It’s fair to say that Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa transitioned to the starting role with ease in 2018.
All jokes aside the now junior quarterback posted the greatest year at his position in the history of the university and it really wasn’t close. He garnered many awards, nominations and praise from nearly everyone with a keyboard or microphone. Even head coach Nick Saban has expressed on multiple occasions how great the gunslinger is.
To go with his all-time talent is a vibrant and charming personality, in the eyes of Alabama fans he’s the example of a perfect quarterback. But the word “perfect” is not something that gets tossed around too often from Saban.
Obviously, there is no such thing as a perfect quarterback or football player for that matter. There is always room to improve, no matter how much of your game needs it, and in 2019 Saban is challenging his quarterback to take the next step.
“He’s such a great competitor, he never gives up on a play,” said Saban in an interview with ESPN. “Sometimes it’s ok to throw the ball away, sometimes it’s ok to take the check down. That part of the game he can improve.
“A lot of the times he makes the defense pay when they pressure him, he makes a lot of big plays. But he also takes a lot of shots he doesn’t need to be taking.”
One of the scratches on Tagovailoa’s armor has been his inability to stay healthy. Near the end of the season, the quarterback picked up a bunch of nagging injuries to his lower body and at points looked like a much different player. Most of the time he picked up these injuries by holding onto the football too long and getting crushed by defenders. Just like Saban said sometimes it is the right move to get rid of the football and live to see another down.
But Tagovailoa isn’t the only player who has something to prove going into this season, it’s the entire team.
“I’m actually very specific with the players in defining, look guys here’s what we’ve been talking about, this is what we failed to do, and this is how we got exposed because of it,” said Saban “So what are we going to do about it.
“I think our team needs to get back to the ‘Bama’ way. We’ve always had a very highly disciplined team and the team was that last year for a (while). And I don’t think we’ve always had the leadership that we needed.”
There’s no beating around the bush with coach Saban, the entire team has got to show up this season for a full 12-15 games.
Coaches, players, waterboys you name it.
Alabama will begin their season this upcoming Saturday, Aug. 31 against the Duke Blue Devils at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
