching staff credit for a good job of mixing and disguising defenses.
He said he planned to take advantage of the 24-hour rule – celebrating the win for 24 hours and then moving on – and then would begin to concentrate on preparing for Georgia.
As for last year's overtime victory and his 41-yard pass to DeVonta Smith in overtime to win the national championship, he said, "That was last year."
And he said that he had made "a good amount of improvement" since then, adding "and still a lot of improvement to be made."
Post a Comment
Post a Comment