Jalen Hurts, passing game steal the show in Alabama's first scrimmage
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — If Saturday’s scrimmage was the first test for Alabama players, starting quarterback Jalen Hurts passed with flying colors.
Heading into the scrimmage, Alabama head coach Nick Saban provided a checklist of sorts on what he was looking to see from the rising sophomore.
"I think decision-making, getting the ball out of his hand more quickly, not looking at the rush, not drifting in the pocket, reading and having his eyes in the right place relative to the coverage and read that particular play has,” Saban said last week. “I think those are the things that are fundamentally what we're trying to get him to improve on, and I think he's doing a much better job in that regard.”
Video: Practice Highlights from Saturday
Saturday, Hurts seemed to check most of those boxes. Saban said the quarterback completed more than 50 percent of his passes with four touchdowns and no interceptions.
“I think he has a good understanding of what we’re doing and did a much better job in the pocket,” Saban said. “He did a really good job with the play-action passes.”
Heading into the scrimmage, Hurts said he felt the game was slowing down for him going into his second year. The starting quarterback also mentioned earlier this week that he has already gelled with newly hired offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.
* Things are slowing down for fast-learning Jalen Hurts at Alabama
While Hurts said the offense hasn’t changed radically under Daboll, Saturday was his first time working in Alabama’s new offense in a game-like setting.
"I thought the transition on offense was pretty smooth with the things we were doing, the carryover of things we've done from the past as well as the new things that we did,” Saban said. “I thought we were much more effective passing the football today. A lot of big plays, a lot of explosive plays throwing the ball, especially play-action passes. I think all the quarterbacks did a fairly good job and they all got a good opportunity.”
Alabama did not provide stats from the scrimmage. However, Saban did reveal the performances of three different Crimson Tide receivers. To no surprise, leading returning receiver Calvin Ridley continued to be a favorite target.
“Calvin Ridley had a big day. I think he has like eight catches or something,” Saban said. “Robert (Foster) had three catches. T.J. Simmons had seven catches. The backs had quite a few catches.
“I was pleased with the receivers. I think that's one of the areas of concern where we need to make considerable improvement when I talk about consistency in performance. But most certainly, Calvin Ridley had a big day and Robert Foster was good."
While Alabama’s passing game showed promise, Saban alluded to some needed improvement in the secondary.
After practicing with the cornerbacks this spring, Minkah Fitzpatrick moved back to safety for the scrimmage, while Anthony Averett and Trevon Diggs played at the two cornerback positions. When asked about Diggs moving into the cornerback role, Saban replied the sophomore was making progress and that “he’s much more natural playing at corner than when we tried to play him at safety.”
Along with making alterations, Alabama is also dealing with plenty of youth at the defensive back position. Outside of its first-team unit, Alabama’s secondary features primarily underclassmen. Saturday, that had a big role in some of the lapses in coverage.
“I think a lot of the young players made a lot of mental errors, but that's OK. I think that's why we put them out there,” Saban said. “They'll learn from the mistakes that they made and we're going to have an opportunity to get some of those guys better. It's pretty obvious to me that we don't have enough respect for the deep part of the field in the back end, especially past the first team because we gave up quite a few explosive plays with the second and third secondary when they were in there.”
Alabama will return to practice Monday and again Wednesday before holding its second scrimmage Friday.
“I thought there were a lot of good things out there today for the first scrimmage,” Saban said. “The number one goal for any team, any new team as you rebuild a team is for that team to take advantage of trying to create an identity for themselves and have a clear vision of who we want to be and how we want to play.”