If I told you before this game that Jalen Hurts would be coming in in the fourth quarter of the SEC Championship Game, what would you think?

We’ve seen him nearly exclusively in mop up duty this season, when Bama was finishing up tearing opponents limb from limb. Maybe you’d assume there was some sort of gadget play that needed his services.

But there’s no freakin’ way would you think that Hurts came back in this to lead a comeback.

Not in the same building in which he’d lost his starting job 11 months earlier, against the same team, and in a similar game situation.

That’s just some shit that they don’t write movies about because it’s too outlandish.

Counterpoint:

For the second time this calendar year, when you looked up in the first half, Georgia was flat out whipping Alabama. They weren’t just edging Bama or taking advantage of breaks. The Dawgs took a two-possession lead twice with clearly better play.

For the second year in a row, Bama found a way to make none of it matter, largely thanks to the backup QB.

In the national title game, Bama had Tagovailoa as a backup plan.

You remember what happened, don’t you? At halftime, out went longtime starter Jalen Hurts and in went the five-star freshman. Tagovailoa then did this to the Dawgs, completing the comeback.

All offseason, QB controversy reigned in Tuscaloosa. There were spicy quotes from Hurts’ father, and a media day controversy in which it appeared Hurts took shots at Bama’s coaching staff.

But in this game, Plan A and Plan B ended up flip-flopping.

Georgia was playing excellent defense most of the game. They forced season-long Heisman favorite Tagovailoa to take only what they gave him, and he struggled. Key drops by Tide receivers didn’t help things either, but UGA’s 14-point leads were built by imposing will on Alabama.

Tagovailoa was definitely not healthy in this game. He’s had a lingering knee injury for a few games, but an ankle injury suffered in the first quarter also hampered him throughout this one. Alabama was clawing its way back, using key third down stops to stay in the game. Tagovailoa then hurt his other ankle when one of his blockers stepped on it.

That brought Tagovailoa’s injury count (conservatively) to both ankles and a knee.

And improbably, in came backup Hurts to save the day.

And that is exactly what he did. Hurts was 7-9 for 82 yards through the air, and as usual, effective on the ground with five carries for 28 yards, none more important than the 15-yarder to go down in Crimson Tide history.

But it’s important to understand that Hurts also probably wasn’t 100 percent.

Saban said they didn’t know Hurts had injured his ankle until after the game. He hurt it when he scored on a 21-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter but went back into the game. ”He’ll probably be ready to start working again next week, but it will be a medical decision as to how fast he can come back,” Saban told reporters. “We’ve had other players to have similar situations and recover fairly quickly.”

Ironically, Hurts was only in a position to get injured in the first place because Tagovailoa’s brilliance made that game a laugher.

I’d say Hurts made a pretty good recovery.

This year’s starter has famously not played in many late-game situations because of Bama’s ability. In the game that’ll probably go down as Hurts’ most memorable moment, his injury opened the door for a storybook ending even more astounding than the first.