Having depth is so important on a football team. It helps pick up the slack for lacking positions and can save a season if the roster is hit with a multitude of injuries.
Nick Saban and Alabama are well aware that they must create more depth amongst the team especially with what transpired last season.
Not only did the Crimson Tide have to give extensive snaps to over five freshmen on the defensive side of the ball last season due to injury, but Alabama also distributes a large portion of its talent every season to the NFL draft. If a team doesn’t have players ready to step up when their name is called, a season or program can go up in flames quickly.
Saban has been well aware of this as the team is now three weeks out from its first game against Missouri, and the six-time national champion has made it a point to get as many players involved as he can.
“We’re trying to practice all guys all the time,” said Saban during his Tuesday press conference. “In other words, some days we coach the ones and the threes and the twos and the fours and we split the coaching staff so everyone’s getting reps. Some days we do the ones and the twos and the threes and the fours, but we’re coaching all players, and the staff is split so that we can try to develop more. Now some positions we have very good depth at, some positions we don’t.
“And I think that probably every team has probably (been) in that circumstance to some degree at some positions. And sometimes we have actually trained guys to play more than one position probably more so this year than we have in the past so that you have diversity when it comes to if you lose a few players maybe you have a better opportunity to get the best players on the field.”
During his answer, Saban also left a little tease that some players on the roster would have the chance to play both offense and defense.
“It could even come and I would not say this in terms of who it involves is, you know guys playing both sides of the ball,” said Saban. Now I think that’s hard to do in the offensive line, it’s probably a lot easier to do at skill positions. So those are some of the things we try to do, is create more knowledge and experience in players having more diversity in what they can play.”
Although he has not named any names, Alabama has brought in a number of recruits who have experience playing on both sides of the football. Freshmen Kristian Story and Drew Sanders were both recruited as athletes for the Crimson Tide in this past class.
But more recently Saban has had some linemen make the transition. A’Shawn Robinson saw snaps at tight end during his time at Alabama, along with defensive linemen Jesse Williams and Terence Cody lining up at full-back during goal-line situations. Last season linebacker Ale Kaho contributed as a full-back on offense
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
