You may have noticed a little something different on the University of Alabama football sideline this season. It's crimson and white and it's making evaluations and privacy much easier for head trainer Jeff Allen and for the players under his care.

It's the player privacy tent, which allows Allen and his fellow trainers to evaluate players in private without the distraction of a game, fans and other players disrupting the diagnosis.

Allen, who you see every week even if you don't know who he is, is the first one on the field when an Alabama player suffers an injury. He walks them back to the sideline and gives an initial diagnosis.

Now he's able to do so much more efficiently. Before he may have had to walk a player into the locker room to do what he's now able to do inside the tent.

With attention to player safety issues at an all-time high, Allen began brainstorming for a way to streamline the evaluation process. With approval from UA coach Nick Saban, Allen approached Charles Karr, the dean of engineering, in May about an idea he had kicked around and wanted to turn into reality.

Karr assigned the task to a group of mechanical engineering students as their senior project.

Jared Cassity, Christian Parris, Jared Porteous and Patrick Powell worked 25 to 30 hours a week for nearly two months and went through two prototypes to complete the project.

Now it's on the sidelines for every home and away game.

"I started thinking about what we could do at Alabama to increase what we do on the sideline, especially as it relates to our sideline evaluation of injuries," Allen said. "That first 10 minutes after an injury is really critical for us to get a good evaluation and a good diagnosis of what a player has and then determine how we're going to deal with it and develop a treatment plan.

"When you're doing an evaluation on the sideline there's a ton of distractions not to mention the privacy issues for the players. Imagine going to the doctor and sitting with 30 or 40 other people in the waiting room and having the doctor evaluate you. Well our guys are on the sideline with 105,000 people watching them not to mention millions on television."

Allen has used the patent-pending tent in every game this season except for Wisconsin. The tent, 7-feet tall, 16-feet wide, weighing nearly 70 pounds, is able to be raised and lowered in 10 seconds. With an aluminum frame, it's resistant to corrosion and the screen is UV and water resistant.

It got a test earlier this month in a driving rain storm in Athens, Ga., holding up quite nicely, Allen said.

After ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe featured the tent during the Arkansas game, several schools around the country called Allen to order one.

"The next step is to proceed in the manufacturing," Allen said, deferring to Karr on how to make that happen.

It's been received well by the players, too.

"That has been one of the most surprising things that I've seen with the players," Allen said. "The stress of an injury is compounded by everybody around them looking at them. Now we take them in there and it's much more private environment and they tend to relax a little bit more, and we're able to get a much better evaluation. Respecting their privacy is one of the best things about this."

Alabama's new sideline medical tent in action. For privacy of injured players: https://t.co/CS2d7MrhdB— Ben Jones (@BW_Jones) October 20, 2015