There have been plenty of folks in the State of Alabama try to say Lia is on par with Tua, but they went quite after Central phoenix destroyed him.
I've been reluctant to respond in this thread as a Thompson fan, but I'd like to
respectfully "pump the brakes" on the statement above.
The state championship game with Central-
Phenix City was on the heels of a wet, wild, rainy battle with Hoover, in which Lia was injured. Frankly, the whole team got beat up in that game, essentially a de facto state championship; there is a cost in beating a team like Hoover. It's a lot like what happens to teams after they play Bama.
Say what you will about whether he is/will be a generational QB for Bama, but he was for THS, and he had to have a go in the championship game, even with an injury. He was unable to finish the game. C-PC didn't "destroy" him. THS couldn't score, got behind, and had to eventually go with backup QB Sawyer Pate.
FYI, the Pate-led THS Warriors are now the #1 team in the state in 7A, after a game last week that saw Hoover's QB Robby Ashford, an Ole Miss commit, go down with injury in the 4th qtr of a tight game. We didn't "destroy" Hoover either. Losing an elite starting QB, even for the best HS teams like Thompson and Hoover, is too much to overcome.
Lia will be great at Bama, or wherever he plays (but like many, I believe for many reasons including family that he will stay here). Anyone using the state championship game last year as a reason to "go quiet" on his upside, or as a barometer of his ability, without accounting for what he did throughout his historic career at Thompson, is missing some data.