Tagovailoa was polished before he even got to Bama.

Let’s watch two plays that happened almost exactly 12 months apart.

The first:

And the second:

The first is from practices before the 2017 U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Hawaii quarterback recruit and five-star prospect Tua Tagovailoa was there, and he made more or less the exact same throw he made a year later. The second one was in overtime of the National Championship against Georgia and won the game.

The plays aren’t the exact same. Tagovailoa’s receivers are aligned different in each, and one’s just in practice. But there are two overarching similarities:

Tagovailoa uses his eyes to hold a safety in the middle of the field in cover-2, where the defenses has two safeties deep. He then uncorks a flawless deep ball to the left sideline — an easy, natural angle for a left-handed QB — and drops in a touchdown.

The plays have a similar feel, albeit on different stages.

Tagovailoa was technically sound even before he got to Alabama and spent a year in Nick Saban’s program. He’s one of the calmest big-time recruits to come around in years, and he credits a shared faith as the reason he decided to play Alabama.