Inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium last Saturday, a crowd of reporters formed a pocket around Tua Tagovailoa’s locker, creating an audience fit for a king. The journalists had come to the stadium expecting to see the prelude to the Alabama sophomore quarterback’s coronation as college football’s best player. Instead, they huddled in a cramped space for an entirely different reason, waiting and waiting and waiting.

Thirty minutes passed and Tagovailoa didn’t show. He was in the vicinity though, inside a room nearby where the team’s medical staff attended to his left ankle that had been sprained severely in the first quarter of the SEC championship victory over Georgia. The injury, which required surgery, led to Tagovailoa playing his worst game, throwing two interceptions and completing 40 percent of his pass attempts before relinquishing the offense to Jalen Hurts and watching him lead a spirited comeback.

By trying to persevere through the pain until he bruised his other ankle with less than 12 minutes left in regulation, Tagovailoa may have damaged his opportunity to become the first Alabama quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy. It marked the latest bit of adversity for a player whose trials throughout the last calendar year have been overshadowed by his remarkable production and softened by his fun-loving persona.

“He’s gone through a lot,” said Tagovailoa’s father, Galu. “We as parents, we see that. And the only thing most people see is just a kid out there playing. But we as parents, we see a lot more than what people see. And just with a lot of prayers and putting God first and our faith, I think that’s what really saved us, just allowing God to do his thing while we do our thing with praying. But he’s gone through a lot.”

Throughout the last 11 months, Tagovailoa has resembled a duck on the water. To the naked eye of an outside observer, he’s sailed past his obstacles with little resistance when in reality there has been serious turbulence below the surface that has marked an ongoing struggle. Although sources expect him to overcome this latest setback and play in the College Football Playoff semifinal against an Oklahoma team led by its own Heisman finalist Kyler Murray, there have been numerous injuries that have threatened to derail him and a period of uncertainty that delayed his rapid ascent toward stardom.

At this time last year, Tagovailoa wasn’t the starting quarterback even though some inside the program believed he should have been. By the midpoint of the 2017 season, Tagovailoa had begun torching the Tide’s top-ranked defense in practices while demonstrating a preternatural ability to read coverages and go through his progressions. Some even thought he had already surpassed Hurts, the quarterback who had been named the 2016 SEC Offensive Player of the Year as a freshman.

“When it got to Week 8, it was like man, he’s the better one,” one former Alabama staff member said.

But Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban had developed an abiding loyalty to Hurts and was reluctant to make a move with his team still maintaining a perfect record. Then came the Iron Bowl. Hurts appeared flummoxed by Auburn’s defense, throwing the ball away five times and passing for only 112 yards in a 26-14 loss.

After that defeat, a former NFL executive in attendance remarked that Alabama should consider playing Tagovailoa because it would be risking a championship run if it opted to keep the status quo.

Inside the Mal Moore Athletic Facility, some of Saban’s aides had arrived at the same conclusion. Support for Tagovailoa strengthened even more after Hurts was forced to miss some of the Sugar Bowl practices because of an illness. In Hurts’ place, Tagovailoa took the first-team reps and shredded Alabama’s defense. He then was given a part in the Tide’s game plan against Clemson. The opportunity he awaited since his arrival on campus was nearing. Yet it never came to pass because the defense squeezed Clemson during a 24-6 victory that didn’t necessitate Tagovailoa’s involvement.

At the team hotel, in the postgame scene of the College Football Playoff semifinal, Tagovailoa was visibly frustrated at one point while his father interacted with an offensive coach, according to those present at the time.

Would he ever get his chance?

But then seven days later, that answer arrived and Tagovailoa’s life hasn’t been the same since.

As Hurts bottomed out and Alabama stared at certain defeat with a 13-0 deficit, Saban summoned the Hawaiian freshman to rescue the Tide. Tagovailoa then proceeded to throw three touchdown passes and deliver the fatal 41-yard strike to Georgia in a 26-23 overtime victory.

