The Alabama football program is currently gearing up for its big game on Saturday evening against the Georgia Bulldogs. The Crimson Tide are hoping to continue their recent trend of domination against the Bulldogs, which started back when Nick Saban was the head coach.
Arguably the most famous of Saban's wins against the Bulldogs came in the 2018 National Championship Game, when Tua Tagovailoa replaced Jalen Hurts after halftime and led the Crimson Tide to an epic comeback victory.
Recently, Saban gave Hurts props for the way he handled that abrupt switch mid-game.
“The thing that's understated about all of this is how Jalen Hurts managed and handled the adversity and the difficult circumstance that he was put in. He stayed here at Alabama, he graduated, he worked on becoming a better passer, a better processor, getting rid of the ball,” he said, per College Gameday on X, formerly Twitter.
Poetically, Hurts ended up replacing Tagovailoa in the following year's SEC Championship Game against Georgia after the latter went down with an injury, before going on to finish his college career with the Oklahoma Sooners.
Article Continues BelowLife in the NFL isn't going great at the present moment for either Hurts or Tagovailoa, but it certainly speaks volumes about Hurts' character that he was able to take his demotion in stride and stay ready enough to hop back into the starting role in a high-stakes moment later on.
In any case, the rivalry between Alabama and Georgia is set to continue on Saturday evening at 7:30 pm ET from Tuscaloosa, now with Kalen DeBoer at the helm and Keelon Russell at quarterback, with the game being carried by ABC.