Alabama having ‘high-level’ practices ahead of Rose Bowl with healthy roster

Photo by Kent Gidley - Alabama Athletics

Alabama football will enter its matchup against Indiana in the Rose Bowl with a much healthier roster at its disposal.

Josh Cuevas (TE), LT Overton (DL), Kelby Collins (DL) and Kevin Riley (RB) all missed the SEC Championship game. Collins and Cuevas made a return to the field against Oklahoma in the first round of the College Football Playoff. Overton and Riley returned to practice this week, and both are expected to play in the Rose Bowl.

“So having these guys, first of all, back but having them back at the level of health that they are, it leads to, again, our own momentum internally, whether it’s this game, but more importantly even the practices and just the level of intensity that they’re bringing, how more fresh they feel,” DeBoer said. “You can feel it. And obviously some of it has to do with us being excited to play in the Rose Bowl, the second-round playoff for us. There’s an energy to that as well. So we’ve had some really productive practices, high-level practices, that energy everyone has that, I think that you feel, the excitement that we have, is real.”

Alabama last played almost two weeks ago on Dec. 19. This has allowed other players to get some rest, and Kalen DeBoer has noticed a difference in practice with a much healthier squad as of late.

“I would definitely say you could see it on the practice field,” DeBoer said. “When you’re getting an opportunity to get back to working with those guys that you’ve grown to — if it’s Ty, just how he feels and stuff, a few more days makes a big difference. We’ve had 12 or 13 days since the last game. We had the same thing before the SEC Championship. Those bye weeks that we had early in the year, the week one bye week or the first bye week and the second bye week, we played better, for the most part, coming off of those.”

Alabama will look to take advantage of having a healthier team against the Hoosiers on New Year’s Day.