Nick Sheridan explains process of installing new offense at Alabama

The Alabama football team is hard at work in spring football practice, adjusting to a new coaching staff and trying to make sure that life after Nick Saban continues to remain highly successful.

Part of that will be establishing the schemes on both sides of the ball.

And new coach Kalen DeBoer has a rather complex offense that will be implemented, an offense that requires a lot of learning and an “install heavy” set of spring football practices.

“I think what you’re always trying to do is you’re trying to develop a menu of plays that you can pull from throughout the year at any point, because you don’t know when you’re going to need them, and you want the players to have some reference to them,” offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “You know, we’re not afraid to install a new play in a game week, maybe that the kids have not practiced before. But I’d say you don’t want to have too many of those.”

The way you avoid that is by putting as much on the players’ plates as early as possible. Then you can find out what works and what doesn’t and begin to pare things down.

But DeBoer is one of those coaches who always keeps plays his team has practiced in his back pocket. You never quite know when you’ll use them.

Former Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb had described that approach before he left for the NFL. Because of that style, Washington was able to spring plays on opponents that might not even be on film under DeBoer.

“Referencing what coach Grubb was saying, there were plenty of plays in the Sugar Bowl that our kids hadn’t ran before,” Sheridan said. “Whether it was spring ball, in the summer, fall camp, maybe we hadn’t ran it in the season yet because the opponent didn’t present itself to be able to attack the defense that way. But we want to make sure that when we are in our biggest games in the biggest moments that our kids are running plays that they know.”

There’s an obvious way to do that, and it starts with building a thick playbook that can be pulled from at any point.

“You’ve got to have a menu, you’ve got to have a wide variety,” Sheridan said. “I think the more you do well the harder you are to defend. But the key is you’ve got to do them well, you’ve got to execute the plays. And so that’s always the gauge for us as a staff is the execution. That’s when you start to look at things, maybe we have too much in.

“But we’re early on. This is a calendar process, a full-year calendar process. You’re building toward the season. And so spring ball is part of it, winter was a bit of it, although it was a bit short this year being new. But you’re building from Jan. 1 through the end of the season developing a menu for the players, a skill set, fundamentals scheme, so they can execute in the biggest moments against the toughest competition and be confident.

“I think that’s what’s the most important is that there’s familiarity with the scheme when you draw back on those plays Week 8, Week 9. Maybe you hadn’t done them since fall camp, spring ball, but the kids remember them, they know they’ve executed them. You’ve just got to tighten up the execution in a game week.”

Alabama should have the players to make it work at a high level. The Crimson Tide recruit too well not to.

How well quarterback Jalen Milroe and company can assimilate things this spring will be key in determining just how deep that playbook is come the fall. But the coaching staff would like to have as many options as possible.

“So we certainly try to have a big menu. We still believe in execution and fundamentals and we still have core plays that we’re going to lean on each and every week, but we all know there’s certain situations that call for different types of schemes, certain fronts, certain coverages, and you want to make sure that you have answers for your players,” Sheridan said.

“I think that’s the one thing coach DeBoer has always done, is we’re an answer-based offense. We have answers to issues for our players and our staff that we can go to quickly if we’re getting something that we didn’t expect or if your opponent presents something that you’re not used to seeing.”

So far in spring ball, Sheridan has been pleased with what he’s seen out of the Alabama players. They’re doing their best to learn, and they’ve been attentive at every turn.

With that, confidence will come.

“I’ve just been really pleased with the attitude, the effort, the mindset, the willingness to be coached, the want to improve,” Sheridan said. “That’s probably what we’ve been most impressed with and certainly the talent and skill level is there and you see that each and every day in practice.”