Alabama QB Jalen Hurts Is Bad For College Football, Just Ask Vols QB Jarrett Guarantano

Alabama’s Jalen Hurts had a tremendous season in 2016 as a true freshman, but is it a bad thing for college football?

I’m not even going to pretend like I’m not coming in hot with this take, but I truly believe that Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Hurts could be bad for college football.

Hurts, who isn’t even 19 yet (not until next August), is coming off a ridiculously amazing true freshman season.

The Texas native threw for 2,780 yards and 23 touchdowns, while rushing for 954 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Oh yeah, and he led Alabama to a 14-1 record, nearly winning the national championship.

Hurts’ 2016 season was incredibly special. We may never again see that kind of success in a true freshman quarterback.

So what’s wrong with a true freshman having that type of success?

Well, nothing — as long as we let Hurts be Hurts and not expect his success to be a predictor of success for the rest of college football.

But that’s not what is happening.

Everyone is now in search of the next Jalen Hurts.

As a result, Tennessee Vols quarterback Jarrett Guarantano is now a player that’s seeing his name kicked around as a dark horse Heisman candidate next season.

The kid hasn’t even played a down of football yet!!

In fact, Guarantano (a rising redshirt freshman) may not even win the starting quarterback job for Tennessee next season. He’s going to have plenty of competition in junior quarterback Quinten Dormady.

That’s an insane amount of pressure to put on a kid. I mean I get it, we’re all trying to be the ones to predict the breakout success for a young player before anyone else. But Hurts’ 2016 season was incredibly rare. Who knows when something like that will happen again.

Sure, Guarantano has the talent to be Tennessee’s starting quarterback. And I’m sure he’s capable of doing amazing things. For all we know he could end up being better than Hurts.

Then again, he could also end up barely seeing the field in 2017.

Imagine if Guarantano doesn’t win the starting quarterback job next season. That could be detrimental to his confidence — even though it shouldn’t be — simply because of the unreasonable expectations placed upon him.

And once that confidence is broken, there’s no guarantee it will come back. Just look at what happened to former Vols quarterback Nate Peterman when he was thrown into the fire against Florida as a redshirt freshman in 2013. He was never the same again at Tennessee. It wasn’t until he transferred to Pittsburgh, and received a fresh start, that Peterman finally found his groove.

Look, I think Guarantano has the potential to be a special player at Tennessee. And I think he’s capable of handling the pressure that comes along with potentially being the starting quarterback at UT.

But I still don’t believe it’s fair to place such high expectations on a kid that’s never taken a snap at the collegiate level.

Players like Jalen Hurts are making the expectations for other players rise to almost unattainable heights.

If Hurts hadn’t performed at such a high level in 2016, there’s no way anyone would be talking about Guarantano as a potential Heisman finalist.

There’s a good chance that Guarantano wins the Vols’ starting quarterback job. And there’s a good chance he has a solid, maybe even great, season.

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But there’s almost no chance that he’s a finalist for the Heisman Trophy next season.

And that’s completely okay. Because it doesn’t mean that he won’t be in the coming years.