Saban doc shows Jalen Hurts benched for Tua Tagovailoa

Everybody knows how the story ends. Until this week, nobody outside that Alabama locker room had seen the moment it turned.

Will Compton

@_willcompton

Damn This production makes it feel like it just happened

Jordan Schultz@Schultz_Report

Wow. Never-before-seen locker room footage of Nick Saban telling Jalen Hurts he was turning to Tua Tagovailoa in the 2017 National Championship Game. (via "Saban" on ESPN App)

Here's the setup if you somehow blocked it out. Alabama trailed Georgia 13-0 at halftime of the CFP National Championship. Hurts had gone 3-of-8 for 21 yards. Saban went to the true freshman, and Tua led a 26-10 second half that ended in overtime and gave Saban his 6th national title. According to Yahoo Sports, Alabama had been quietly archiving behind-the-scenes footage without Saban knowing, and that's how the halftime call ended up in Episode 1.

It looks good, too. This isn't grainy phone video. It's polished enough that a game from early 2018 plays like it happened last weekend, and the locker room shots are the reason people are passing it around. Saban has told this story plenty of times. Actually watching it happen is a different thing.

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

It's crazy to think about the butterfly effect of this moment. Going to Tua in that moment could be one of the most impactful legacy decisions any coach has ever made. t.co/wC3TQk8xCM

The butterfly-effect take holds up. Tua threw the walk-off in the title game and became Alabama's starter. Hurts didn't sulk his way out the door. He stayed, came off the bench to bail out the Tide in the next season's SEC Championship, then transferred to Oklahoma and went on to build an NFL career in Philadelphia that has been every bit as big as Tua's. Saban gets 1 halftime decision, and 2 NFL careers and a pile of Alabama history come out of it.

Saban seems to know that the moment says more about Hurts than about him. On the red carpet at the Tuscaloosa premiere, he said the way Hurts handled the benching showed character and a competitive streak people should appreciate a lot more. Hurts wasn't there, but according to the Tuscaloosa News he sent white roses with a note thanking Saban for the opportunity and saying he was honored to share a small moment in Saban and Miss Terry's story.

There's more coming. Saban runs 6 episodes, built from interviews with about 70 people, and Hurts and Tua are both in it. All 6 are already streaming on the ESPN app, and the linear airings keep going with Episode 2, "Death Valley," on October 15 at 6 p.m. ET. If Episode 1 opened with this footage, the rest of the archive should be worth watching.