Is Jalen Hurts the Second at this year’s Reese’s Senior Bowl?

Although he had finished as the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma in 2019, Hurts came to the 2020 Senior Bowl with a third-day draft grade. The Practice Player of the Week among the South’s quarterbacks during his time in Mobile, Hurts ended up going to the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

In his third NFL season, Hurts is a finalist for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award and will be under center when the Eagles play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII on Feb. 12.

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None of the quarterbacks drawing 2023 first-round buzz from the draft pundits will play in the Senior Bowl on Saturday. Some weren’t eligible to be invited. And the national-championship quarterback, Georgia’s Stetson Bennett, declined to play, even though he’s not widely considered a candidate for the first three rounds of the draft.

The Senior Bowl assembled a quarterback set of Shepherd’s Tyson Bagent, TCU’s Max Duggan and Houston’s Clayton Tune for the American team and Louisville’s Malik Cunningham, Fresno State’s Jake Haener and BYU’s Jaren Hall for the National team.

“We’re not going to have a first-round quarterback,” said Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl’s executive director, in assessing this year’s QB group. “I think it might be seven years straight with a first-round quarterback. But we’re really excited about this year’s quarterback class. Based on our Senior Bowl grades and when we do our grade-sharing calls around the league in November, this class is all in that fourth-, fifth-round group, which is where Jalen Hurts was just three short years ago, and now pretty awesome to see Jalen in the Super Bowl. And Jalen jumped to the second that year, so I think there’s going to be a guy or two that gets into Day 2. …

“I think a couple of these guys will ascend, and that’s going to be fun watching which guys do.”

Tune said he wasn’t aware of his draft projections.

“Don’t really worry about it,” Tune said. “Worry about what I can do and how I can put my best foot forward. This is a job interview, so I’m trying to make the best impression on teams that I can and preparing like I’m playing a game. Learning the offense, executing at practice and then doing the interviews well, so I’m focused on what I can control.”

A former Alabama prep star at Park Crossing, Cunningham said he thought all the quarterbacks had been working to prove something this week.

“You’ve just got to put your head down and work,” Cunningham said. “I don’t really worry about all the stocks and things like that because at the end of the day you’ve still got to, from the first pick to the last pick, go in and prove yourself and show that you belong.

“I feel like all the guys understand that, and we’ve all got a chip on our shoulder. It don’t matter where you get picked. It’s how you sustain and how you develop as a player.”

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The 2022 stats for the Senior Bowl quarterbacks include:

· Bagent completed 400-of-572 passes for 4,580 yards with 41 touchdowns and eight interceptions and ran for 71 yards and five touchdowns on 79 carries.

· Cunningham completed 136-of-218 passes for 1,518 yards with eight touchdowns and five interceptions and ran for 560 yards and 12 touchdowns on 113 carries.

· Duggan completed 267-of-419 passes for 3,698 yards with 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions and ran for 423 yards and nine touchdowns on 137 carries.

· Haener completed 252-of-350 passes for 2,896 yards with 20 touchdowns and three interceptions and had minus-123 yards and two touchdowns on 46 carries.

· Hall completed 248-of-376 passes for 3,171 yards with 31 touchdowns and six interceptions and ran for 350 yards and three touchdowns on 86 carries. He also caught two passes for 28 yards and one touchdown.

· Tune completed 334-of-496 passes for 4,074 yards with 40 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and ran for 544 yards and five touchdowns on 128 carries.

Duggan said the quarterbacks had had to make adjustments during the Senior Bowl practices.

“I think just being able to show all-around football knowledge,” Duggan said about what he hoped to convey to NFL scouts this week. “Obviously, the Senior Bowl, NFL is a little bit different than college. You’re in the huddle, which a lot of (college) teams don’t really do. You’re going to have kind of some lengthy play calls, lead a group of men, things of that sort — kind of just run a whole operation, which is a little bit different than the college style of play, and I think I’m excited to be a part of that. Learn it, develop that and get into that.”

Of last year’s six Senior Bowl quarterbacks, only one got drafted before Pick No. 74 – Pitt’s Kenny Pickett, who went to the Pittsburgh Steelers at No. 20. But only Nevada’s Carson Strong did not start at least one NFL regular-season game as a rookie in 2022, with North Carolina’s Sam Howell, Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder, Liberty’s Malik Willis and Western Kentucky’s Bailey Zappe joining Pickett in debuting as pro signal-callers.

There has been a seventh quarterback at the Senior Bowl this week. Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker has been attached to the American team even though he can’t play in Saturday’s game. Hooker sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee while playing against South Carolina on Nov. 19.

Nagy said the Senior Bowl usually doesn’t allow players to participate in the all-star game’s off-the-field activities if they can’t take part in the on-the-field work. But he made an exception for Hooker.

“With interviews and meeting-room time being so critical for quarterbacks,” Nagy said, “and Hendon being the person he is and the season he had – he was the face of college football for a good chunk of the season. … He deserves this opportunity.”

When Hooker’s 2022 season ended, he had completed 229-of-329 passes for 3,135 yards with 27 touchdowns and two interceptions and run for 430 yards and five touchdowns on 104 carries in 11 games.

The 74th annual Reese’s Senior Bowl kicks off at 1:30 p.m. CST Saturday at Hancock Whitney Stadium in Mobile. NFL Network will televise the game. Tickets can be purchased online.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.