Max
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Could that final gorgeous play by Bama's freshman phenom quarterback herald a renaissance of college quarterbacks who can both run when necessary but also read secondaries and manipulate them to make throws downfield? Are we finally at the termination point of the read-option orgy? Only time will tell, but Tua Togavailoa gives us hope.
Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (13) sets to pass during the second half of College Football Playoff championship game against Georgia on Monday in Atlanta.
AP/David J. Phillip
As the final pass on the final play of the college football season zinged out of Tua Tagovailoaās left hand, you could practically hear it fizz.
You know what I mean if youāve ever been in close physical proximity to a quarterback who can spin the ball that way. It has a sound to it, the hiss of a thousand tiny leather nipples carving through the air. When you hear the sound, you always see the wondrous accompanying image ā a football going phooom in a graceful arc at velocity as if a guided missile.
Iām old, so when I saw the Hawai`ian kid throw that ball, I thought of Joe Namath. To me, he and John Elway will always be the gold standard for guys who could propel a football that way. It just exploded out of his hand as if it carried its own energy.
Thatās how beautiful that throw was. Iāve seen longer throws that won games, even on the last play. But I canāt recall seeing a college freshman who not only flung it like that but looked off the throw-side safety in a cover-two for a good two beats before he threw it. It was an NFL throw in every way.
The prettiest and quickest release in football history? Elway might've been the pinnacle, but I'll still take Broadway Joe.
AP photo
Which brings us to the potential impact of Tua Tagovailoa. Heās not big for a pocket quarterback (and yes he can run, too), only a smidge over 6 feet. We donāt even know if heāll end up as the starting QB on his own team next fall, but Iām asking the question:
Is this the quarterback who changes college football?
Specifically, is Tagovailoa the one who shifts us away from a numbing succession of decade upon decade of bland handoff widgets on power-running-and-defense teams and ādual-threatā read-option keepers and returns us to the days of Brady and Manning and Brees and Marino and Young ā great pro-style college quarterbacks who came to the NFL ready to run a professional offense?
I sure as hell hope so. Not only does the NFL need this shift, college football needs it simply to escape the read-option monotony.
And, just to be clear, I understand that the NFL is necessarily morphing its offenses to accommodate mobile quarterbacks and infusing its own game with some college concepts. I think the future of the league will be in the hands of hybrid QBs, the first of whom was actually probably Steve Young, 30 years ago.
Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) throws against the Tennessee Titans during the second half on Oct. 1 in Houston.
AP/Eric Christian Smith
We now have analytical athletes like Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson and Marcus Mariota who can run but donāt have to. Who know when to use their athletic gifts but donāt depend on them. They will know how to read complex defenses and throw with pocket presence.
Tagovailoa, and what I think will be his college success, might be one who can change college football back to a game where QBs are the brains of the game, not just athletes or game managers.
That, of course, will require a change in the coaches. It takes a commitment from them to be willing to teach something more than a 10-play read-option offense to robotic quarterbacks umbilical-corded to sideline cards. Because itās so easy to run. So long as your QB is athletic, even a freshman can do it. Heās already run the same offense in high school. He can win with it in college.
And that makes the head coaches lots of money. Why would they take the trouble to run a more complex and nuanced offense with all the attendant trouble of teaching their QBs to read back-end defenses?
Willie Taggart (center) installed a simple read-option offense for Quinton Flowers (9) at South Florida that made the quarterback a national star, won the Bulls a lot of games and eventually made the coach a lot of money at his next two stops, Oregon and now Florida State. But will Flowers ever play in the NFL? Not as a quarterback.
AP photo
Just as an example, look at Willie Taggart and how heās job-hopped into the elite pay scale in just five years running the simplest form of read-option ā from Western Kentucky to South Florida to Oregon to Florida State. If you can progress from $500K to $5M a year that quickly, why bother?
Thatās where Nick Saban comes in. He is the new Bear Bryant, the one every aspiring coach wants to emulate. If he ditches pocket-challenged dual-threat Jalen Hurts for Tua Tagovailoa in 2018 and runs a more pro-style offense ā and if it works ā could we not see more colleges abandoning the Urban Meyer/Rich Rodriguez template and attempting to do the same?
Itāll be awfully interesting to find out. I just wanna see more guys who can manipulate a defense and zing it down the field.
Tua might just be the embodiment of a new-age quarterback whoās emulated across the sport, who changes it like Steph Curry did basketball. I think the time is ripe.