“I couldn't be prouder of him taking advantage of the opportunity,” Saban said afterwards. “We have total confidence in him. We played him a lot in a lot of games this year, and he did very well. He certainly did a great job tonight.”

In the weeks that followed, Tagovailoa basked in the afterglow of his heroic performance. He had already taken the mantle as an Alabama legend in a town where football stars are celebrated. Still, competition awaited him, as he’d have to prove to Saban he was the best quarterback on the team. The momentum was in Tagovailoa’s favor as winter turned to spring. Yet just as Tagovailoa was set to establish himself as the clear frontrunner he was dealt another blow as he fractured the second metacarpal bone in his left hand during the team’s first offseason practice in March.

Tagovailoa quickly returned to the field and then suffered another fracture in the same area, forcing him to miss the A-Day spring game. Despite that, he soon resumed his intense training schedule that carried into the summer. Early-morning workouts with his father and brother were a common sight at the team’s facility as people around the program spied Tagovailoa — on an empty field — going through the steps of his patented spin move.

Away from the cameras and stadium lights, Tagovailoa sowed the seeds for a remarkable season. He was awarded the starting quarterback position two days before he led a 51-14 rout of Louisville in the opener. That kickstarted an amazing run that persisted for the next five games, when Tagovailoa’s number of incompletions — 25 — only exceeded his total of touchdown passes by seven.

It all looked so easy for Tagovailoa as he began to establish new school records and create a series of eye-popping highlights. A no-look strike to Jerry Jeudy while facing intense pressure from Louisville launched his Heisman campaign. It gained even more steam when the first pass he threw in a blowout of Arkansas resulted in a 76-yard score by Irv Smith Jr. But during that game, Tagovailoa sprained the posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and the residual pain from the injury carried on for many more weeks — knocking him out of a win over Missouri and forcing him to enter a sideline medical tent at one point during a shutout of LSU.

“I don’t feel it every play,” he said at the time.

Yet Tagovailoa started to suffer from the cumulative wear and tear. A quadriceps injury against Mississippi State knocked him out of that victory.

Then came last Saturday, when Tagovailoa attempted to apply the exclamation point to the spectacular narrative he wrote this year. Riding the high of a six-touchdown performance against Auburn in the Iron Bowl, Tagovailoa entered the SEC championship game on the fast track toward the Heisman. But on Alabama’s fourth offensive snap, he was sacked and his lower left leg bent awkwardly. Doctors determined he suffered a high-ankle sprain. If he were to continue playing, he would simply have to manage the anguish. Tagovailoa resolved that he would stay in the game.

In his heart, Galu knew something was wrong. He noticed Tagovailoa unable to step into his throws, that his timing was off as a result. And as the afternoon progressed, Tagovailoa’s stat line began to look as beat-up as his body. After throwing for only 164 yards and tossing a pair of interceptions, Tagovailoa’s day ended when he was hurt again — this time when teammate Jonah Williams accidentally stepped on his other ankle early in the fourth quarter.

‘Is the (medical) tent up? Is the tent down?’” Tagovailoa’s mother, Diane, anxiously asked her husband in the immediate moments afterward.

From that point forward, Tagovailoa slipped into the background until he disappeared altogether as his teammates whooped and hollered in the postgame celebration following the comeback led by Hurts.

With his locker unoccupied, running back Damien Harris stepped into the crush of journalists, sat down and pretended to be Tagovailoa’s surrogate.

Playing along, one reporter asked what he was going to do once he was honored as college football’s best player — as if it was a foregone conclusion.

Harris broke character, turned serious and responded, “Tua Tagovailoa deserves the Heisman.”

But even after leading Alabama to a 13-0 record during a trying year that proved much tougher than it seemed, it’s uncertain whether Tagovailoa will hoist the trophy following a Saturday that presented his biggest obstacle yet.

Rainer Sabin is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin.

Matt Zenitz is an Alabama and Auburn reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mzenitz.