Blake Barnett made the throw while rolling left.

That made it more impressive.

It was a perfectly-placed 40-yard or so strike from the right-handed Barnett that wide receiver Trevon Diggs caught in stride near the sideline in the end zone behind defensive back Tony Brown.

The top three throws made during Alabama's open practice on Saturday were made by a combination of Barnett and Jalen Hurts, two young quarterbacks who are both establishing themselves as legitimate contenders in the competition for the Tide's starting quarterback job.

The best quarterback during the open practice was probably Hurts, who had a long touchdown pass to wide receiver Calvin Ridley and another long scoring pass to a walk-on wide receiver shortly after Barnett's touchdown pass to Diggs. Barnett was probably second-best during the practice. The favorite to win the starting quarterback job entering fall camp, Cooper Bateman, struggled. The other scholarship quarterback, David Cornwell, was a limited participant because of a foot injury and was erratic when on the field.

"I think David Cornwell has been fighting a little bit of a foot injury, so he hasn't been able to do everything all summer long," coach Nick Saban said recently. "He's been kind of off and on. ... I think all three of the other guys have made significant progress throughout the summer. Somebody has got to win the job. Somebody has got to be the leader, the guy that can go out there and execute and win the confidence of his teammates and the players that he plays with on offense. I think we have three guys that are all capable of doing that. I would love it if one of them separate themselves sooner rather than later.

"But as I've said before, I don't think this is something that you can force to happen. Because if you try to do that, you put a guy in there, it doesn't work, you've got to make changes, so you create more controversy I think sometimes doing that than just kind of letting it happen."

A true freshman quarterback has never started at Alabama under Saban.

Hurts is legitimately in the mix to be the first.

He's been that good and that impressive since arriving at Alabama in January.

There were standout moments during the spring, like Hurts eluding star outside linebacker Tim Williams in the backfield during a scrimmage and completing a long pass down the field. The Texas native has continued to improve and has had more standout moments early in fall camp, like the two long touchdown passes Saturday.

"If you come in as a mid-year and you perform well at all, you're going to be pretty good because most of the guys will struggle a lot," offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said of Hurts, the third-ranked dual-threat quarterback in this year's recruiting class, according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. "Very, very special skill set. Very strong kid. One of our top lifters in strength, 40s, vertical. He's just continuing to learn a completely new system from what he was in high school. That transition for all players, especially quarterbacks, is difficult. But he's handled it really well, and we're really excited about what he's done and some of the plays that he makes that are not in rhythm plays because of his ability to make big plays."

Barnett was in a similar position as a freshman last year.

The 6-foot-5 former five-star recruit was in the mix to win Alabama's starting quarterback job last year until throwing three early interceptions during the Tide's second scrimmage of fall camp, including two that were returned for touchdowns.

He then struggled with turnovers and decision-making during the spring. Through Alabama's first two spring scrimmages, he threw six interceptions. But he closed the spring by playing probably the best of any of the quarterbacks during the Tide's spring game, and people inside the Alabama program feel like Barnett has made noticeable progress since the spring.

He has also gotten much bigger, which was needed. He is up from 198 pounds to around 215.

"When Blake first got here (last year), he was performing extremely well," Kiffin said. "And really, there were times where I think he was really in the battle last year to be the guy. And like normal when you're a freshman, kind of up and down through some practices and scrimmages. And then really, I think he would tell you too, he really did not have his best spring. He really had a great offseason. He had some health issues (last year) where he lost some weight. Gained weight back. He's bigger, stronger than he's been. And through a couple days, he's looked really good. Looks really strong. Very quick feet. Continuing to grow in the offense. We're very excited about where he's at."

Bateman is the oldest of the four quarterbacks and is thought of internally as a high character person, a tremendous athlete with great speed and someone who has continued to grow as a leader and a passer.

The redshirt junior also did the best job of any of the quarterbacks during the spring of limiting mistakes, not making poor decisions and executing the offense the way coaches wanted it executed.

But he doesn't have the arm talent of the other quarterbacks.

That was noticeable Saturday.

While he had a stretch where he made three or so nice passes in a row down the field, there were also throws down the field that were way off target and/or thrown into heavily congested areas.

That, combined with their improvement and respective skill sets, is why Barnett and Hurts are firmly in the mix to be Alabama's starting quarterback.

"I would hope that somebody can (win the job) in practice, especially when we have two scrimmages in the fall," Saban said. "That's an important piece of this. We do all the statistical analysis every day of each quarterback: how many passes they completed, what's their completion percentage, how many interceptions did they throw. We grade them on how they executed and did their job, trying to see, OK, who is playing with the most consistency here? But then you get out there in a scrimmage in a real live situation where a coach isn't standing right behind you and you have to go out there and compete and play on your own and be the leader and then kind of take the bull by the horns.

"And then you have to evaluate whether this guy is ready to take that step. Then you hope that he's ready to take that step, that he can do it in that circumstance, that he can take that step in the game when the live bullets are flying and you're playing in a big arena, which our first game certainly will be. So I'm hopeful that this happens in practice and we don't have to go into games trying to figure it out."