Jalen Hurts starving for chance at College Football Playoff redemption

Jalen Hurts was benched the last time he started a College Football Playoff game. Now, with Oklahoma, he’s hoping for redemption.

The Jalen Hurts story is already one of the most harrowing and interesting in the history of college football.

Most know the bullet points. He was the first freshman to start for Nick Saban. He earned SEC Offensive Player of the Year. He guided his team to two College Football Playoffs and eventually lost his job at halftime of the national title game.

The coach’s son from Channelview, Texas would never have been so selfish as to make the Crimson Tide’s 2017 National Championship win about him or create drama with his team for getting benched. He celebrated alongside his teammates, hugged his successor Tua Tagovailoa and said all the correct things in the press.

He even came back the following year to back Tagovailoa up, come off the bench and add to his impressive Alabama legacy by engineering a comeback win over Georgia.

However, while he never let it hurt his team, it was clear everything that happened didn’t sit well for Hurts. There was a competitive fire below the surface that was growing stronger with each day he had to watch his team from the sideline.

Jalen Hurts’ college football story was always too compelling to end on the bench.

When he finally did leave Alabama, he did it the right way. He earned his degree in communications. He penned an emotional goodbye to his supporters and departed with his coach, teammates and an entire Crimson Tide fanbase’s blessing.

Enter Oklahoma and head coach Lincoln Riley. In only two years the 36-year-old head coach has produced back-to-back Heisman winners and No. 1 overall picks at quarterback. While all of that no doubt factored into Hurts’ decision, there was one prevailing reason a Texas kid who grew up idolizing Vince Young chose to head to Norman.

He believed the Sooners could put a team around him capable of a run to the College Football Playoff.

That’s why he has shown so little excitement in the media through the best statistical season of his career. Every week Hurts has downplayed the success he’s found so far in Norman. He has tried to put everything in perspective. After home games those on campus in Norman will often spot Hurts in the Sooner weight room, getting in extra work.

Those who cover the Sooners have become accustomed to answers like “we have to get better”. He has even imported the trademarked Nick Saban “rat poison” response into his vocabulary.

It’s clear from his actions and his curt postgame responses there’s only one satisfactory ending to this story for Hurts – a national title he can truly call his own.

That’s why there was no look of disappointment or worry on Hurts’ face when he didn’t win the Heisman Trophy in New York, just the same determined expression that has been plastered to his face all year.

While some of this may come off as an act to those who don’t know Hurts, its clear by the responses he gets from his teammates and his coaches that it’s genuine. He was named a team captain before the season started, joining a council of multi-year starters in Norman. He helped rally his team back from a 28-3 deficit on the road against a top 10 Baylor team to keep the Sooners’ playoff hopes alive.

Tougher than years’ past, Oklahoma is a top-five team in the country running the football and sports a defense that ranks in the top 25 to go along with it. It’s almost as if Hurts’ arrival (along with new defensive coordinator Alex Grinch) has created a noticeable shift in not only the Sooners’ offensive game plan but the team’s identity.

In a season where three of the starting College Football Playoff quarterbacks are transfers (Joe Burrow from Ohio State to LSU and Justin Fields from Georgia to Ohio State), we have officially arrived in the era of the transfer portal. While many feared it would be a time of “free agency” and chaos for the game, it has clearly helped the careers of these three young men and the new teams they took over.

Perhaps there is no better way to mark the dawn of this new time than to have the first quarterback to lead two teams to the tournament win it all.

It’s true Hurts’ team is the biggest underdog of the four teams according to all betting lines, but long odds are nothing new to the current Oklahoma quarterback.

They are the kind of odds that have propelled him this far.

It’s why he’s starving for another chance at a national title.

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