We can discuss the Hall of Fame-bound coaches, appreciate the suffocating defenses and marvel — or bemoan — the dominant consistency of the programs, but, inevitably, talk about the College Football Playoff national championship game comes right back to the quarterbacks.

Call it the Prodigy Bowl, a matchup for the modern era.

“I think it’s more than a quarterback duel Monday night, but that’s the main story line people grab onto,” Chris Fowler, who will call the game for ESPN, acknowledged in a conference call with reporters.

Small wonder. Between Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence you have two of the young, ascendant quarterbacks in the game on college football’s foremost stage battling not only to put their unbeaten teams in a position not seen in 120 years, but to achieve supremacy themselves.

So young, in fact, that the last time these two schools met to decide a national championship, Jan. 9, 2017, Lawrence was still a student at Cartersville (Ga.) High, and Tagovailoa would have still been at Saint Louis School had he not graduated early to get a jump start in Tuscaloosa.

Not since Penn (15-0) in 1897 and Yale (16-0) in 1894 — when there was no NCAA to slap a limit on the number of games that could be scheduled — has somebody along the lines of something akin to what we now recognize as a Football Bowl Championship team managed a 15-0 or better record.

The winner of Monday’s game will join them, and to the quarterback that helps deliver his team there will go the mantle of primacy at the position heading into the 2019 season.

Dusty history tells us little about the stars of that bygone era, but it is known the quarterbacks of the period didn’t throw the ball and were primarily blockers after handing off the ball.

These days the rules and their descendents have evolved, and the remarkable thing is the number that are now doing it at the championship level as freshmen. Not content to wait in line or merely manage a game, they are precocious in taking them over soon after they step on the field.

“I think the most exciting thing about college football is the emergence of these ‘prodigy’ quarterbacks — I think that’s the proper word,” Fowler told reporters. “I think these two are special because of the mind-set that (broadcast partner Kirk Herbstreit has) talked about: the poise, unflappability, as well as the obvious talent. It’s just a beautiful thing to watch Tua and Trevor throw the ball.”

Fowler said, “College football has become so much about the quarterbacks, there’s so many wannabes, young guys 8, 10, 12, 14 (years old), getting great coaching, developing their skills, being mentally ready when they hit college. It is astounding for me, (a guy) who has been around for a long time. You have to re-calibrate what the expectations are for freshmen because of guys like these two guys.”

Jalen Hurts had done that at Alabama in 2017 as a freshman before ceding the starting job to Tagovailoa, who came off the bench at halftime to rally the Crimson Tide past Georgia to the CFP championship last January.

Along comes Lawrence, a 6-foot, 6-inch, 215-pound true freshman some have called a once-in-a-generation player at the position who broke Deshaun Watson’s high school records in Georgia. Now he has the opportunity to make his bid for predominance.

“Sit back and enjoy (the) two prodigies in the ultimate pressure game and see how they play and see who emerges,” Fowler suggested. “It’s fun.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.