Alabama’s starting cornerbacks from last season, Josh Jobe and Jalyn Armour-Davis have moved on to the NFL, and Nick Saban feels it will be a challenge to replace both of them this upcoming season.
The Crimson Tide will return two cornerbacks in Kool-Aid McKinstry and Khyree Jackson, who enjoyed significant playing time last season. McKinstry started the last four games of the season, and Jackson got his first start in the National Championship against Georgia. The Tide also added Eli Ricks, who transferred from LSU. Ricks played in 16 games for the Tigers.
Saban said he feels it is going to be a challenge to replace the two corners because of the restrictions the position can put on a defense.
“Defensively, I think we’ve got seven starters back,” Saban said. “Again, the biggest challenge is how do we replace the corners that we lost, because corner is probably the one position that puts the greatest restriction on what you can do on defense. That’s going to be a significant challenge for us, as well.”
Alabama gave up 218 passing yards per game last season and was ranked 50th in pass defense. Fortunately for the Tide, they will return several upperclassmen at the safety positions in Jordan Battle, DeMarcco Hellams, Brian Branch and Malachi Moore. Pete Golding and company will also have two dominant edge rushers at their disposal this upcoming season to ease some of the pressure on the secondary as a whole.
Battle said he is confident the veterans on the team will be a big help.
“The combination from the edge rushers to the secondary is amazing,” Battle said. “We love the fact that we have a lot of returning starters on the team, so the young guys can learn. There should be no problems on the field as far as knowing plays because of the returning starters we have coming back on defense.”
