Former Super Bowl-winning quarterback and current Elite 11 head coach Trent Dilfer has been a fan of Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa since he worked with him at the nation's premier quarterback competition in the summer of 2016. And Dilfer doubled down on the high praise he’s had for the now-sophomore signal caller in an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show.

“I think Tua’s a generational talent,” Dilfer said earlier this week. “I mean, I’ve said this over and over and over. I said it a year and a half ago before he got to Alabama. I think that he’s a kid that can go through his college career and never lose a game, considering where he’s at.

“I mean, he’s that good. The best I’ve ever seen.”

Eisen interrupted his guest to make sure he heard him correctly. The best Dilfer’s ever seen?

“I think of the 32 NFL starters right now, I want to say ... 20 of them have gone through our Elite 11. I know the other ones well. He’s the greatest high school talent I’ve ever seen, and it’s not close,” Dilfer continued. “But it’s not just how he throws the ball and his movement skills. It’s his maturity, it’s his focus, it’s his football IQ, it’s his leadership. It’s everything. He’s the complete package.

“And you’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. He can do things with a football that I’ve only seen a couple other people be able to do. And he can think quickly, and nothing bothers him, and he’s a great leader. Like I said, he just checks every box.”

In three games, Tagovailoa has thrown for 646 yards, eight touchdowns and no interceptions on 36-of-50 passing (72.0 percent). His 233.33 passer rating is ranked second nationally, trailing only Boston College’s Anthony Brown. He has also rushed for 93 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries while guiding the top-ranked Crimson Tide to a 3-0 (1-0 SEC) record as a starter.

Tagovailoa has directed 20 drives thus far as Alabama’s starting quarterback, with 14 resulting in touchdowns and one culminating in a field goal. In those drives, the Crimson Tide’s offense has been 15-for-19 on third down conversions, accounting for 1,024 yards on 108 snaps for an average of 9.5 yards per play and 99 of the 150 points scored by the Alabama offense.

Dating back to last year’s national championship game, Tagovailoa has directed 29 drives as Alabama’s quarterback, scoring 17 touchdowns while leading the offense on three drives that resulted in field goals. On those 29 drives, Alabama has snapped the ball 158 times, accumulated 1,331 yards of offense, scored 126 points and averaged 8.4 yards per play.

Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa looks to throw a pass against the Louisville Cardinals.

With Tagovailoa primarily at the helm, Alabama boasts the nation’s top scoring offense. The Tide is averaging 56.7 points per game and has outscored opponents 170-28 so far this season. The Tide also ranks No. 3 nationally in team pass efficiency with a rating of 206.28. UA is averaging 544.7 total offensive yards per game, 308.0 yards passing and 236.7 rushing yards per contest.

Like many other observers of college football, Eisen has been impressed by Tagovailoa’s start to the 2018 season. Later in his chat with Dilfer, he said, “And Tua just, he’s must-see television. I can’t take my eyes off him. And he won’t play four quarters. He doesn’t play four quarters because he’s run up the score by the second quarter half the time. He’s unbelievable.”

Dilfer concurred.

“I did a radio show in Alabama -- I don’t know -- a while back, way before Tua was playing, and I tried to explain what people were going to see. And I got laughed at and ridiculed because people thought I was talking hyperbole,” Dilfer said. “But it’s not just me.

“Talk to my other 12 Elite 11 coaches, guys that have played in the NFL for years, guys that have been around quarterbacks more than anybody else, the best coaches in the country coaching the position, and we all felt the same way. It was just a match. Because he was going there. You’re going to ‘Bama, you’re already playing with the best players. It just kind of all fit, that he was going to be able to do things that people had never seen Alabama’s offense do.

“And I love the announcers on Saturday night when they were talking about, ‘When was the last time you saw Alabama open up in an empty formation and throwing the ball around the yard?’ And they started their first two series of the game and they’re attacking vertically, they’re playing boundary to boundary, Tua’s reading the whole field. I mean, you don’t see a Nick Saban team doing that. But he’s been doing that since he stepped on campus.

“And I get people calling me, texting me from Alabama all the time, going, ‘Holy crap. What is going on? We’re at practice, and the ball never touches the ground. It’s not that it just doesn’t touch the ground, every ball finishes on a guy’s face mask.’ He’s just got an innate ability to throw the ball wherever he’s looking, exactly where he’s looking. It’s a pretty incredible thing.”

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

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