Tua Tagovailoa leaves with knee injury, Jalen Hurts takes over for Alabama

Alabama fans are holding their breath after Tua Tagovailoa left with an injury.

The presumptive Heisman Trophy winner and the quarterback of the best offense in the nation is hurt. Tua Tagovailoa exited Alabama’s game with Missouri with a knee injury after scrambling to pick up yards and sliding without making any contact with a defender.

Entering the game, Tagovailoa was battling a sprained knee that seemed innocent enough because head coach Nick Saban said it didn’t’ stop him from taking any snaps in practice and he started the game without incident. Considering Alabama has Jalen Hurts waiting in the event of an injury, it didn’t seem like anything to be overly concerned with.

However, Tagovailoa had the knee taped up and didn’t appear to be the same fluid athlete we’ve seen previously. After the break, Tagovailoa escaped the pocket and ran to pick up some yardage when he slid but remained down where trainers attended to him for a few moments. You could feel the entire Alabama fandom holding their collective breath as he sat on the field. Heck, you don’t need to be an Alabama fan to hope for Tagovailoa to emerge unscathed.

He got up and jogged off to the sideline. It appeared as if Alabama dodged a bullet and he’d be okay. But on the sideline, Tagocailoa went to the medical tent and was later joined by both his mom and dad who checked on their son.

It was at this point that I began to worry a lot more. It’s not very common to have a player’s parents check in on the medical tent. This made me panic that something was serious inside the tent. Thoughts raced through my mind that it could be an ACL. I was already rationalizing that maybe it was only a meniscus or he aggravated the sprain.

I’m no doctor but those were the thoughts racing through my mind. There was no mention of what could be going on with Tagovailoa inside the tent. ESPN sideline reporter Todd McShay said Tagovailoa re-injured his sprained knee.

It’s total lockdown as Heisman Trophy, SEC and National Championship race could all be determined by the fate of Tagovailoa’s health.

Tagovailoa emerged from the tent with his knee brace back on and walking without a limp to the naked eye. But it appears as if he’ll be an emergency quarterback the rest of the way as Hurts finishes off Missouri. Alabama may still have avoided total disaster with Tua, but Saban should rest his quarterback this week in practice and even hold him out vs. Tennessee if necessary to make sure he’s as close to 100 percent for LSU on Nov. 3.

After the game, Saban said Tua is okay and they didn’t put him in because the game was in hand.