Nick Saban dishes out early impressions of Alabama team

The Alabama Crimson Tide held their first spring scrimmage on Saturday and Nick Saban walked away pleased with what he’s seen so far. Though he’s replacing a lot of talent from his runner-up squad in 2021, some of the team’s strongest leaders are back. Saban commented on the “competitive character” of the 2022 team after the scrimmage.

“This team’s been really good,” Saban said. “It doesn’t have any complainers. Guys do what they’re supposed to do and work hard. We don’t have a lot of negative guys on this team and we have some real positive leadership, which I think is always important and hopefully, we can build on that and that’ll be something that’s an asset for this team. It’s easy to start that way – it’s more difficult to sustain. Hopefully, this team will be able to sustain it and that’s something that will help us when the fall rolls around.”

Henry To’oTo’o, Jordan Battle, DJ Dale and Will Anderson are all back and leading the defense this spring with authority. On the offensive side, Heisman trophy winner Bryce Young is continuing his leadership role while finding new right-hand men to throw to in the fall.

Nick Saban addresses the vital importance of spring football

After some NFL Draft departures, Nick Saban is working to get this year’s roster ready for the fall. The Crimson Tide brings back a good number of pieces from last year’s group that made it to the national title game. However, they lost some star power as wide receiver Jameson Williams, offensive lineman Evan Neal and other key playmakers declared for the NFL Draft.

But given the players Alabama is bringing back, Saban said spring ball is a chance to continue their development to potentially make another College Football Playoff run.

“I think spring practice is always important because you’re always trying to develop the young players on your team,” Saban told reporters after Alabama’s Pro Day. “Our circumstance here doesn’t seem to ever change. We’d have had nine starters back on offense and nine starters back on defense. Last year was kind of a young, developing team. You have six guys go out for the draft, so now you’ve got five starters back and seven on defense.

“So you’re still trying to develop young players who need to be able to step up and maybe play a little earlier than maybe you anticipated they would because of those circumstances. I think that’s always the case, and I think that’s always something that’s really, really important to us especially in the spring, especially with young players. I think it’s even more important that they can self-assess so that they understand what do they need to do after spring, over the summer and in fall camp to even take the next step in their development so that they have a better chance to be successful in the fall.”

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.