Jalen Hurts is no stranger to big games. The third-year NFL quarterback has taken the field under the brightest lights at all three levels – high school, college and now as the star of the Philadelphia Eagles heading into a showdown with the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game.
It all began at
Channelview (Texas), where Hurts was a quarterback under his father, head coach Averion Hurts. The Falcons went 8-43 in the five seasons before Hurts took over as the starter but he helped the struggling program to four wins in his first year as a sophomore. He threw for 14 touchdowns against just two interceptions, catching the attention Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas.
As a junior, Hurts led the Falcons to their first winning season in more than a decade. He threw for 2,545 yards and 21 touchdowns while rushing for 951 yards and 19 scores. 247Sports regarded him as the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in the country and he committed to Alabama prior to his final year of high school.
Hurts topped his numbers again as a senior and led Channelview to the state playoffs, where it fell to Manvel and quarterback D'Eriq King.
At Alabama, Hurts was named SEC Offensive Player of the Year as a true freshman and won a national championship as a sophomore. After coming out on the losing end of a quarterback battle in Tuscaloosa with Tua Tagovailoa, he transferred to Oklahoma.
As a senior in 2019, Hurts led the Sooners to the College Football Playoff semifinals, where they fell to the LSU Tigers and quarterback
Joe Burrow. A rematch in Super Bowl LVII between the two signal callers could be in the works if both can take of business over the weekend.
Jalen Hurts had 9,101 yards and 112 touchdowns as a dual-threat quarterback at Channelview High School in Texas. (Photo: John Godwin)
