🏈 Lars Anderson "The Mystery Man of Alabama"

[planomateo]

Great read.

Who Is Jalen Hurts, the Mystery Man of Alabama Football?

 

[TUSKtimes]

Yep, 18 going on 40.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Just ran across this Jalen Hurt's article on 24/7.


How one voicemail defines the essence of Jalen Hurts

• Chris Hummer - 61 minutes ago​
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(Photo: USAT, MaxPreps; Illustration by Ted Hyman)​

CHANNELVIEW, Texas –“Hey coach … this is Jalen Hurts from Channelview High School. It’s been a while since we talked …”
That voicemail arrived in the inbox of a Power Five assistant coach during the spring of 2014 — a school so far down the rung of FBS supremacy that listening to it now is surreal. Long before Hurts led Alabama to a perfect 12-0 regular season as a true freshman, on the brink of the Tide's third straight College Football Playoff berth, he politely checked in with an assistant coach at Middle of Nowhere University in search of an offer.
Hurts had no intention of being denied a college scholarship, just as he had no intention of appearing like a freshman in 2016. A four-star quarterback in the 2016 class per 247Sports, Hurts earned Alabama’s starting quarterback role a month after he turned 18.
He’s a dual-threat quarterback the likes of which the Crimson Tide have never seen before.
Hurts’ role is to guide a supremely gifted Alabama roster to a national championship. Yet the fulcrum of Alabama’s season is so young he completed a full semester of college before he could legally buy lottery tickets – Alabama seems to have picked the one-and-a-million winner.
It’s a daunting task, but you won’t likely hear about it.
Alabama’s policy is freshmen don’t talk to the media. In solidarity with his son, Jalen’s dad and high school coach, Averion Hurts, won’t either. It’s created a dearth of personal anecdotes and information about a player every college football fan knows and doesn’t really know at all.
But in a series of interviews in Hurts’ hometown with former coaches, teammates and even his quarterback-playing brother at Texas Southern, a picture starts to form. The prospect who dialed coaches to maintain contact is the same one who will start for the Tide against Florida in the SEC Championship on Saturday.
Hurts is uncannily calm, relentlessly dedicated to football and seemingly immune to pressure because of the rigors he’s already faced as a coach’s son. He’s much more than a game-manager, a term reserved for Alabama quarterbacks of the past. He's a rocketship hurtling towards stardom, blond-tipped dreads flapping in the atmosphere.
He’s, well, Jalen Hurts.
“I just can’t put a finger on why he’s doing what he’s doing now,” his brother Averion Hurts, who shares a name with his father, told 247Sports. “But he’s the reason. He’s worked for everything.”
***
Young Averion sat on the floor, tears welling in his eyes.
His PlayStation wouldn’t turn on, and he had to go tell his dad that he’d broken the expensive system. A few feet away, Jalen, four years Averion’s junior, asked: “Did you plug it in?” Jalen, in elementary school at the time, walked over to the wall and pushed the power cord into the outlet. On came the PlayStation.
“It’s something everybody talks about, his poise, his demeanor and his attitude and approach to things,” Averion says. “He’s never been one to get overly excited. It’s just something that really stands out to me.”
Hurts is unflinchingly composed to the point it’s transformed into a cliché. Turn on an Alabama game on CBS or ESPN and you can’t go a quarter without a broadcaster mentioning some descriptor of maturity.
It’s always been that way.
The son of a coach, Hurts started as a ball boy quite young. Channelview’s defensive coordinator Terry Bunn, who’s known Jalen for over a decade, remembers Jalen attempting to sneak into huddles and listen to the coach’s calls before he officially played the game.
“He was kind of intense as a ball boy,” Bunn says.
That demeanor only budded as Hurts got older, to the point Hurts appeared stoic on the sidelines in high school.
Up until Hurts arrived at Alabama, his most momentous moment as an athlete was easy to trace.
The game came Hurts’ junior year against North Shore High School, an annual power in Texas. Channelview had never beaten North Shore, and with only 5.9 seconds remaining Channelview found itself down 48-42. On the sideline before Jalen’s dad relayed the final play, Jalen told his friend, wide receiver Eterrious Giles, “We’re fixing to win this game.”
Things like that are often said prior to big moments, but Giles couldn’t turn away from the earnestness of Jalen’s expression. A few seconds later, Hurts rolled right and threw to the right corner of the end zone. Blanketed by a trio of defenders, the pass tipped off Giles’ hands into the waiting arms of a teammate.
Jalen didn’t lie. Channelview won the game.
“He just boosted everyone’s confidence,” Giles says. “We knew he’d make something happen.”
That play happened on Oct. 10, 2014 and Jalen celebrated at Wingstop. Two years and 26 days later, Alabama needed Hurts to make a play locked in a scoreless fourth-quarter tie with No. 13 LSU. Hurts had labored all day on the road to that point. He’d turned the ball over twice, and the Tide’s offense stalled.
This third-and-9 seemed destined to be an inevitable failure, but then Hurts rolled right again. This time, he planted his foot and burst up the middle of the Tiger defense, outrunning a duo of defenders to coast into the end zone. He broke the tie by scoring the only touchdown of the game.
After his sprint ended, Hurts paused. He looked forward and his eyes darted left until he spotted what he wanted – an official. Hurts tossed the ball to the opposite side of the field into the refs awaiting hands before walking back to the sideline.
Calm.
“I don’t think the stage is too big for him at all,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said after the win. “He expects a lot of himself and we expect a lot of him because he’s in the role. He’s handled that very, very well.”
***

