Strange circumstances cloud results of Alabama's first scrimmage
On Saturday, Alabama coach Nick Saban and most of the Crimson Tide walked into Bryant-Denny Stadium for the first real scrimmage of the offseason.
“To go back in the stadium today was exciting because every step you take makes it feel like, yeah, we are going to play a game,” Saban said.
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While the surroundings were familiar, the specifics surrounding Saturday’s scrimmage were anything but. Multiple players were out for an undisclosed reason, including freshman quarterback Bryce Young.
Still, that wasn’t the only reason the scrimmage results will be a little harder to dissect than in years past.
“This is an abnormal sort of fall camp because it really isn’t fall camp,” Saban said. “We haven’t practiced every day. We’ve practiced pretty much every other day. I think we’ve had two occasions where we practiced back-to-back: the first two days we started and then yesterday and today.
“So it’s a little bit different to try to kinda judge where the team is because what you’re used to is you’re used to seeing sort of a different kind of grind, so to speak.”
Despite all of that, the Crimson Tide coach said that he’s not disappointed with the progress his players have made thus far, and the Alabama coach is pleased the team has been lucky with regards to injuries over the last two weeks.
Saban said he likes the new ideas that David Ballou and Matt Rhea have brought with them to Tuscaloosa, The Crimson Tide coach hopes to assess better where players are from a conditioning standpoint once the team begins practicing more frequently as it would do the week of a game.
Throughout his press conference, Saban kept repeating that this team would have to learn how to overcome mental obstacles that previous teams didn’t necessarily have to face.
“I’ve been pleased with the way our players have handled all these circumstances,” Saban said. “They’ve tried to do it together as a team. … New challenges are also new opportunities, whether they’re opportunities to learn, whether they’re opportunities to figure out the best way to keep moving people along in a positive direction, to keep their focus on things that are important, in terms of how they can make change, how they have to deal with the circumstances that they’re in, relative to COVID. There’s a lot of things happening right now.”
