re: Tagovailoa now 7/1 odds to win Heisman

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Dan Enos has never coached in the NFL.

But he's been coveted by men who did.

Jim Harbaugh asked Enos to join his Michigan staff after Arkansas terminated his contract in wake of Bret Bielema's firing in November.

Then, Nick Saban swiped Enos from the Wolverines -- bringing him in to supervise Alabama's quarterbacks and serve as an associate head coach for the Crimson Tide.

Enos was courted by two of college football's most storied programs because the offense he's directed at previous stops is rooted in pro concepts. He has relied heavily on "Ace" formations with multiple tight ends and has asked his quarterbacks to operate from under center with dropbacks that range from three to seven steps.

He's also shown he's predisposed toward play-action.

"The big thing each and every game is to be able to create balance," Enos said in 2016.

In the past, Enos has worked with skilled passers. At Central Michigan, he tutored the big-bodied Cooper Rush, who is now with the Dallas Cowboys. During his three-year run at Arkansas, he mentored the Allen brothers -- Brandon and Austin. Brandon was second in the nation in total QBR in 2015. Austin led the Southeastern Conference in passing yards the following season.

Saban's decision to hire Enos appears to send a clear signal about what kind of quarterback he wants after he's introduced some ambiguity on that topic in recent seasons with some of the decisions he's made. Most notable among them was his call to hand over the offense to Jalen Hurts, the athletically-gifted sophomore who has shown deficiencies as a passer and an abiding impatience to cycle through his reads.

Hurts' weaknesses were revealed to the nation in the national championship game earlier this month when he was benched in favor of Tua Tagovailoa, the intriguing freshman who led the comeback against Georgia that resulted in Alabama's 17th national title.

In the limited action he has seen, Tagovailoa has shown he can routinely deliver anticipatory throws in tight windows with the kind of precision that makes NFL scouts drool.

Yet it's his willingness to hang in the pocket and assess his options that may be his most impressive quality, especially because Tagovailoa has the mobility to be an escape artist if the play breaks down or he can't connect with the primary receiver.

It's the mark of a quarterback that sees himself as a passer rather than a runner.

That's the kind of player Saban seems to want and it's certainly the type of quarterback Enos has coached.

Not long after the 2017 national championship loss to Clemson last spring, Saban wondered aloud if Alabama had lost a bit of its identity by making Hurts the starter.

"We became almost more of a quarterback-run, spread team and that's not really what we want to be," he said in a radio interview. "We want to be more pro-style as we were, with a mix of a spread."

With Enos coming into the fold and Tagovailoa already on campus, Saban's vision could be realized.

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I don't expect Saban to think like everyone else..

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