Hurts wasted no time in earning teammates' respect
Erin Nelson | The Tuscaloosa News
ATLANTA – It’s been a common refrain from Nick Saban the last three years. More than any other singular attribute the veteran head coach has mentioned, winning the team has come to be the most important attribute a quarterback must have to win the starting job.
That moment for Jalen Hurts? He thinks it happened during the spring.
After enrolling early and helping the team prepare for last season's national championship game by playing the role of Clemson’s Deshaun Watson in practice, Hurts entered the spring with momentum. Still, no one really thought the true freshman had a chance to win the starting job.
At least no one outside of the team.
“When I came (back) in the spring, I was getting reps with the ones immediately, so that was a sign to me,” Hurts said Wednesday morning during player interviews prior to the Peach Bowl. “I met with coach (Nick Saban) sometimes, and he’d tell me I was in the picture. So for me to be in that picture as a 17-year-old at the time, it was nice.”
Winning the team sounds easy, right? Make enough plays and the team will come around to nearly any personality.
But earning the trust and respect of a veteran football team, one that had serious designs on high goals, isn’t easy for any new starter, especially a kid who otherwise would’ve been finishing up his senior year of high school.
Upperclassmen like Jonathan Allen don’t just give you respect. Hurts had to earn it. He did it by proving his worth going up against the best defense in college football. His own.
“Coach Saban always says those guys with the alpha dog mentally, the dog mentally, always come to rise,” Hurts said. “I think that’s one of the things that just happened over time. When did it exactly happen? I’d say summer, probably, spring. You could say A-Day Game. A decent performance.”
With the seeds sewn during the spring and summer, Hurts took the next step in fall camp, performing so well that the offensive game plan against Southern Cal called for him to enter the game on the third series regardless of how well Blake Barnett, who started, played. On the first play he fumbled.
His reaction? “How do you respond?” he said.
That poise and subsequent performance — Alabama crushed the Trojans 52-6 — cemented in his teammates' minds that he was the starter.
“I guess (I knew) against USC, when he came in and he played well,” left tackle Cam Robinson said. “The next week, he came in and played well again. As the season progressed he just became the guy: He was the guy we were going with and that's all there was (to it).”
Two weeks later, he showed the country why he was the right man for the job, leading the Crimson Tide back from a 24-3 first-half deficit.
“I think when I really figured out that Jalen had what it took was the Ole Miss game,” center Bradley Bozeman said. “We gave up a huge sack and he took one to the chest and he came to us afterward like, 'Look, stuff happens and we have to go on. I've got y’all's back, I know you've got mine, let's go do it.' So I think that's when I really started respecting him as a player and as our quarterback.”
