Alabama Football: Why Tua Tagovailoa is the best to ever play at Alabama
By Kevin Mudd
Alabama football has never been privy to as dominating a performance by a quarterback as the one being consistently being provided by Tua Tagovailoa.
To fully appreciate how truly special Tua is, it is necessary to understand all the components of what makes Tua Tagovaila so good. I believe there are five main reasons why Tua Tagovailoa is the best quarterback that not only has played for Alabama football under Nick Saban, but for the Crimson Tide in its entire history.
Those components are offensive line play; pre-snap knowledge; post-snap ability; passing accuracy and a gunslinger attitude.
Alabama football Offensive Line
In order to appreciate what Tua Tagovailoa is doing to college football, it must begin with his offensive lineman. So many times the big guys up front receive little to no credit for their tremendous job that allows Tagovailoa to shine.
Without a sound offensive line, Alabama could have Aaron Rodgers under center and struggle, because he wouldn’t have any time to throw.
But this offensive line has provided an excellent pass block for Tua Tagovailoa, and that has enabled him to use his innate skill set to take Alabama Football to levels offensively never seen before.
Tua Pre-snap Knowledge
When you think of quarterbacks who understood a defense before a snap you can begin and end the conversation with Peyton Manning. No one prepared harder or watched more film than Peyton Manning. It enabled him to continually step up to the center and read a defense prior to the snap and be able to predict the defensive movements to best move the football down the field.
When studying Tagovailoa, he possesses the same dedication to film and understanding of how a defense operates. It showed in its purest form in the National Championship game.
Tua read the two high safeties and understood that if he could pull Georgia’s safety inside the hash with his eyes, that it would give him the space to throw a perfect pass to DeVonta Smith to win a National Championship. This Pre-snap Knowledge allowed him to read the how to beat Georgia, but it is the Post-snap ability that led to him beating Georgia.