B
Bama News
Nick Saban Talks Tua Injury, Rehab, Makeup
Nick Saban discusses his relationship with Tua Tagovailoa throughout the rehab process, and the special makeup of the former star Alabama quarterback.
www.si.com
Nick Saban says Tua Tagovailoa helped him get through the injury more than the coach helped his player.
The start of this story, you’ve heard before.
Nick Saban had this freshman quarterback that he knew he might need at some point. So here and there, in 2017, he’d try and get him extended playing time—against Fresno State and Vandy, and then for the whole second half against Tennessee, even after this 19-year-old’s first possession ended in a pick-six. Then, in the team’s regular season finale, Auburn held the Tide to 112 yards passing and out of the end zone for the game’s final 27 minutes.
Alabama lost its place in the SEC title game. Saban made a decision.
“The thought after that game in my mind was, ‘If this is an issue for us moving forward, there may be a time when we have to put him in, so we can take advantage of some of the skill players we have,’” Saban says now. “So we go into the Georgia game, the national championship game, with the idea, ‘Hey, these guys have a really good run defense, they’ve got really good players, it’s gonna be hard for us to not throw the ball effectively and win.’”
The idea was prescient. Georgia went up 13–0 at the half, holding starter Jalen Hurts to 21 yards on 3-of-8 passing. Bama needed a spark. And Saban thought to himself, This is the situation when you said you’d put the other guy in and give him a chance.
The other guy went in and the rest is history.
Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t perfect the rest of the way. He threw a pick to DeAndre Baker on a call that, per Saban, wasn’t even supposed to be a pass play. Then, there’s the sack he took in overtime, losing 16 yards on the Tide’s first offensive snap of the extra period, prompting Kirk Herbstreit to say on the broadcast, “Throw it away, nobody’s open, you gotta give up on the play.” But as we know now, all of that was just a set-up to what was coming.
On second-and-26, Tagovailoa uncorked a moonshot to fellow freshman Devonta Smith, streaking down the sideline for a 41-yard touchdown. Saban won his sixth national title, and fifth in Tuscaloosa. The young Hawaiian was etched in Tide lore forever.
Now, for the part you don’t know.
Saban found Tagovailoa in the locker room postgame and, in a quiet moment, approached him in a way only this particular coach could.
“Tua, man, you can never take a sack in overtime. Especially when it’s a three-point game—the game is already tied,” Saban said to his quarterback. “But when we get sacked, we’re out of field goal range. I don’t know what you were thinking about. But you can’t do that.”
“No, coach,” Tagovailoa responded, “we just needed more room to throw the ball.”
Saban laughs now, “Just to show you what kind of personality he has, and how he’s affected by the game, or the way you said it, the size of the game, the impact, the consequences.”
The point in Saban telling the story—25 months later, with Tagovailoa’s collegiate journey having become much more complicated in the interim—isn’t hard to figure out. One, it shows how Tua changed Alabama’s program as much as any single player has in Saban’s 13 years there. Two, it shows how his star has been ready for what’s next for quite some time.
