Alabama vs. Ole Miss is a battle from Hawaii

Saturday’s game between No. 1 Alabama and Ole Miss marks another edition of the series that’s had a lot of intrigue recently, thanks to the Rebels winning two out of the last four matchups.

But something especially unique about this year is the opposing quarterbacks in Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Ole Miss’ Jordan Ta’amu.

Uh, how in the word did Hawaii natives end up at SEC schools? Tagovailoa was a former five-star recruit. Although he was expected to sign with either Oregon or USC, when he toured Alabama, it felt right for him.

“First and foremost, it was their belief in God. Their belief in God was one of the biggest things that kind of struck me. That kind of lines up with everything in my life,” Tagovailoa told SB Nation when he committed to the Tide in 2016. “It’s not really structured, ‘There’s God, and there’s anything else.’ It’s more, ‘God’s so in the middle, and everything revolves around Him.’ That’s the kind of atmosphere I want to surround myself with.”

Although Tagovailoa sat behind then-starter Jalen Hurts last season, he played hero in the second half of the national title game to beat Georgia. Despite some uncertainty heading into the season, Tagovailoa looks like the clear-cut starter for the rest of the year.

After failing to get DI offers out of high school, he played JUCO ball in New Mexico. During his second season at New Mexico Military Institute, he received just two Power 5 offers, from Ole Miss and Minnesota. Similar to Tagovailoa, the visit to Oxford won him over. Red Cup Rebellion has more:

On a weekend that he was supposed to split visits between Oxford and Minneapolis, Ta’amu extended his Ole Miss visit and cancelled the trip to Minnesota. He had previous rapport with a coach on the Rebel staff and was immediately smitten when he stepped onto campus.

“Ole Miss stayed in contact with me throughout my season and offered me,” he said during media days. “I took a visit there and loved it. I hadn’t really heard of Ole Miss much, but I went there and it was amazing. Being with the coaches and the players, I just committed on the spot.”

Broadcasts this season will fill themselves with the “culture clash” steeped into the QB’s college football experience. Exotic Hawaii to straight-laced New Mexico Military to Ole Miss and north Mississippi. A disparate journey of college football, sure, but one Ta’amu has navigated in the composed, workmanlike fashion that defines his personality.

Ta’amu threw for 1,682 yards and 11 touchdowns for the Rebels as a sophomore last season, stepping into the starting role for an injured Shea Patterson in the back-end of the year.

Mariota’s from the same high school as Tagovailoa, in fact.

Included in this group of recent star QBs is also UCF quarterback McKenzie Milton, who hails from Mililani, Hawaii. Not to mention Tua’s little brother, 2019 quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, is currently committed to Alabama.

The islands are a six-hour flight from Los Angeles. They’re expensive and time-consuming to travel to, which means college coaches aren’t going unless they’ve got a really specific objective — seeing players they a) want, and b) feel confident they can sign. That’s different than mainland trips, where coaches often visit with players they’re not expecting to get.

Hawaii’s also well out of the way of the camp and combine circuit, to which so many players go to get noticed, at events put on by Nike, Under Armour, Rivals, or some other big organization. The result is that even players who are known to be good, like Tagovailoa, don’t get really hyped until they’ve shown out at a camp.

“I think it’s amazing to have Hawaiian quarterbacks come out here and showcase themselves and know that they can come out here and they can compete with the rest of those guys and compete with the country,” Ta’amu said via AL.com over the summer. “We are all doing our thing for our state.”

I’d say there’s a pretty good chance of seeing some more Hawaiian QBs playing at the college level in the future.