Alabama held its second of three spring scrimmages Saturday as players worked inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. The workout served as the 12th of 15 total spring practices of camp, which will wrap on April 13 with the annual A-Day game.
Following Saturday’s scrimmage, Kalen Deboer spoke with reporters. Here’s a full transcript of what he said.
Opening statement
“We're gonna make this quick. We've got a big game we've got to get ready for tonight, right? And while I'm at it, good luck to the basketball team. Excited to watch tonight. Had a great scrimmage out there again. We talked last week — a lot of things that you want to improve on, it was really good to see us each and every day focus on those things.
“If you remember, talking about having a great pass rush, which means we've got to keep working on our protection. Which offensively the last week, we talked about the run game was strong and that means the other side, we want to see them kind of blow up a little bit more. So really I thought things balanced out more so to where you didn't see these overriding strengths on either side, which to me means that the side of the ball we needed to work on, they got better.
“Really appreciate the efforts of the guys. It was four days this week and not like that's a lot but it's the most we've had. We had back-to-back practices yesterday. We had a shortened practice, but we still got after it. We had some scrimmaging a little bit there -- we stayed up and everything. I don't know the exact number of plays today but probably almost hit 90. I don't know the exact number, but we were probably in that range. 85 or so, is what we wanted to get to. Some drives at the end that went a little bit longer and it was all good.
“The guys are — I think they see how quickly it's going. Just wanting to continue to have that urgency each and every day to make the most of the opportunities. I know some of the comments out there by them and wanted to finish strong here. We're in a good spot and we're gonna be at the A-Day game. Looking forward to it.”
On Jaeden Roberts’ injury and Parker Brailsford’s absence
“How did you know about Jaeden? [laughter] Jaeden's gonna be fine. He might be down for a little bit here, but he'll be fine. We'll do some follow-up evaluations. Early reports, anyways, feels like it will be nothing major.
“Parker is just going through non-football related things. He's gonna be with us. He's working out with our strength staff, and done a great job there. He's never done anything wrong. It's nothing like that. It's working hard and he's gonna be ready to go here sooner than later. Just taking it day-by-day. He's gonna be here with us. It's not a transfer thing. It's nothing like that. Just want to make sure I'm clear. It's nothing on his end where he's done anything wrong or anything like that.
On the confidence level between quarterbacks and wide receivers
“It's been really interesting and I think that area I see kind of ebbs and flows. Some of it has to do with the middle of spring ball, you see the rhythm coming and them hitting some routes and you're like, 'Wow, we're getting there quick.' Then you see the defense do a good job adjusting to the things that our offense is starting to do well -- which is what they should, right — and the tendencies, and you take a lot of snaps against each other. And also you see it kind of fall off a little bit.
“The offense makes some adjustments and what you do in a game. We don't have anything installed, and you work on what you scripted that day. I can't say there are these huge highs and lows, which I'm glad. There's a consistent, I think just continued to move forward at the end of each week. I thought we took a step forward today from what I would have said Wednesday or Friday. That was really good to see.
On James Brockermeyer
“He's done a really good job. He's got a lot of opportunities to take a lot of snaps, and hanging in there. The communication has been clean. Those five guys have been up there — we had, like you said, Jaeden out for a couple snaps today — but he's done a really good job. When those opportunities pop up, that's what you need to do. He's taken a lot of snaps here the last week, this past week, these last 6 or 7 days. It's great. Great opportunity for him.”
On the offensive line
"Yeah, I think we had a strong performance in the run game a week ago. I thought it was solid today. I think the defense did a nice job recovering from last week and then I think they did a better job, offensive line wise, of pass protection in general. So some of that's assignment and just more reps; some of it's just just hunkering down and getting back to work. Coach Kapilovic has done a great job of just every day just pushing them and pushing them and they're responding."
Update on kicker, kick returner and punt returner
"With punt return and kick return we haven't done anything live. We're working on just the skills of catching. I don't really want you to get to a depth chart with all that, we got a lot of guys back there. We'll continue to assess but we got some explosive guys back there that I feel good about."
"At the kicker position, it's kind of everyone's had their days. Both doing really well and they've been pretty consistent for the most part. We had a windy day a couple of days ago, a couple of practices ago and struggled a little bit, right. But those are great learning moments and really trying to push through and today was pretty good day. Today was a really good day-- making all their kick, really didn't have any long field goals except a session we had early on where we were trying to challenge them for five minutes. But they're all just keeping their head down, literally like they need to, and doing a good job there. It's really an open competition there for a lot of guys take advantage of."
On who stood out during the scrimmage
"Here's the thing about scrimmages-- A lot of times there's a lot of rotation of guys so it's hard for certain players to have these big, big days. I think about a catch that Caleb had: a big touchdown, big target, in the endzone. Nice throw, I believe Dylan made the throw and gave him a chance and you saw this mammoth of a human being going up and making a play. That was one of the more impressive plays and that's what you want to do. It's gonna be great film for us to teach off of, those bigger receivers, give them a chance and it was done the endzone, kind of a corner route so that's one play that sticks out. I think a lot of guys just playing good, solid ball making the plays they need to make.
"You didn't see a lot of offensive guys really have drops, you didn't see defensive guys missing a lot of tackles. mean I can (mention standouts) but I don't even like getting into that because sometimes film shows things otherwise and I'm trying to manage a scrimmage and so forth. So watch the film and maybe there'll be more that stand out but that one catch got some oohs and ahhs from fans, the sideline, and it was a really cool thing to see."
On Alabama basketball in the Final Four
"I'm probably not to break down the basketball game other than who I'm rooting for and I guess on that note it's just been really fun seeing our team here in this last part of the season. I don't wanna say catch fire, I think they knew what they were capable of doing but just staying the course and the grit, the fight and there's things that I'll take from comments made in the media by coaches and players and we'll use some of those little nuggets to talk about this fall as these guys go on the run and learn from that. But yeah, I can't wait to watch the game tonight."
On the defense's intensity during the scrimmage
"I think today's scrimmage in general we did some drives where we started deep in our own territory, minus-25 yard line. We had some drives where we started from the middle of the field, and just did some drives that started in the red zone. I think what you see is it's a lot easier to play and the defensive intensity when the offense is backed up, doing a really good job.
"I think from an intensity standpoint there was one steered series of plays with both ones and twos where the defense got a stop and they got to stop by kind of a sequence of penalties-- one was on them, offense got the ball on the two and a half yard line, got down to one and (the defense) just kept playing. They got a nice stop, offense got a holding call and then they forced the field goal. Then later on the offense had kind of a flip flop situation where they ended up scoring so it was really cool to see the intensity in that moment by the defense and let's take that situation right there and we're gonna be able to draw on that.
"There was one thing I emphasized, it was that little sequence of plays of why you play the next play. Why you just dig your cleats in the dirt and no matter if it feels like 'Man, there's only one yard', you don't let those doubts creep into your mind and you just go make that stop-- force a fumble, force a turnover, you get a penalty on the offense and now you're holding a team to a field goal and those are big momentum swings. So that was one sequence of plays where I was really proud of them."
