In political circles, consider the question to be more prevalent than if Tua Tagovailoa will win the Heisman Trophy.

Will Jeff Sessions run for the U.S. Senate in 2020?

The ink was not yet dry on his resignation letter as U.S. Attorney General to President Trump before that question bounced throughout the state from Ardmore to Andalusia.

“I think Jeff will run for his Senate seat in 2020,” said Jonathan Gray, a political strategist based in Sessions home of Mobile.

“If you put a gun to my head, I don’t think he’s going to return to Alabama and return to electoral politics,” said Jess Brown, a retired political scientist from Athens State University and close observer of state politics.

Steve Flowers, a political observer and former state legislator, tweeted on Wednesday that Sessions should run for the Senate.

“He would win easily,” Flowers said in the tweet.

Jeff Sessions should run for his old Senate seat in 2020. He’d win easily. #alpolitics — Steve Flowers (@SteveFlowersAL) November 7, 2018

So while Tagovailoa winning college football’s top individual award seem almost a foregone conclusion, speculation about Sessions veers from one extreme to the other.

“Several months ago, those rumors broke out (about Sessions leaving his AG post) and then after Labor Day, there was some polling that I heard of that was questioning Jeff Sessions’ favorability along with the president’s favorability in a possible election toss-up against Doug Jones,” Gray said.

That, of course, would seem to add some grease to the fire of Sessions seeking his old seat on Capitol Hill.

He served 20 years in the Senate, from 1997-2017, before resigning to become Trump’s attorney general.

His seat was filled by Democrat Doug Jones in the contentious special election last year – a seat won by 2 percentage points over Roy Moore after sexual misconduct allegations came to light 33 days before the election. Moore has repeatedly denied the allegations but still lost a seat he was heavily favored to win.

And in Republican-leaning Alabama, Jones is considered an underdog to win re-election or would appear, at best, a vulnerable incumbent.

But while Sessions was a popular senator win re-election in landslides, he became one of Trump’s favorite punching bags after the AG recused himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Sessions removed himself because he was a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail.

It was a decision for which Trump has repeatedly, and publicly, raged.

“He put him out in public stocks and just beat him up pretty bad verbally,” Brown said. “He made what I would say were very personal criticisms of Jeff Sessions and he didn’t deserve that.”

So is it possible that Sessions would be a toxic Senate candidate back in his home state because of Trump’s attacks? Or will the president and Sessions have a public reconciliation that might remove some of the bruising on Sessions’ name and make his re-election more viable?

“Did they make a deal?” Gray said. “I’ve been doing this for 22 years and I guarantee you, they made a deal. Somebody made a handshake, somebody’s getting along and I think you’re going to see Jeff Sessions back on the ballot against Doug Jones in 2020.”

Brown has other ideas.

“My guess is Jeff Sessions will probably stay in Washington,” he said. “He’s genuinely interested in the spectrum of issues the federalist society deals with. I can see him wanting to stay in the Washington arena, in social circles, but would do so through either a corporate connection or a non-profit connection.”

Sessions endeared himself to Trump in the Senate as an anti-immigration firebrand. And that could create some opportunities for the former senator, Brown said.

“If I was running one of these immigration groups, I’d want to hire him,” Brown said. “He was an extremely effective spokesman. I’m not talking about the merits of his arguments but making effective arguments that play well in the political arena. I might want Jeff Sessions as my spokesman if I was involved in the immigration debate.”