TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Hours after Alabama’s first spring scrimmage ended and most everyone had left the football facility on Paul W. Bryant Drive, film study started for Tua and Taulia Tagovailoa.

The older brother provided the younger brother with some late-night advice after his first scrimmage.

“Just things that I see,” Tua said Monday. “I had the opportunity to bring my brother up here late at night, probably about 12:30 to 1, and just sat down with him in our offensive staff meeting room and just watched film with him. He just wanted to know the things that I’m seeing out there, and I got to help him with that.”

Tua does that with all of Alabama’s quarterbacks, but a trip to the facility after midnight is likely only reserved for a member of his family. But just like the other signal callers, the Crimson Tide’s incumbent starter wants to see Taulia succeed and is more than willing to help him do that.

“There’s a lot of things he can work on,” Tua said. “We talked about it in our quarterback room, things that I can work on, things that the other quarterbacks can work on. It’s all about getting better in our quarterback room. So, he knows he’s got to get better, and we all know we’ve got to get better. We’ve just got to push ourselves and one another.

“I think they need the reps though. God forbid anything does happen again to me. But I think the experience that these guys get with taking reps with the ones taking reps with the twos, it’s going to be really a big difference. Inexperience, game experience and how they go out there and how their approach is going to be going into games, as well.”

Taulia was Alabama’s top-rated quarterback signee for the 2019 recruiting cycle, according to the 247Sports Composite. He was the No. 5 dual-threat quarterback, No. 8 player in the state of Alabama and No. 180 overall prospect. The 5-foot-11, 211-pound freshman threw for 3,728 yards and 35 touchdowns as a senior at Thompson (Ala.) High School less than a year ago.

Alabama freshman quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa

In Saturday’s first scrimmage of the spring, Taulia led the third-team offense. He also got some work with the twos. And simply on the surface, one of the Tide’s new quarterbacks performed well.

“For a young guy coming in for his first scrimmage, I thought he handled things very well. He was very cool, collected,” said Alabam junior safety Xavier McKinney of Taulia. “But I mean, I’m sure he still has a lot of things to work on and improve on. I can’t tell you what that is because I’m not a QB, but he looked pretty good in the first scrimmage.”

Tua is the starter, and Mac Jones received reps with the ones at twos this past weekend, but Alabama will need both of its early enrollees, Taulia and Paul Tyson, to grasp the playbook and make progress over the course of the offseason before the 2019 season kicks off in August.

The young players know that, and that’s why Tua and Taulia were dissecting film of Saturday’s spring scrimmage hours after it ended at Bryant-Denny Stadium and well into the morning hours.

“We need to kind of see who's going to be the next best guy and if anybody can challenge the first two guys,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said. “That’s kind of where we are today and that’s how we had it planned. I think those guys have a ways to go. First time out there, they did some good things but it was also pretty obvious that it was their first time out there.”

Contact Charlie Potter by 247Sports' personal messaging or on Twitter (@Charlie_Potter).

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