Jaeden Roberts finally making his mark at Alabama

There are two blue streaks permanently stained into the turf inside the TopSpeed Strength and Conditioning facility in Lenexa, Kansas. They come courtesy of a feat Jaeden Roberts pulled off back in 2019.

At the time, Roberts set the record for TopSpeed’s sled challenge, pushing a whopping 1,400 pounds.

He was just 16 years old.

After stacking a royal blue sled to the brim with weight plates, TopSpeed director of sports performance Joseph Potts needed Roberts’ brothers to hop on in order to reach the 1,400-pound threshold. That wasn’t a problem for the powerful lineman, who steadily drove it roughly 10 yards while permanently etching his mark into the turf.

“The sled weighed so much that it actually caused a wave in our turf,” Potts recalled. “It made it more difficult for him because it was compressing the turf so much that it was building up in front of him. He was putting so much force in the ground, the turf was kind of bunching up behind his feet as he took each step.”

Potts has a handful of stories like that concerning the current Alabama lineman. There’s the time when Roberts nearly punched a hole in a 450-pound tire with a sledgehammer, or the time he floor pressed multiple reps of 385 pounds. How about the time he cleared a 17-inch vertical while holding a pair of 30-pound dumbbells? Those all came before his junior year of high school.

Five years later, Roberts is turning heads at Alabama.

“I came in yesterday in the weight room, and he had plates on plates on plates on plates,” Alabama running back Roydell Williams said Tuesday. “I’m like, this guy really finna squat this? It was like, that was his first set, and I was like, hold on, you’ve got two more sets to go, man. That guy is like the Hulk. That boy strong. He’s physical. He comes ready to work.”

According to a source close to the program, Alabama Director of Sports Performance David Ballou has said multiple times that Roberts could be an Olympic powerlifter with a few months of training. That belief is shared by anyone who has seen him go to work in the weight room.

“I’ve never seen a weight that Jaeden Roberts couldn’t pick up,” Alabama center Seth McLaughlin said. “Whatever we put on the bar, it goes down and goes back up very, very fast. We might need to get a longer bar to put more weight on it to really show us how strong he is.”

Roberts has made similarly easy work of SEC defenders this season. According to Pro Football Focus, the starting right guard leads the team with a 77.2 run-blocking grade and ranks second with a 79.7 pass-blocking mark — just half a point behind projected first-round pick J.C. Latham.

Perhaps the craziest part to all this is how Alabama nearly let the 6-foot-5, 314-pound offensive stalwart slip through its hands.

Roberts has never been good at waiting. That’s been the case ever since birth when he came into the world two months earlier than expected weighing just 5 pounds.

Fortunately for him and his mother, he didn’t waste too much time at the hospital either, surprising doctors by progressing quickly enough to leave for home in a little over a week.

His arrival as a college lineman took a bit more patience.

Roberts joined Alabama as the lowest-ranked of the Crimson Tide’s five offensive line signees in the 2021 class. The former three-star recruit was originally committed to Auburn, where he planned to pursue a veterinarian degree. However, days after the Tigers fired Gus Malzhan in December of 2020, he flipped to Alabama and signed with the Tide.

From there came a frustrating wait behind a stacked offensive front.

Despite being listed as the second-string right guard on Alabama’s 2021 depth chart, Roberts didn’t see the field during his first season with the team. Things weren’t much better last year when he wasn’t included in the initial depth chart before logging just 18 snaps over three appearances.

That stirred up some skepticism from friends and family members, who urged the lineman to consider moving elsewhere. According to Roberts’ mother, Twanisha, there was a line of college coaches waiting to pounce on her son had he elected to enter the transfer portal.

Meanwhile, Alabama continued to tell Roberts that he was on the right track and that playing time would come shortly.

“It kind of felt like they were just pacifying him, and we were kind of getting upset about it,” Twanisha said. “It’s just like, he came to play. He wanted to play. Jaeden has never been a superstar type, but he likes to get out there with his teammates.”

Twanisha did her best not to push her son in either direction but admits there was a time when he seemed closer to a move.

Fortunately for Alabama, Roberts elected to remain rooted in the Tide’s process, instead coming to his mother with a promise.

“When it’s my turn, I’m going to make sure I make the best out of it,” he told her. “I’m gonna be ready when they call my name.”

The first thing Potts shares with his new clients is an exit route from his facility. The precaution has more to do with cleanliness than safety.

“We have to tell kids on their first day, if you’ve got to throw up, you’ve got to get your ass outside,” Potts said. “Rule No. 1 is you can’t puke inside. We don’t want to clean it, so here are the exits.”

Potts’ approach is built around generating explosive power. Instead of focusing on squats and power cleans, he measures progress by jumps and 10-yard bursts, calling for his athletes to apply their strength in the same instantaneous fashion required on the field.

His high-intensity workouts have been embraced by NFL and MLB stars such as Tyreek Hill and Eric Hosmer. However, they aren’t for the faint of heart.

“We’ll get kids whose parents want it for them more than they do. Typically in our program, those kids don’t last,” Potts said. “The stuff we do isn’t easy, and you are going to get your ass kicked. It’s not for everyone.”

Potts doesn’t remember if Roberts kept everything down on his first day, but he does recall the massive lineman laying on the ground huffing for air between exercises. Still, Roberts kept on coming back for more.

Along with braving through grueling workouts, the offensive lineman made extra visits to the gym, teaming up with yoga instructor Lori Archer to improve his mobility and joint movement. Over a roughly two-year period, Roberts shed 20 pounds of fat, improved his vertical nine inches and increased his liveliness at the line of scrimmage dramatically.

“There’s been about a handful of kids that I could tell you the day I met them, they were NFL-caliber prospects,” Potts said. “He’s probably the one that was easiest to predict. Then, with his work ethic and the way he’s improved himself, it’s no surprise to see him doing what he’s doing at Alabama.”

After moving to Houston in 2019, Roberts played his final two seasons of high school at North Shore. The 6A powerhouse is roughly an hour and a half drive from College Station. However, when Alabama made the trip down to Texas A&M in Week on Oct. 7, the offensive lineman wasn’t met with a big cheering section.

Most of the Roberts clan was tied up with previous engagements that week, as Twanisha and her friend were the only two able to attend the game in person. Boy, the rest of the family missed out

Roberts was originally set to continue his reserve role against the Aggies. That changed moments before kickoff as starting right guard Darrian Dalcourt was scratched due to a lingering shoulder injury. From there, No. 77 trotted out with the rest of the first-teamers for his first college start.

“I looked up, and I saw him out there,” Twanisha said. “I was like, ‘Uhhh, is that Jaeden?’ My friend was like, ‘Yeah, that’s Jaeden!’ We just started screaming.”

Holding true to the promise he made his mother, Roberts came up big when his name was called. Despite allowing a sack against the Aggies, he gave up just one pressure on the afternoon, paving the way for Jalen Milroe’s season-high passing performance in a 26-20 Alabama win.

"He balled out, and it just came from trust and just knowing and believing in him,” Milroe said of Roberts after the game. “He's just a great competitor, great heart, and, if you know him you just know how hard he works.”

Roberts hasn’t let up since, maintaining his starting role at right guard in Alabama’s last five games. Over that span, he’s given up just three pressures across 157 pass-blocking snaps while also clearing the way for three games of 150 or more rushing yards.

"I've seen a lot of confidence building from him, a lot of great things that he's been doing, ” Latham said last month. “He knows his plays. He knows what he's supposed to do and he's going out there and being physical.”

Expect more of that from Roberts moving forward. And don’t be surprised when he leaves his mark at Alabama as well.