Hurts at a TCU camp in high school. (Photo: 247Sports)​

It’s the fall of Jalen’s sophomore year and varsity basketball is set to begin today, but Jalen is in the football offices where Bunn remembers this exchange:
“Don’t you have practice today?” Coach Hurts said.
“I’m not playing,” Jalen said.
“You’re not?” Coach Hurts said.
“I just don’t see how it makes me better for football,” Jalen said.
Jalen, a 6-foot-2, 209-pound QB who runs with the loping grace of a gazelle, could have succeeded at many sports. He excelled in basketball, and Bunn remembers picking Hurts up for a random summer league baseball game and watching him turn a dribbler up the middle into a four bases (his speed forced two bad throws from infielders).
But by the time sophomore year came around, Hurts decided to focus on football. Forget the distractions of other sports.
“He gets it,” Bunn says. “If it was something that was going to make him better than there wasn’t any sense in doing it.”
The next few Hurts stories might bore you, but they're probably why Saban loves his young pupil ...
... That too-serious ball boy grew into a goal-oriented and focused young star. It’s certainly a platitude, but those who know Hurts best label him as a first-one-on, last-one-off-the-field type of player. Hurts would keep all of his teammates around post-practice if he felt things went poorly is a little different. Giles remembers Hurts bemoaning that the team could never end practice on a bad note.
His appetite for film study is also close to insatiable. Byron Henderson, Channelview’s quarterbacks coach, would walk in the hallways during the day and there were times Hurts would stop him and request they go watch tape.
“He always wanted to know what he was up against,” Henderson says. “He wanted to be prepared.”
It’s another cliché, but both Bunn and Henderson describe Hurts as a coach on the field. But it’s off the field where Hurts’ football dedication proves most potent in its influence. Hurts was so well regarded by teammates in Channelview when he walked in a room, horseplay would cease.
Not recede. Stop.
“When you’re around someone who is really true to the game, you straighten up,” Giles says. “Anyone can be a captain, but Jalen was another coach. He’s like an old man in a young man’s body.”
Hurts committed to Alabama about a week before he headed off to the Elite 11 quarterback camp in California in June of 2015. He called Saban and offered his pledge, but Bunn that also came with a distinction – Hurts didn’t need anyone to know he committed.
His family knew, the Alabama staff knew and the Channelview coaches knew.
Hurts just didn’t care if anybody else did.
The announcement of Hurts’ commitment didn’t come until a few days later on June 5, when Elite 11’s Twitter account broke the news for him with a prepared statement. Hurts, despite nearly 28,000 followers has tweeted just 36 times. Twitter is usually a fan’s window into a player’s thoughts, but Hurts isn’t about that attention.
In fact, he has a Twitter account for one main reason – to recruit for Alabama.
“It’s a single-mindedness set on a goal that he wanted,” Bunn says.
***
It seems a laughable thought now, but Hurts didn’t always want to be a quarterback.
He dreamed of playing wide receiver. Tall and lean on the outside with speed, he blew past defenders in his youth. There’s also another reason: Averion left some big shoes to fill. At least Averion always remembers their dad saying so.
“Jalen wanted to be everything but a quarterback,” Averion says.
That attitude didn’t last forever. In middle school Jalen switched to quarterback because that’s where he was needed. As Giles puts it, “there really weren’t any other good quarterbacks.” So Hurts dutifully moved to signal-caller and opened a window for criticism. He would not only follow his brother as Channelview’s signal caller, he would play for his dad in the most visible position possible.
When Averion graduated high school, Jalen could have played immediately for Channelview as a freshman on varsity. But, just like in many football-crazed towns, both politics and experience play a role in team selections.
Averion received the brunt of the criticism as many accused his dad of favoritism by starting his son at quarterback, but Jalen still felt some of it when he started at quarterback as a sophomore.
“We all knew who it was going to be,” Bunn says. “That’s the hardest part for dad/coach. He knew deep down, but he needed to make sure it was obvious to everybody. That’s the hardest part about being a coach’s kid. There can’t be any doubt you’re the best one.”
Averion and Jalen spent their developmental years around football. Dad’s football office served as their daycare during summers, and the boys ran around with the team in the Houston heat. As they got older, the boys would join in drills. .
Football didn’t often enter the home – dad would be in the office on Sundays while the boys watched the NFL on the couch – but it certainly shaped the brothers in childhood.
This football immersion helped both, and by the time Jalen arrived on varsity he’d seen his brother’s mistakes. He had no intention of making them himself.
He had been a shadow. When he made varsity, he would shine.
There were still detractors early in Jalen’s varsity experience because of claims of favoritism. But nobody proved more critical of the brothers in their time than Coach Hurts. It’s a tough balance being a coach and a dad, and there are times coach/dad would be a bit more critical of his sons than he would be with other players. It’s natural.
Add those factors together, and playing for dad is what Averion considers the toughest challenge of his career. That includes not getting recruited out of high school, fighting through JUCO and eventually landing the starting job at Texas Southern.
That experience as a coach’s son is how Averion rationales his brother’s performances each Saturday.
Nothing he’s doing is anywhere close to the pressure of playing for dad.
“When you think of playing under a microscope, no microscope is greater than playing for your dad,” Averion says. The criticism that you could receive from your peers can mess with you mind. When I see Jalen on TV and Nick Saban is screaming down his throat, that’s no surprise to Jalen. We’ve heard worse. That’s not anything that’s difficult to deal with at all.
“We’re used to it.”
***

