Reese’s Senior Bowl executive director Phil Savage will be in the radio booth for Alabama’s season opener against USC on Sept. 3 as the Crimson Tide Sports Network’s color analyst. But before kickoff in Arlington, Texas, Savage spent the afternoon in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday, watching the Crimson Tide’s 21st practice of fall camp and the quarterbacks.

In an appearance on Inside the Tide on WNSP’s 105.5 FM, Savage shared his thoughts on which quarterback -- or quarterbacks -- will see the field inside AT&T Stadium when Alabama faces USC in nine days’ time.

“Based on what I saw (yesterday),” Savage said on Inside the Tide, “I get the sense that we’ll see Cooper Bateman and Jalen Hurts in the first couple of games, with Nick Saban and the staff trying to figure out who really gives them the best opportunity long-term by the third game of the year, which is against Ole Miss over in Oxford.”

The buzz around the Tide’s fall camp has been Hurts, the true freshman, and Savage, a former general manager for the Cleveland Browns, made sure to watch the young Alabama signal caller in Wednesday’s indoor practice.

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Watching Hurts and the group of Tide quarterbacks, Savage has a feeling of which one of them will start the first game.

“He’s got really good size. He’s got a very sturdy build,” Savage said of Hurts. “They say he’s at that 225-230-pound range. He’s got some ruggedness to him in the pocket or if he were utilized as a runner. He’s got some snap in his arm, he’s got explosiveness in his legs. Someone said to me (yesterday), ‘This is a dual-threat quarterback that can really throw.’

“I think they’ve been encouraged by what they’ve seen out of Jalen thus far, going back to the spring and now through the summer. I’m just not sure that they’re ready to just give over the entire offense to him, I’m not sure that they really believe that he’s ready to do that just yet. Maybe that will come over the course of the time, maybe it’s a game, maybe it’s two games, maybe it’s mid-year, maybe it’s not until next season.

“But I just get the sense that based upon the spring and just seeing (yesterday), I think Cooper Bateman’s probably gonna get the chance to go out there first and then we’ll go from there,” Savage said. “But I do forecast seeing Bateman and Hurts in this first game against USC.”

In past quarterback battles at Alabama, the competition has lingered into the season with two players seeing reps with the first-team offense in the first couple of games. That could very well be the case for the 2016 squad, too.

But Savage made a point that has been brought up several times this offseason when it comes to Alabama and its quarterbacks.

“In my estimation, I’m not sure that it really matters because 'Bama has been able to win national championships with quarterbacks that played at or above an average to better-than-average level,” Savage said. “They don’t necessarily need a star quarterback, but that’s what has gotten all the attention.”