Alabama freshman quarterback Tua Togavailoa (13) stands calmly with his center Bradley Bozeman (75) after winning the College Football Playoff championship in Atlanta.
AP photo
Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (13) sets to pass during the second half of College Football Playoff championship game against Georgia on Monday in Atlanta.
AP/David J. Phillip
As the final pass on the final play of the college football season zinged out of Tua Tagovailoaās left hand, you could practically hear it fizz.
You know what I mean if youāve ever been in close physical proximity to a quarterback who can spin the ball that way. It has a sound to it, the hiss of a thousand tiny leather nipples carving through the air. When you hear the sound, you always see the wondrous accompanying image ā a football going phooom in a graceful arc at velocity as if a guided missile.
Iām old, so when I saw the Hawai`ian kid throw that ball, I thought of Joe Namath. To me, he and John Elway will always be the gold standard for guys who could propel a football that way. It just exploded out of his hand as if it carried its own energy.
Thatās how beautiful that throw was. Iāve seen longer throws that won games, even on the last play. But I canāt recall seeing a college freshman who not only flung it like that but looked off the throw-side safety in a cover-two for a good two beats before he threw it. It was an NFL throw in every way.
The prettiest and quickest release in football history? Elway might've been the pinnacle, but I'll still take Broadway Joe.
AP photo
Which brings us to the potential impact of Tua Tagovailoa. Heās not big for a pocket quarterback (and yes he can run, too), only a smidge over 6 feet. We donāt even know if heāll end up as the starting QB on his own team next fall, but Iām asking the question:
Is this the quarterback who changes college football?
Specifically, is Tagovailoa the one who shifts us away from a numbing succession of decade upon decade of bland handoff widgets on power-running-and-defense teams and ādual-threatā read-option keepers and returns us to the days of Brady and Manning and Brees and Marino and Young ā great pro-style college quarterbacks who came to the NFL ready to run a professional offense?
I sure as hell hope so. Not only does the NFL need this shift, college football needs it simply to escape the read-option monotony.
And, just to be clear, I understand that the NFL is necessarily morphing its offenses to accommodate mobile quarterbacks and infusing its own game with some college concepts. I think the future of the league will be in the hands of hybrid QBs, the first of whom was actually probably Steve Young, 30 years ago.
Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) throws against the Tennessee Titans during the second half on Oct. 1 in Houston.
AP/Eric Christian Smith
We now have analytical athletes like Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson and Marcus Mariota who can run but donāt have to. Who know when to use their athletic gifts but donāt depend on them. They will know how to read complex defenses and throw with pocket presence.
Tagovailoa, and what I think will be his college success, might be one who can change college football back to a game where QBs are the brains of the game, not just athletes or game managers.
That, of course, will require a change in the coaches. It takes a commitment from them to be willing to teach something more than a 10-play read-option offense to robotic quarterbacks umbilical-corded to sideline cards. Because itās so easy to run. So long as your QB is athletic, even a freshman can do it. Heās already run the same offense in high school. He can win with it in college.
And that makes the head coaches lots of money. Why would they take the trouble to run a more complex and nuanced offense with all the attendant trouble of teaching their QBs to read back-end defenses?
Willie Taggart (center) installed a simple read-option offense for Quinton Flowers (9) at South Florida that made the quarterback a national star, won the Bulls a lot of games and eventually made the coach a lot of money at his next two stops, Oregon and now Florida State. But will Flowers ever play in the NFL? Not as a quarterback.
AP photo
Just as an example, look at Willie Taggart and how heās job-hopped into the elite pay scale in just five years running the simplest form of read-option ā from Western Kentucky to South Florida to Oregon to Florida State. If you can progress from $500K to $5M a year that quickly, why bother?
Thatās where Nick Saban comes in. He is the new Bear Bryant, the one every aspiring coach wants to emulate. If he ditches pocket-challenged dual-threat Jalen Hurts for Tua Tagovailoa in 2018 and runs a more pro-style offense ā and if it works ā could we not see more colleges abandoning the Urban Meyer/Rich Rodriguez template and attempting to do the same?
Itāll be awfully interesting to find out. I just wanna see more guys who can manipulate a defense and zing it down the field.
Tua might just be the embodiment of a new-age quarterback whoās emulated across the sport, who changes it like Steph Curry did basketball. I think the time is ripe.
Alabama freshman quarterback Tua Togavailoa (13) stands calmly with his center Bradley Bozeman (75) after winning the College Football Playoff championship in Atlanta.
AP photo
:rolf:
