| FTBL If Tua Tagovailoa isn't your Heisman Trophy favorite right now, give me your ballot

rick4bama

Bama Fan since 1965 and counting....
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If Tua Tagovailoa isn't your Heisman Trophy favorite right now, give me your ballot
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Just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean it’s not true.

That double-negative is a fitting way to introduce what should be a consensus thought as we bypass the unofficial midway point of the season.

Tua Tagovailoa is your Heisman Trophy favorite right now, unless you’re just being that person. Like, the person who argues that it’s Sunday when it’s Saturday. Somewhere, that person is drawing up some cumulative numbers suggesting that Tagovailoa doesn’t stack up with Will Grier or Kyler Murray.

That’s cool. They’re wrong, but I suppose it’s their right to do that. They’re probably right there with the people who didn’t make Babe Ruth get 100 percent of the vote to make the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Tagovailoa isn’t Ruth yet, though he hasn’t exactly shown signs that he’s incapable of doing unprecedented things.

How’s that for a triple negative?

Saturday’s blowout win against Tennessee was a nice little reminder of just what Tagovailoa is capable of. And no, I’m not going to tell you that the Vols’ defense is the 85 Bears — everybody expects Alabama to face the nation’s best defense every week or it doesn’t count — but it was still a unit coached by one of the game’s best defensive minds in Jeremy Pruitt.

By the time Tagovailoa’s day was done, it was the middle of the third quarter. Of course, it was after he threw his fourth touchdown pass to get Alabama to the 50-point mark for the sixth time in 8 games. And just in case there was any doubt that Tagovailoa wasn’t doing the heavy lifting, Alabama had fewer than 100 yards rushing when that happened.

By the way, this was the final throw that we saw from Tagovailoa:



Need not worry, Alabama fans. Tagovailoa’s knee was fine. That was the question that was asked throughout the week after he left last Saturday’s game against Mizzou. We got an answer to that during Tagovailoa’s eighth consecutive game with multiple touchdown passes and zero interceptions (yeah, that’s every game of 2018).

Tagovailoa is up to 2,066 yards, 25 touchdown passes and still 0 interceptions. With Alabama off next week, that means Tagovailoa will head into November without an interception.

Oh, and he will indeed still be searching for his first fourth-quarter pass of the year in November. That’s a real stat.

Even Dwayne Haskins, who is somehow up to 3/1 odds to win the Heisman, has attempted 37 fourth-quarter passes this year. Before Haskins played in Week 8, he still had 90 more passing attempts than Tagovailoa, yet he had just 3 more touchdowns and 265 more yards.

That’s a quarter for Tagovailoa.

Considering the fact that Tagovailoa’s 13.6 yards per attempt is on pace to shatter the FBS record 11.5 YPA that Baker Mayfield set during his Heisman Trophy season last year, he’d be trouncing Haskins’ or Grier’s numbers if he weren’t so efficient. There’s no doubt about it. We’re looking at a quarterback who’s as efficient as we’ve ever seen in the sport.

On Saturday against Tennessee, Tagovailoa had Alabama up 21-0 in the first 7 minutes. I mean, Alabama has yet to score fewer than 13 points in the first quarter this year. After Tagovailoa got Alabama out to a 42-14 lead against the Vols, Alabama improved its first half average to 370 yards of offense.

Don’t be the person who holds that against Tagovailoa.

If you’re still waiting to see him play against an elite defense, I suppose I could rewind the tape of the national championship, or perhaps you will just ignore his 8-game dominance in 2018 and wait to the LSU game to make your opinion.


But still, what more do you want? Seriously. What more in 8 games can Tagovailoa do against his competition to show his worth? He’s been the closest thing to perfect that we’ve ever seen from the position through the first 2 months of the season.

You cannot defend throws like this:



Do people even realize that he’s only been sacked 3 times this year? Jarrett Stidham gets sacked that many times in a quarter.

What Tagovailoa is doing is so dominant that the lazy take is that it’s boring. It’s not. If you still have that opinion, you haven’t watched a full game of Tagovailoa. Well, technically none of us have.

I find myself rooting for Alabama’s defense to struggle in games for the simple fact that I want to see Tagovailoa stay in for 60 minutes. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Another part of me just wants to see how he handles throwing an interception or taking a costly sack. You know, outside of last year’s national championship.

Tagovailoa is the player that we just can’t get enough of, at least on the field. There’s more than enough of Tagovailoa talk off the field. There should be.

I’ll be honest. When Tagovailoa hung tough and threw his final touchdown pass of the day Saturday, it bummed me out that we wouldn’t get to see him do that again for 2 weeks when Alabama travels to LSU for that all-important clash. If there are still people that Tagovailoa has to win over — I can’t imagine there are very many — there will be even fewer by the time the clock hits zero in Baton Rouge in a couple weeks.

And if not, well, I can’t help them. They’re just that person.
 
No doubt...Its Tua's to lose....
We took LSUs RB out of the running 2 years in a row....
Will they take Tua out?....its his make it or break it time....I believe...
That Oklahoma QB....man is that guy impressive...
The OSU......much less...
One of those 2 need a "Heisman " moment to move ahead of Tua
 
I'm an Alabama fan and can't get enough of watching him throw. I've never wanted to watch a player in any league or level as much as I've wanted to watch him. I hate he only gets to play half a game, because the way he spins the ball and just hits guys in stride is amazing. I was a major Hurts supporter last season, and still do when I need to, but Tua is fantastic like a number of y'all said. Finbaum and others can scream lack of competition, but no matter the competition, his accuracy, yardage, completion percentage, and yards per touchdown, and even his completion to touchdown ratio are heads above anyone in history. never seen a Heisman won this early in the season, but he had it locked up a week or two ago. unless he just takes mob money and starts throwing games, he will win the Heisman.
 
I'm an Alabama fan and can't get enough of watching him throw. I've never wanted to watch a player in any league or level as much as I've wanted to watch him. I hate he only gets to play half a game, because the way he spins the ball and just hits guys in stride is amazing. I was a major Hurts supporter last season, and still do when I need to, but Tua is fantastic like a number of y'all said. Finbaum and others can scream lack of competition, but no matter the competition, his accuracy, yardage, completion percentage, and yards per touchdown, and even his completion to touchdown ratio are heads above anyone in history. never seen a Heisman won this early in the season, but he had it locked up a week or two ago. unless he just takes mob money and starts throwing games, he will win the Heisman.
AMEN !! Brother preach on!! The other teams he was looking at are all crying! You and I know if he has went to any other school, he would had already played more then a few full games!
 
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