Tua Tagovailoa suffered a serious looking injury on Saturday afternoon. Alabama’s dynamic signal caller tried to get away from some pressure during the first half of the Crimson Tide’s 38-7 win over Mississippi State, and while he was able to avoid a sack, Tagovailoa was taken down and laid on the ground in serious pain.
Reports indicated that his injury had nothing to do with his bad ankle. Instead, this was an issue with his hip, something that was reported during the game and eventually confirmed by Alabama coach Nick Saban in his postgame press conference.
Nick Saban says Tua has hip injury, which is unrelated to any other injury, that’s “a freak thing you don’t see very often.”
— Marty Smith (@MartySmithESPN) November 16, 2019
Tagovailoa was quickly taken from the stadium via helicopter to get the injury examined, but a report out of Tuscaloosa has indicated that we may not see him take the field with the Crimson Tide ever again. Aaron Suttles of The Athletic brings word that Tagovailoa’s hip injury is expected to end his season.
Breaking News: Tua Tagovailoa is out for the season with a dislocated hip with a posterior wall fracture, a person with knowledge of the situation tells me.
— Aaron Suttles (@AaronSuttles) November 16, 2019
If this does end up being the case, Alabama will turn to Mac Jones, who has mostly played this year in mop up duty when the Crimson Tide are blowing out opponents but did play in relief of Tagovailoa against Arkansas earlier this year. Jones, a former three-star recruit, will have perhaps the best collection of skill position players around him, and will get to use next week’s game against Western Carolina to get settled in before traveling to Auburn in the final week of the regular season.
But of course, all of that is secondary to Tagovailoa getting seriously injured. His collegiate career was winding down before his presumed jump to the NFL Draft, but now, that has been prematurely taken away from him, and we’ll have to wait and see when we’ll next get to see one of the best and most exciting football players in recent memory line up under center again. Here’s to hoping this isn’t a career-altering injury and he’ll be able to return to the gridiron as soon as he’s back to 100 percent.
