Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will miss the remainder of this season after suffering a dislocated right hip with a posterior wall fracture Saturday in the 38-7 win over Mississippi State, sources confirmed to ESPN.
Medical officials are continuing to evaluate his injury, sources said. The Athletic first reported the extent of the injury.
Tagovailoa was injured with three minutes remaining before halftime when he was brought down by two Bulldogs defenders while rolling to his left on a third-down play. He suffered a bloody nose and couldn’t put pressure on his right leg when he was helped up by trainers. He was carted off from the field and eventually airlifted back to Birmingham for CAT scans and MRIs.
Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said after the game that he didn’t think the injury was related to the ankle injury that made Tagovailoa a game-time decision for Saturday’s game. “It’s kind of a freak thing that you seldom see,” he said.
“He was good, at least as good as he was a week ago in terms of his ability to move,” Saban added. “I don’t think anything he did affected his performance in the first half. So the guy played, and I thought he played really well. And we hate it that he got injured. We hate it for him. We hate it for his family. I hate it when any player on our team gets injured. So Godspeed to him and his entire family, and our thoughts and prayers are with them and hope this is not so serious it has any long-term effect on his future as a player.”
Saban told ESPN’s Molly McGrath that it was going to be Tagovailoa’s final drive of the game. Saban said Tagovailoa was still in the game to practice a two-minute drill.
“That was going to be his last series,” Saban said. “We were going to do two-minute before the half was over just for practice. First, we’ve got to block them better so he doesn’t get sacked. It’s too bad.”
McGrath reported that Tagovailoa was screaming in pain as trainers helped lift him off the cart.
The Tide were leading 35-7 at the time of the injury. Tagovailoa was 14-for-18 for 256 yards with two touchdowns.
Saban said the coaching staff considered putting backup quarterback Mac Jones into the game for Tagovailoa before the final series.
“We can second-guess ourselves all we want,” Saban said. “We told Mac to warm up. We were going to go 2-minute before the half, and Tua wanted to go in the game. So I don’t really make a lot of decisions about guys getting hurt. … We had total confidence in Mac, and Mac did a good job when he went in.”
