Jalen Hurts put himself in stellar company with the numbers he put up as a freshman last year.

Comparing the numbers Hurts put up in 2016 to those put up by quarterbacks who threw at least 100 passes in a season since 2000 using Euclidean distance produces plenty of impressive names. Among the 25 most similar seasons to Hurts’ freshman year were the freshman seasons of J.T. Barrett (2014) and Marcus Mariota (2012), along with the final seasons of Tim Tebow (2009), Collin Klein (2012), Terrelle Pryor (2010) and Vince Young (2005).

In a way, Hurts played last year like a seasoned veteran. Of the 100 most similar seasons to Hurts’ freshman year since 2000, 64 came from upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) with only nine coming from freshmen. And the way those eight freshmen played as sophomores bodes well for Hurts in 2017 and doesn’t see him having much of a sophomore slump.

This group is made up of mostly those who, like Hurts, were major-conference dual-threat quarterbacks — Barrett, Mariota, Wyoming’s Brett Smith, Minnesota’s Adam Weber, South Florida’s Matt Grothe, Missouri’s Brad Smith, Central Michigan’s Dan LeFevour and Southern Mississippi’s Austin Davis. As sophomores, they didn’t rack up as many yards but were more efficient throwing and running the ball.

They went from an average of 3,457.2 total yards (2,770.2 passing, 687.0 rushing) to 3,101 (2,445.5 passing, 655.6 rushing) and from 30.6 total touchdowns (22.8 pass, 7.8 rush) to 28.0 total touchdowns (18.3 pass, 9.8 rush). But their collective completion percentage improved (from 61.1% to 62.9%), as did their yards per pass (from 7.2 to 7.3), TD-to-INT ratio (from 2.2 to 2.6) and yards per carry (from 4.5 to 4.9).

Freshman seasons most similar to Jalen Hurts' 2016 season (since 2000, min. 100 passes)

Name Team Season J.T. Barrett Ohio State 2014 Marcus Mariota Oregon 2012 Brett Smith Wyoming 2011 Adam Weber Minnesota 2007 Matt Grothe South Florida 2006 Brad Smith Missouri 2002 Dan LeFevour Central Michigan 2006 Austin Davis Southern Miss 2008

Hurts, the SEC Offensive Player of the Year last season, became just the second freshman since 2000 to have at least 2,000 passing yards, 20 passing touchdowns, 900 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns in the season. The other was Johnny Manziel, who did it in his Heisman-winning 2012 campaign. Hurts also had 55.92 pass EPA (Expected Points Added) last season, sixth-most among freshmen. Thanks in large part to Hurts, Bo Scarbrough and Damien Harris, Alabama will be one of two teams returning at least 50 pass EPA and 50 rush EPA this upcoming season, the other being South Florida.The only real “slumps” came from Barrett and Davis and they weren’t totally at fault for their dip in production. Barrett spent much of his sophomore season in 2015 battling for the starting quarterback job with Cardale Jones while Davis missed the last seven games of the 2009 season with a foot injury. Both came back extremely strong as juniors, with Barrett leading the Buckeyes back to the College Football Playoff last year and Davis totaling more than 3,500 total yards while scoring 30 total touchdowns in 2010.

But the Crimson Tide bring back just 84.67 receiving EPA, the 80th-most in the nation. Three of their four pass-catchers who had at least 10 receiving EPA last season are gone, with ArDarius Stewart (50.34 receiving EPA), O.J. Howard (23.31) and Gehrig Dieter (19.59) wrapping up their college careers in 2016. Hurts will still have Calvin Ridley at his disposal but his 44.77 receiving EPA is more than the rest of the returning receivers’ total last year combined (39.90). And that’s not to mention that when Alabama opens the season in Atlanta against Florida State in September, it will be doing so with its third offensive coordinator in its last three games.





Jalen Hurts projected 2017 stats (regular season only)

Pass yards Comp Pct Pass TD INT TD/INT Yards per pass Rush yards Rush TD Yards per carry Total yards Total TD 2,396.2 62.3% 19.4 6.3 3.1 7.7 641.1 9.7 4.9 3,037.3 29.1

As history has shown us, however, players who have the type of freshman season Hurts just had aren’t the kind who slump as sophomores. In fact, Hurts is projected to improve his numbers in many ways this year. He is projected to throw for 2,396.2 yards and 19.4 touchdowns this regular season, assuming he starts all 12 games, along with 641.1 rushing yards and 9.7 rushing touchdowns. On a per-game basis, that’s a bump from 185.3 passing yards per game to 199.7.

While his completion percentage (62.8% last year, projected to be 62.3% this year) and yards per carry (5.0 last year, projected to be 4.9 this year) aren’t expected to waver much from 2016, Hurts is projected to see a notable increase in his TD-to-INT ratio (from 2.6 to 3.1), yards per pass (from 7.3 to 7.7) and rush touchdown percentage (scored on 6.8% of carries last year, projected to be 7.4% this year).

In other words, Hurts might not see sizable increases in his raw yardage or touchdown totals this year. But, even as he adjusts to life under another new offensive coordinator without many of his top targets from last season, Hurts is projected to be even more efficient than he was in 2016.

Christian Corona is a contributing writer to 247Sports focusing on analytics-oriented college sports content. He is a data analytics consultant based in New York whose college football model went 54.1% picking every FBS game against the spread over the last two months of the 2015 regular season and better than 53.5% six of the last ten weeks of the 2016 season. You can reach him at @ChristianC0rona on Twitter.