Alabama Football: 3 Reasons Tua Tagovailoa deserves the 2018 Heisman Trophy

2. Tua faced tougher competition than the other two finalists

Not to toot the SEC horn too much, but it’s undeniable by any metric that you look at the SEC was head-and-shoulders the best conference in college football in 2018.

That, of course, led to a higher level of competition faced by Tua week-in and week-out than Kyler Murray or Dwayne Haskins had to face.

According to S&P+, against FBS opponents Tua on average faced the No. 48 best team in the nation every Saturday. Murray faced No. 61, and Haskins faced No. 63.

In those same metrics, Tua faced off against six Top-25 teams in the S&P+ rankings: Texas A&M, Missouri, LSU, Mississippi State, Auburn, and Georgia.

Compare that with Murray’s one (West Virginia) and Haskins’ two (Penn State and Michigan).

If you want to limit the numbers to just the defenses faced by each, you will get largely the same story.

Per S&P+, Tua faced off against four Top-25 defenses, and six that rank in the Top 50. Murray faced off against only one Top-25 defense, and only two that rank in the Top 50. Haskins also faced four Top-25 defenses, and six that rank in the Top 50, the same as Tua.

The only defenses you can say that Murray faced that are good are TCU (23rd in defensive S&P+) and Iowa State (31st). Every other game Murray was able to feast on sub-50 defenses against weak opponents, padding his numbers along the way.

That’s not to mention that Murray and Haskins both lost games as starters, with Tua’s team sitting at a perfect 13-0.

Murray’s numbers are video game-esque, but what would Tua have been able to do against those defenses? We’ve already determined that with the same number of volume, Tua would be neck-and-neck in yards with Murray and would have exceeded him in touchdowns, so what if we flipped the level of competition that each faced?

Let Tua get the same amount of snaps as Murray against the same level of competition, and we wouldn’t even be having a debate.