As three Alabama quarterbacks in recent months were choosing to avoid future competition with Jalen Hurts for the opportunity to guide the Crimson Tide's talented offense, Tua Tagovailoa was heading straight for it from five time zones away.
Tagovailoa, the nation's No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in the 2017 signing class out of the St. Louis School in Honolulu, committed to the Crimson Tide in May and was among their 12 early enrollees last month. The 6-foot-1, 215-pounder has no reservations about choosing to vie with Hurts, who is the reigning Southeastern Conference offensive player of the year.
"You've got to go places to compete," Tagovailoa said last week in a signing day news conference. "Why not go to the best place?"
Alabama also signed Mac Jones, a 6-2, 185-pounder from Jacksonville, Fla., who is the No. 12 pro-style quarterback nationally according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings. Jones was not an early enrollee but will start classes in Tuscaloosa next week after receiving permission to leave the Bolles School early.
Jones is the first Bolles prospect to leave before his spring graduation, which would be similar to a player from Baylor or McCallie requesting an early departure.
"Alabama had to get at least two quarterbacks because of the transfers," ESPN recruiting analyst Tom Luginbill said. "Part of the recruiting pitch was that it was a wide-open opportunity to compete for the No. 2 job. Whether they want to play them or not, one of them is going to have to be the backup.
"I think they created a competition that was attractive."
Hurts was viewed last spring as being fourth on Alabama's depth chart behind the more experienced trio of Cooper Bateman, David Cornwell and Blake Barnett, who actually won the starting job for the opener against Southern California. Hurts entered the opener with Alabama trailing 3-0 and ignited the Crimson Tide to 38 consecutive points in a 52-6 runaway, and Barnett announced in late September that he was transferring.
Bateman and Cornwell announced they were departing in December, though each stayed through last month's national championship showdown in Tampa. Barnett is now at Arizona State, while Bateman is at Utah and Cornwell at Nevada.
Tagovailoa, who threw for a Hawaii high school record 8,158 yards and 84 touchdowns and rushed for 1,727 yards and 27 scores during his three-year career, insists he would have picked Alabama even if every other quarterback had stayed. One of his goals now is not concerning himself with the competition with Hurts, who threw for 2,780 yards and set school single-season records with 954 rushing yards by a quarterback and 36 touchdowns responsible.
"He's an awesome guy," Tagovailoa said. "He was the SEC offensive player of the year. He has a lot of intangibles, and some can't even be coached, so I'm trying not to worry about any of that.
"I'm just going to do what I do and let the other guys do what they do. We're trying to move as one."
At last month's American Football Coaches Association meetings in Nashville, coaches proposed changes to redshirting rules that would allow players to redshirt as long as they played fewer than four games, no matter where those games were sprinkled throughout a season. Should that rule pass and Hurts maintain his starting role, Tagovailoa and Jones could play much more than their recent predecessors who did not stay for four full seasons.
"If you're allowed to play almost four games and still redshirt, that could affect a team like Alabama," Luginbill said. "If you had an injury and had to play a freshman for a game but not the entire season, you could still salvage your redshirt year. I think Alabama could be a poster team for why you would want to have a rule like that."
That, of course, is not for Tagovailoa to concern himself with. He is too busy using his "Bama app" to meander around campus and adjusting to food that he says is the biggest difference from his home state.
Tagovailoa is from the same high school as Tennessee Titans quarterback and 2014 Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, whom he has been linked to most.
"It's an honor to be compared to someone at such a prestigious level," Tagovailoa said, "especially when I haven't really done anything."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.