Small world: Brock Purdy, George Kittle, Jalen Hurts, Kliff Kingsbury, Tom Brady …

Two of the best teams in the NFL and two teams that could find themselves meeting in the NFC championship game are quarterbacked by Jalen Hurts and Brock Purdy.

Oklahoma’s Hurts was a second-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2020, the 53rd selection. It looks like quite a bargain. He has thrown for 22 touchdowns and rushed for 13 this season for the 13-2 Eagles.

Iowa State’s Purdy was a seventh-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers this year, the final pick of the entire draft. Many thought it would be a win for him if he simply made the Niners’ roster. He did. Then starter Trey Lance got injured. Then No. 2 QB Jimmy Garroppolo alo got injured.

Saturday, Purdy became the eighth player in NFL history to throw for multiple touchdowns in his first three starts. All of which are wins.

Hurts and Purdy met in Oklahoma three years ago. Hurts was a senior, Purdy a sophomore. Hurts threw for three touchdowns and ran for two as the Sooners built a 35-14 lead.

Oklahoma led 42-21 when the fourth quarter began. Then Purdy threw his third, fourth and fifth touchdown passes of the game. (He also had a TD run.) He was intercepted on a 2-point try with 24 seconds left, the No. 9 Sooners got a 42-41 win.

Now Hurts is 13-1 as an NFL starter this year and Purdy is 3-0.

“He’s definitely the most-poised rookie I’ve ever had,” San Francisco Coach Kyle Shanahan said about Purdy.

Sixth-year Niners tight end George Kittle of Iowa had four TD catches over the first 13 games this season. He has caught four from Purdy over the last two games.

Purdy was dismissed by some Iowa fans since he was 0-3 as a starter against the Hawkeyes. Scoreboard is scoreboard. But this was a terrific college player, and the Cyclones had winning Big 12 records in each of his four seasons.

I mean, hello! Purdy passed for 12,170 yards and 81 touchdowns, and rushed for 1,177 yards and 19 TDs. That’s 100 total touchdowns. He’s the best college quarterback in this state over the last quarter-century.

Speaking of quarterbacks, something occurred to me while watching an episode of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” the other day. The Arizona Cardinals, the team featured on the show, are coached by Kliff Kingsbury, who quarterbacked against Iowa in the Hawkeyes’ Alamo Bowl win in 2001. Colt McCoy, who started three games at quarterback for Cardinals coach Kingsbury this season before suffering a concussion, played for Texas in its 26-24 come-from-behind win over Iowa in the 2006 Alamo Bowl.

By the way, Trace McSorley replaced McCoy. McSorley threw a last-second, 7-yard touchdown pass to give Penn State a 21-19 win at Iowa in 2017.

Tom Brady is older than Kingsbury and McCoy. He played against Iowa in 1998, a 12-9 Michigan win. On Christmas 2022, Brady went head-to-head against Kingsbury’s Cardinals and won in overtime, 19-16. That was the same score Kingsbury’s Texas Tech Red Raiders were on the short side of when they played Iowa in San Antonio 21 years ago.

Is there anything new under the sun?

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com