Tightrope.

The word has been flashing in my memory this week as Alabama waits, prays and hopes that quarterback Bryce Young is healthy enough to play against Tennessee. Young injured the shoulder area of his throwing arm two weeks ago on Saturday. Sprained AC joint, they say. He missed last week’s game against Texas A&M, and Alabama almost lost, and so everyone wants Young back on the field for the Volunteers.

It’s a big one in Knoxville, this Third Saturday in October. Undefeated Alabama is ranked No. 3 in the nation and perfect Tennessee is at No. 6 in the AP Poll. There is a rekindled spirit in the autumn air for a great rivalry game.

The appetite for competition is irresistible. These are the games where glory is won, and these are the days for history to be written, and rewritten, in the Deep South.

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Are the good times back on Rocky Top? It has been a long time. So much mustard has been thrown in anger. So many coaches of pumpkin orange and white have been spit out by Tennessee since Nick Saban began coaching at Alabama. Maybe this is the year the Volunteers once again find relevance.

We know Alabama’s defense is excellent this season, and we know Tennessee is wearing special orange helmets for the game, but the big question this week has been the health of Young’s injured shoulder.

It’s just an AC joint. What’s the big deal?

Hmm.

Playing, of course, is an easy decision for people who want to see Alabama’s best against Tennessee. It’s not their multi-million dollar arms playing a game for free.

It’s not their future health at risk in a game of savage violence.

Like everyone, I want Young to play. More than that, though, I want him 100 percent before he steps foot on the field for another game. The injuries are not the same, but this whole scenario makes me think about something I’d soon like to forget, but never will. Young’s injury is forcing me to remember 2019.

It’s making me remember Tua.

It’s making me remember the tightrope.

Former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa injured his right ankle against Tennessee in 2019. It was a high-ankle sprain. To get him back on the field as fast as possible, Tagovailoa opted for a procedure that orthopedic surgeons call tightrope surgery.

Just tightrope it, and everything will be fine. It wasn’t.

Post surgery, Tagovailoa played two weeks later against LSU. He rushed back to play in a big game of national significance. But Tagovailoa wasn’t himself. Anyone who watched that game — and everybody did — remembers that Tagovailoa’s performance was less than perfect. There were mistakes that compounded other mistakes. The following week, Alabama played Mississippi State on the road, and that is a game that no one will ever forget.

Attempting to scramble, with Alabama enjoying a comfortable lead near the end of the second quarter, Tagovailoa failed to outrun his pursuers. He was tackled from behind and suffered a catastrophic injury to his hip and a concussion to his brain.

Rushing Tagovailoa back to the field worried me then, and so now it’s only natural for a reasonable observer to once again question the need to play another injured Alabama quarterback if he is not fully healthy. In 2019, I suggested that Tagovailoa sit out the game against LSU, and was widely criticized for expressing caution. I’ll take the hits again from anyone who wants to deal them my way.

Maybe Mike Wilbon will once again mock me on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption.” Fine. Before the game against LSU, I suggested that Alabama didn’t need a victory that week to make the national championship game at the end of the season. One loss with a backup quarterback against a Top 10 team wasn’t going to keep Alabama out of the College Football Playoff then, and it’s not going to now.

Does Alabama need Young to take down Tennessee? Maybe, but playing backup Jalen Milroe is no guarantee that Alabama will lose. Far from it, and suggesting otherwise is just media hype to promote a game that hasn’t really mattered much in a long time. Milroe is a talented quarterback, and Alabama has defeated Tennessee every year since 2007.

Like everyone, I want Young to play. But I also don’t want to see another Alabama quarterback compound one injury for another ever again when such things maybe could have been avoided.

Thick is the urgency.

Thin is the tightrope.

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.