re: National championship TD was Tua's favorite play!

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Alabama called ‘Seattle.’ Tua Tagovailoa knew it at St. Louis School as ‘Divide.’ It was his favorite play call in high school.

Now it’s the play that has cemented his name in Alabama lore.

“It’s like four verticals,” Vinny Passas, Tagovailoa’s former quarterbacks coach, told SEC Country of the play call. “It’s just a matter of how you’re going to manipulate the safety. He did the right thing. He peaked at the over route to get that safety to hold the middle a little bit. He just went outside with it and, gosh, it was there. The ball came out in front of his body.

“As soon as the ball left his hand, I just knew it was going to be 6. It was a dime. It was right there. I felt so happy for him. He must have repped that play at least 10 times a day at practice, five days a week for three years at practice. I thought he could have done that blindfolded. It was all meant to be.”

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Chris B. Brown @smartfootball

Saban said the play was “Seattle” — four verticals in Alabama’s terminology. Here’s the relevant diagrams of “Seattle” from the Alabama offensive playbook/installation.

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Tagovailoa hadn’t seen meaningful action all season. When the freshman quarterback did see the field, Alabama had already wrapped up the game. He hadn’t experienced anything like what he did with 14:50 left on the clock in the third quarter on Monday night, when he replaced Jalen Hurts at quarterback.

Passas was just hoping that Tagovailoa would be able to get adjusted to the speed of the game. The first series was always going to be a challenge for him. The Tide went three-and-out and Tagovailoa was brought down on a sack by Butkus Award winner Roquan Smith for a loss of 4 yards.

Watching the game from over 4,000 miles away from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Passas didn’t panic, and he knew Tagovailoa was poised, too.

“I had confidence that he would do it,” Passas said. “By him throwing the ball the way he does, I thought that would help Alabama. He feels more comfortable throwing than running. Georgia was packing the box to try to take the running game away all game. I thought that fit in perfectly with Tua’s situation.

“I told my family, ‘Do not be surprised if Tua comes off the bench and saves the game.’ They all gave me that, ‘Yeah, right. You can’t take out Jalen Hurts. This guy has lost two games. He doesn’t turn the ball over.’ ”

It was clear that Alabama needed to make a quarterback change in the second half. Hurts was 3-of-8 passing in the first half for just 21 yards. The Tide were down 13-0 at halftime, so when the quarterback change was made, it was all on the freshman’s shoulders.

Tagovailoa had experience in a do-or-die game before. In his last high school game at Saint Louis, Tagovailoa had to rally the Crusaders back in the fourth quarter of the state championship game against Kahuku, which had won 24 straight games over Hawaiian schools until Tagovailoa’s Crusaders upended them.

That game also featured a critical fourth-down conversion where Tagovailoa audibled at the line of scrimmage and scampered for 28 yards to set up a touchdown a few plays later. Monday night, Tagovailoa threw a touchdown pass to Calvin Ridley on fourth-and-4 with 3:49 on the clock to tie the game at 20-20. 

Passas said that he knew Tagovailoa had the confidence to get the job done.

“I knew nothing was going to be too big for him,” he said. “All he needed was the opportunity. I am just so happy that the nation could see what we already knew what Tua was all about.”

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