Jalen Hurts is the highest-paid player in the NFL after signing a five-year extension with the Philadelphia Eagles. The best decision he ever made was leaving Alabama for Oklahoma.

Don’t get me wrong here. I still consider Hurts more of an Alabama guy than an Oklahoma guy, but would Hurts have developed into the quarterback he is today had he remained in Tuscaloosa? Not likely. He needed game reps in his final season of collegiate eligibility.

Bo Nix to Oregon? Now that’s a different story altogether.

Hurts’ new contract pays him $51 million per season. He led the Eagles to the Super Bowl. This week, one of the most respected franchises in pro sports let it be known that Hurts is now the franchise. He’s arguably the most recognizable former Alabama football player since Joe Namath, and yet Hurts had to leave Alabama because coach Nick Saban chose Tua Tagovailoa in the spring of 2018.

Sometimes you just gotta go.

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Did Saban make a mistake back in 2018 by picking Tagovailoa over Hurts? That question probably sounds like blasphemy to those who think Saban is infallible, but maybe Alabama takes down eventual national champ LSU that next season with Hurts at quarterback. After all, the quarterback who came closest to beating LSU and Joe Burrow in 2019 was Auburn’s Nix.

Quarterbacking is a combination of science and mysticism. Don’t ever believe anyone who says they have it all figured out. One thing about the position is true beyond a doubt, though. Quarterbacks gotta play the game to improve.

Spring football is coming to an end this week across the country. At Alabama, a quarterback competition between Jalen Milroe and Ty Simpson will likely carry over into fall camp. Eventually, though, one of those players is going to have to go. It’s the same story at the University of Georgia. Is it going to be Carson Beck or Brock Vandagriff who replaces Stetson Bennett III? The loser should probably leave and play somewhere else. Does it matter where? Not according to former NFL great Cam Newton, and he would know.

Newton was behind Tim Tebow at Florida. Only one could play. Oh, you think Newton left Florida because he was accused of stealing a laptop? Please. Urban Meyer kept Aaron Hernandez around at Florida for three years.

Newton transferred out and he later led Auburn to one of the greatest seasons in college football history. Auburn didn’t transform Newton into an all-world quarterback. Newton was always great. Florida chose Tebow. Auburn bagged Newton. College football is a business, and players sometimes have to do what’s best for them.

Knowing when to leave is the bigger question for many players buried on depth charts, and the answer is usually after securing a diploma.

In a recent conversation with high school prospects, Newton didn’t mince his words.

“If you’re good, it don’t matter where you go — they gonna find you,” Newton said. “I promise you. A lot of you want to go to the Alabamas, the North Carolinas, the North Carolina States. Y’all are going to be there four years and not have a meaningful game. ‘But I got a catch, though.’ It was Senior Day. It was a slant. Relax, bro.

“You better go somewhere where you gotta put yourself first because when you play for that G, when you play for that A, or you play for that T, when you play for that AU, bro, they’re putting themselves first. They’re bulletproof. Nothing will ever mess up their situation. … Those schools are bulletproof. They don’t need you.”

Nix was a freshman at Auburn in 2019 when Hurts played his one season at OU. Can you believe that was five years ago? I’ll never forget Hurts’ first game for the Sooners. It was against Houston. I covered Nix’s Top 10 victory against Oregon in Arlington, Texas, on a Saturday, and then drove to Norman, Okla., for OU’s game on Sunday. Hurts passed for three touchdowns and ran for three more.

Yeah, Hurts didn’t need Alabama after all.

Did Hurts benefit from his time at Alabama? Sure. Hurts absorbed the best parts of being coached by Saban, and then he studied under OU’s Lincoln Riley. But the thing that always pushed Hurts forward was that mysticism locked inside his own heart.

Was it important that Hurts transferred to Oklahoma to play under Riley? Was that the thing that finally unlocked Hurts’ potential? Well, that’s debatable. Saban says he pushed Hurts to OU because of Riley’s ability to coach quarterbacks. The implication there is that not only did Hurts need to leave Alabama, but he needed to transfer to the school with the right coach.

I don’t buy it. Here’s why.

At Alabama, Tagovailoa started 2019 with all the hype and the preseason No.1 ranking. Hurts was great at OU. In the end, though, it was another quarterback who was considered the best in the country, and that guy needed to leave his original school, too. It was Burrow, who transferred from Ohio State to LSU.

Like Newton at Florida, Burrow was better after leaving a team coached by Urban Meyer. Did the head coach really matter that much for Burrow when he turned in one of the greatest seasons of all time for a college quarterback?

I’ll let you decide. Because it was Ed Orgeron.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, hope and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.