Alabama football hosted its first scrimmage of the spring Thursday in Tuscaloosa.
The Crimson Tide will not have a scrimmage this spring fans will get to see as the University of Alabama confirmed A-Day will only be an ‘hour-and-a-half’ practice. DeBoer and his team wants to use this spring to get in as many control reps as possible. This goal was accomplished in the Tide’s first scrimmage.
“Got really good scrimmage in today,” DeBoer said. “15 with the threes. I’m gonna work backwards right. 50 with ones and twos. So, got 115 plays in altogether. Hit the numbers we wanted as far as the goal there. It was really good back and forth. Specialists got some times that they got in the opportunities to get their kicks in. Got both of them, especially (Conor) Talty getting in there, some field-goal opportunities. He made all his kicks, PATs, did a nice job, which is an important part of the game. You kind of talk about offense and defense a lot. You forget about that part. It’s critical, especially in the big moments. So, just a lot of give and take. Some guys up front did a nice job getting in the backfield at times. I thought we were consistent in the run game offensively, held out a few guys on injuries that have been from the beginning, just given more opportunity for some young guys to go out there and show us what they got. So, we’ll have a scrimmage next Friday again. We scrimmage multiple times whenever we put full pads on so it’s controlled. And we’ll do that a couple times next week with a big one on Friday and then we get into the final week leading up to A-Day. We’ll have a scrimmage there on Thursday actually, actually before the Saturday and just like to be controlled again. We’ve got some numbers number issues at a couple positions and so want to make sure we get the right guys reps to where the whole team can get value and you know, also not put a guy in a spot where he doesn’t know what he’s doing or can’t execute the level that we need to challenge maybe someone across from him and get a quality rep from even the other side of the ball. I liked what I saw. Thought there was a lot of improvement through this week and that’s what you got to have. Only two practices, but I thought it was two good ones.”
Alabama will conclude its spring practices on Saturday, April 12 with its annual A-Day. The practice is scheduled to start at 12 p.m. CT. It will not be broadcast live.
GET THE BEST ALABAMA FOOTBALL INSIDER INFORMATION, MESSAGE BOARD ACCESS, AND RECRUITING COVERAGE TODAY! SIGN UP HERE TO UNLOCK OUR SUBSCRIBER ONLY CONTENT!*
Justin Smith is the Director of Recruiting for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via @Jdsmith31Smith
