With Maryland and Miami being obvious choices for Jalen Hurts given the then-recent coaching changes at the two schools, Hurts reached out to one of the best football minds he knew: Nick Saban.
Nick Saban talks in-depth about @JalenHurts’ development at Alabama in this exclusive interview with @EaglesXOs.#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/zTmphRzWiR
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) May 10, 2020
Hurts felt comfortable going to Miami or Maryland over Oklahoma with Dan Enos named the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Miami in 2019 and Mike Locksley taking the Terrapins head-coaching gig in 2019. Both Enos and Locksley were at Alabama with Hurts and helped develop him.
In Saban’s interview with PhiladelphiaEagles.com reporter Fran Duffy, Saban says he asked Hurts where he thought the best players in the country were. A question to which Hurts answered Oklahoma.
“Well we just played them, I think they’ve got pretty good players on offense, too,” Saban said. “I’ve always told you (Hurts) that quarterback is a hard position to play if you don’t have good players around you. So if I was you—to create the most value, because you’ve got one year to do it—if you know you can be the starter there, go where they have the best players.”
The decision paid off for Hurts as he threw for 3,851 yards, a 69.7 pass completion rate, and 32 touchdowns. A dual-threat quarterback, Hurts accompanied his passing stats 1,298 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns on the ground en route to a second-place Heisman Trophy finish.
The season he put together at Oklahoma helped propel him to the second round of the 2020 NFL draft as he was selected with the No. 53 overall pick by the Philadelphia Eagles.
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