"I'm so proud of him": When Nick Saban praised Jalen Hurts for his resilience after Alabama's huge win

Jalen Hurts helped the Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl on Sunday, earning the game's MVP award. If not for a certain moment during his college career at Alabama in 2018, he might not have wound up where he landed in the NFL.

Having been benched for Tua Tagovailoa with the Crimson Tide, Hurts remained steadfast. Hurts was the reigning SEC Offensive Player of the Year when Nick Saban yanked him in favor of Tagovailoa, then a freshman, in the 2018 College Football Playoff national title game.

Despite being 26-2 as a starter entering the next season, Jalen Hurts was stuck behind Tagovailoa on the depth chart, but the latter was injured in the fourth quarter of the SEC Championship game. Hurts entered to pull Alabama from behind Georgia to a 35-28 win.

"Well, we've always had a lot of faith in Jalen, and, you know, I told him when we put him in when Tua got hurt, 'It's your time,'" Saban said. "He certainly took advantage of it and did a fantastic job. I'm so proud of this guy for what he's done this year, I can't even tell you.

"Great comeback for our team. Showed a tremendous amount of resiliency, you know, in the game. We didn't play great, but we won the SEC today and we're so happy about that."

How did Jalen Hurts manage being a backup?

Arriving at Alabama, Jalen Hurts carried himself as if he were already the team's starter. Soon enough, he supplanted Blake Barnett as the Crimson Tide's guy. But, after a good deal of success, including a national title appearance as a true freshman, he was tested.

Saban took note of how mature Hurts was during that time.

"I've probably never been more proud of a player than Jalen," Saban said after Hurts helped his team leash the Bulldogs. "It's unprecedented to have a guy that won as many games as he won, I think 26 or something, over a two-year period, start as a freshman, only lose a couple of games this whole time he was the starter, and then all of the sudden he's not the quarterback.

"How do you manage that? How do you handle that? You've got to have a tremendous amount of character and class to put the team first, knowing your situation is not what it used to be, and for a guy that's a great competitor, that takes a lot."

The next year, Jalen Hurts transferred to Oklahoma, playing well enough with the Sooners to be drafted in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. But that day at Mercedes-Benz Stadium sticks in the minds of those involved.

"A lot of us, after the thrill of the win, as we started to come down, we started laughing to ourselves going, 'Are we involved in some kind of Disney movie we're unaware of?' It was too weird," Alex Mortensen, a former Alabama analyst, said to ESPN. "But, it was awesome. A lot of people were excited for him because of the way he conducted himself. You really wanted him to have personal success."

Jalen Hurts' patience paid off, and now he's enjoyed the fruits of it.