Jalen Hurts after his college debut. (Photo: Jerome Miron, USA TODAY Sports)​

ArDarius Stewart couldn’t believe it.
Alabama inserted a true freshman quarterback in the first quarter against USC in the Tide’s season opener, and the kid fumbled his first play.
“I was like, ‘Ah man, this young guy ain’t going to know how to react,'” Stewart remembers.
Nine minutes later Stewart hauled in a 39-yard touchdown pass from Hurts to give Alabama a 7-3 lead. That margin grew to 52-6 by the end of the game; the Crimson Tide had found their quarterback of the future.
“He came in composed and got back on his feet,” Stewart says. “He’s just a different type of guy. It’s just crazy as a freshman.”
Since that throw to Stewart, Hurts has passed for 20 touchdowns against nine interceptions. He’s thrown for 2,454 yards while completing 66 percent of his passes. He’s also run for 840 yards and 12 scores. Hurts is not the most dangerous part of the Tide’s monstrous outfit – that’s the defense – but the legs of the freshman have provided an element Saban’s title-winning teams have never had before.
Hurts is under Heisman consideration and is a lock for Freshman All-American honors at age 18.
He’s provided surprise after surprise for both his teammates and Alabama fans, but those who know Hurts best aren’t shocked at all.
The kid on the phone had an objective, and it didn’t stop with a football scholarship.
“I’m proud, but in no way am I surprised,” Averion says. “No way.”

 

[bradenob]

Loved both articles, but... one small observation......

He IS a freshman, but he is actually 20 years old. Everyone keeps saying '18yo freshman!' but he was 20 in August. Just saying.....

 

[OldPlayer]

Loved both articles, but... one small observation......

He IS a freshman, but he is actually 20 years old. Everyone keeps saying '18yo freshman!' but he was 20 in August. Just saying.....

August 7, 1998 makes him 18.

 

[bamaledge]

August 7, 1998 makes him 18.

I'm not a mathematical genius, but 2016-1998=18. Just sayin'.

 

[bamaledge]

I meant to add that @OldPlayer is 100% correct.

 

[alabama mike]

I WAS 18 a long time ago.

 

[Bamabww]

Wow! Really great reads guys, thanks @TUSKstuff & @planomateo. Very impressed with this young man and very thankful he plays for the good guys.

 

[bradenob]

August 7, 1998 makes him 18.

OOPS! Sorry guys - misread that or Wikipedia changed it - thanks for the correction! :eyeroll:

 

[EasyTider]

No worries, math is not an exact science. I'm 43-44yrs old but my birth certificate says I was born 1966.