re: the criticism on jalen hurts

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The Seminoles defense is littered with NFL prospects, including three projected first-round picks according to CBS Sports’ most recent mock draft — S Derwin James, CB Tarvarus McFadden and DT Derrick Nnadi. True sophomore edge rusher Brian Burns will almost certainly be a future first-rounder as well.

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Passing stats: 10/18 (55.6%), 96 yards passing, 1 touchdown

Rushing stats: 15 carries, 55 yards

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The stats say that Hurts had 8 incomplete passes, but consider:

- 3 were throwaways
- 1 was a sideline pass where the DB prevented Ridley from getting his feet down (18 yards)
- 1 was a dropped pass by Ruggs in the corner of the end zone (24 yards)

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The throwaways have absolutely nothing to do with Hurts’ accuracy, and both of the other two were well-thrown balls. In addition, there’s the play that got called back (13 yards) for a holding call on Lester Cotton — which wasn’t holding, by the way.

Not counting the throwaways, Hurts easily could’ve been 13 of 16 (81.3 percent) with 151 yards passing and 2 touchdowns. If you include the throwaways in this scenario, he would’ve still completed 68.4 percent of his passes.

To put it simply, accuracy was not an issue, at all.

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Ridley was targeted 11 times by Hurts against the Seminoles, bringing in seven of those. The rest of the team saw a combined five targets with three receptions — although, one of those receptions Hurts delivered to himself.

Like with the argument regarding the accuracy, if the plays by Ruggs (drop) and Jeudy (negated by penalty) happen, then that’s 41.6 percent of Hurts completions to someone other than Ridley — compared to the 30 percent that ended up on the stat sheet.

Offenses are typically going to feed their best weapon when defenses allow it, and that’s exactly what Alabama did in this game. Hurts did, however, look to other options in this game — even if the stats don’t show it.

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