Daboll, fresh off 17 years in the NFL—including stints under Bill Belichick—arrived in Tuscaloosa determined to expand the playbook and, more importantly, Hurts’s mind.
“He brought a pro system into a college locker room,” recalled former Tide receiver Calvin Ridley. “It was about reads, protections, timing—all the things Jalen would later use on Sundays.”
Daboll’s approach was surgical. He built the offense around concepts Hurts had never run: layered route trees, pre-snap motion, sight adjustments. He wanted Hurts to see football, not just play it.
At first, it was overwhelming. Hurts had to recalibrate his habits—the quick tuck-and-run, the instinct to freelance. Daboll kept drilling the same mantra: trust the structure, then use your gifts.
Tough Lessons, Lasting Impressions
Their relationship wasn’t always easy. Daboll was blunt, demanding, and famously loud. Hurts was stoic, absorbing criticism with that now-familiar unblinking stare.
“Coach Daboll would light into him,” said former Alabama lineman Jonah Williams. “But Jalen never blinked. He’d nod, go back to work. I think Daboll respected that.”
That respect blossomed into mentorship. After practices, Daboll often kept Hurts behind to walk through reads on the whiteboard—sometimes until the janitorial crew flicked the hallway lights.
He’d quiz Hurts on coverage rotations, forcing him to anticipate instead of react. The lessons transcended diagrams.
“He taught me how to process,” Hurts later told ESPN. “Not just what the play is, but why it works. That’s when the game slowed down.”
In that single season together, Hurts’s completion percentage jumped from 62 to 66 percent. His turnovers dropped. But the biggest shift came in his mental approach—the NFL-style discipline Daboll demanded.
When the Spotlight Shifted
Then came the moment that tested everything they’d built.
January 2018. National Championship. Alabama trails Georgia at halftime. Daboll makes the hardest call of his coaching life: he benches Hurts for true freshman Tua Tagovailoa.
It’s a decision that could have shattered a young quarterback’s confidence. Instead, Hurts showed grace few could have mustered. He cheered. He encouraged. He hugged Tua after the comeback win.
What the world saw as humility was also the embodiment of something Daboll had instilled all season—control what you can control; lead, even when you’re not on the field.
“That’s the night the league learned who Jalen really was,” Daboll said years later. “Talent’s easy to find. Maturity like that? Rare.”
The two hugged in the locker room afterward. Daboll told him, “Your story’s not done. Use this.”
Hurts nodded quietly. He already knew.
From Tuscaloosa to Norman: Applying the Blueprint
When Hurts transferred to Oklahoma a year later, the fingerprints of Daboll’s tutelage were obvious.
Under Lincoln Riley, he blossomed into a Heisman finalist—but his foundation was forged in the pro concepts and mental toughness that Daboll demanded.
NFL scouts noticed. They saw not just an athlete but a technician—someone who could handle protection calls, read full-field progressions, and maintain composure under pressure.
The book on Hurts had flipped: once “too raw,” he was now “coachable and cerebral.”
That transformation didn’t happen overnight. It started in those long, late-night sessions with a coach who refused to let him settle for “good enough.”
Crossing Paths Again—This Time as Rivals
Fast-forward to the NFC East, 2025.
Brian Daboll is the head coach of the New York Giants, a division rival tasked with stopping Hurts twice a year. The irony isn’t lost on either man.
When reporters asked Hurts last season about facing his former mentor, he smiled slightly.
“Coach Daboll helped me grow into who I am,” Hurts said. “But between those lines, there’s no sentiment. He wants to win. So do I.”
Daboll echoed the respect.
“I’m proud of the kid,” he said. “He’s earned everything. But on game day? He’s the enemy.”
Their matchups carry subtext deeper than statistics—a teacher watching his student execute the very philosophies he once taught, now turned against him.
Shared DNA: The Mental Game
What unites them still is the mental discipline that defines both their brands of football.
Hurts’s poise in two-minute drills mirrors Daboll’s methodical offensive sequencing. His pocket composure under fire reflects the same coaching points Daboll drilled at Alabama: eyes up, feet calm, think fast, act slow.
Quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson, who’s worked closely with Hurts in Philadelphia, often references that lineage.
“When we talk about processing speed, Jalen’s already at a different level,” Johnson said. “That comes from his early exposure to pro systems. That comes from Daboll.”
Even in rivalry, there’s legacy. Every time Hurts slides protection or manipulates a safety with his eyes, he’s applying habits first etched into him by the man on the opposite sideline.
What Daboll Learned, Too
Mentorship is never one-sided. Daboll’s experience with Hurts altered his own coaching philosophy.
He realized not every quarterback thrives under relentless volume. Some, like Hurts, respond better to quiet conviction.
“Jalen taught me patience,” Daboll admitted during a Giants press conference last year. “Sometimes you push too hard, you forget these are people. He handled criticism better than anyone I’ve coached. That made me re-evaluate how I reach players.”
That evolution shaped the coach who later unlocked Josh Allen in Buffalo and then revived Daniel Jones’s career in New York. The bridge between those success stories traces straight back to his time with Hurts.
Inside the Numbers: Evidence of Impact
Analytically, the Daboll-Hurts connection is striking.
During that 2017 season, Alabama’s passing offense jumped from 214 yards per game to 244, while third-down efficiency climbed nearly ten points. More tellingly, Hurts’s time-to-throw dropped from 3.1 seconds to 2.7 — a hallmark of quicker reads and decisiveness.
Fast-forward to Hurts’s NFL peak: his 2022 MVP-caliber campaign featured a league-best turnover differential and one of the lowest negative-play rates among starters.
Those metrics—efficiency, control, ball security—mirror the traits Daboll hammered years earlier.
“People think growth is all about arm strength or schemes,” said NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah. “For Hurts, it’s mental architecture. Daboll helped build that blueprint.”
Personal Connection Beyond the Game
Their bond remains grounded in mutual respect. After Hurts led the Eagles to the Super Bowl, one of the first congratulatory texts that buzzed his phone came from an unfamiliar New York area code. It was Daboll.
“He just said, ‘Proud of you. Keep proving people wrong,’” Hurts revealed afterward. “That’s who he is.”
Daboll downplayed it when asked later.
“I just wanted him to know I was happy for him. It’s a hard league. You root for good people.”
Even amid the intensity of Giants-Eagles rivalry, that personal thread endures—proof that football relationships can transcend colors and contracts.
Rivalry Reframed: Teacher vs. Student
When Giants and Eagles collide, the chess match now carries narrative weight. Daboll crafts exotic blitz packages to corral Hurts’s mobility; Hurts counters with lightning-fast reads and calculated slides—the same situational mastery Daboll once preached.
Watching from the sideline, the veteran coach sometimes smirks—not out of pride, but recognition.
“He sees the game the right way,” Daboll admitted. “When you’ve taught someone to see it like that, you tip your hat—even while you’re trying to beat him.”
For players on both teams, the matchup has taken on almost mythic resonance: mentor versus protégé, each sharpening the other by contrast.
Behind Hurts’s Composure: The Echo of Old Lessons
Hurts’s teammates describe his leadership as “unflappable.” When the Eagles trail late, he rarely raises his voice. Instead, he quotes something he learned back in Alabama: “Control the controllables.”
That phrase traces directly to Daboll.
He used it constantly in 2017, scribbling it on meeting-room whiteboards, repeating it after turnovers, drilling it until it became reflex.
