Tua got beaten by a surfer boy last night

It wasn’t his father who gave Tua the belt on Monday night – it was the Clemson defense.

Tua’s first interception – a pick-six – was awful enough, and his second quarter interception was even worse than that.

In the end, he finished 22-34 with 296 yards, 2 TDs and 2 INTs, and was pulled before the game ended. His replacement Jalen Hurts (0-2, 0 yards and -4 yards rushing) wasn’t good either, as he – like the man he replaced- struggled to deal with an on-fire Brent Venables defense, starring Christian Wilkins.

And like the horror show 4th-and-6 trick play, it didn’t come off.

This was supposed to be the crowning of Tua Tagovailoa. But it wasn’t. 

Tua had the beautiful throwing action and the support of 400 Hawaiians as well as Chris Fowler and a drooling Kirk Herbstreit, while they were playing a guy who looked something between ‘Sunshine’ from ‘Remember The Titans’ and one of them stoner types from ‘Dazed And Confused’, and threw like a giraffe throwing a javelin. Alabama was a 5-1/2 point favourite, and it seemed all the talking heads – apart from Lee Corso – were saying that this was generous.

In the end, the 44-16 could have been worse if Dabo had elected to do what he’d done all year long on teams and run the score up a little more. But still, 44-16 is in any books a beating of beatings. 

Next year, the ‘Cult of Tua’ will be a bit quieter as the Kool-Aid drinkers all jump to the ‘Cult of Trevor’. And that won’t be such a bad thing. For two out of the last three games, Tua has shown that he’s not Joe Montana. Yet.

The good thing for Tua is that the receiving talent is all coming back, and the running back talent will be as strong as usual. He’ll be fine.

And with less expectation, that’s no bad thing.