Alabama’s football season is over following a New Year’s Day Citrus Bowl win over Michigan. Now Tide fans have to wait through the weekend for the news that could hold the team’s fate for the next football season.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa tweeted, “I’ll be making my decision on the 6th… God bless and Roll Tide,” following Wednesday’s 35-16 season-ending victory.
The 21-year-old’s season was cut short on Nov. 16 following a hip injury. Monday, Tagovailoa will either announce that that game versus Mississippi State was his last as a player under Nick Saban and that the quarterback plans to enter the 2020 NFL Draft, or the 2017 National Championship Offensive MVP will announce that he’s heading back to Tuscaloosa.
In taking the field for nine games this season, Tagovailoa threw for 2,840 yards and 33 touchdowns with only three interceptions. Alabama finished the year 10-1 in games with the Hawai’i native at QB, the lone loss at the hands of the College Football Playoff top-seeded LSU Tigers on Nov. 9. Tagovailoa played in the game versus the Tigers 20 days after undergoing surgery to repair a high ankle sprain.
Tagovailoa’s storybook college career took one of its worse turns this season, but his heights included navigating injury in 2018, too. As a sophomore, he earned the starting quarterback job for the season then left the SEC Championship during the fourth quarter and underwent surgery to repair a high ankle sprain (on the opposite leg as the injury was this season) before returning to help the team to an Orange Bowl win, earning MVP honors.
As a freshman, Tagovailoa memorably entered the second half of the National Championship after serving only as a backup and helped lift the Tide to the title.