Everything Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama's 14th spring practice

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama held its 14th spring football practice on Thursday afternoon in the Hank Crisp Indoor Facility. Shortly after the 2-hour workout, its final practice before the A-Day Game, head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters. Here is everything he said.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“Great practice out there today. Fourteen, I’ve been different places, practice 14, the day before or the practice before the spring game, a lot of times a practice that’s lowkey and maybe a couple situational things that you’re working on. Sometimes even just helmets and spiders. But our guys, we went with shells and got after it, got after it for a couple hours, just a full-fledged practice. Obviously not tackling in just shells but really good work by our guys. Competitive. Got a chance to switch it up a little bit, ones versus twos, twos versus ones. The neat thing is is those twos playing good and playing well and wanted to prove how far they’ve come along and did some nice things today in practice. So extremely competitive across the board. The rest of the practice was – well, we generally do ones versus ones, twos versus twos – but a good day.

“Format for the spring game will be an offense versus defense. We won’t have divided teams. A couple reasons, No. 1, I like to look at it as practice No. 15. We’ll see a lot of scrimmaging out there, but it’s a chance for us to get better. It’s a chance for us to take a next step. A chance for us to evaluate, as well. And so try to really get down to the bare bones of playing some football. It gives us a chance to really also celebrate what we’re doing and where we’re at and enjoy the moment with the fans. So excited to see a packed stadium there and looking forward to seeing everyone come and support our program.”

DeBoer on the biggest area of growth he’s seen over the course of the spring…

“I think just the competitive stamina that we’ve continued to show. It’s easy to come off Practice 1, it’s easy to come out after you get back from spring break. But for us to just continue to stay the course, and that’s reminiscent of what I said early when I first got here and the guys decided to stay, work through it and believe in this place. But they’ve just continued to work, and I kind of hit on that in coming in with an opening here today just because it was just impressive to me.

“Nothing where we’re coasting into these last 48 hours leading up to Saturday. They came out here, worked and wanted to continue to play ball, were asking for one more drive and all that kind of stuff. They’re just enjoying the process, enjoying the step. So I think that competitive stamina, just continuing to get better and focused on the right things there.”

DeBoer on if he has identified any areas where Alabama might like to add depth…

“Yeah, I would say naturally if you just, I mean, you guys can look at our roster and see scholarship numbers – I know you guys all track it – I would say the defensive backfield we’re probably a guy short or so. Offensive line, we’re probably a guy short. Just from the numbers that you typically would see and also where we want to be. So not saying we’ll take a look and evaluate, and you never know. There might be some guys from our roster surprise us, as well. We’ve just gotta continue to be fluid, be ready to adjust and continue to keep our eyes open for what’s out there when that time comes.”

DeBoer on Parker Brailsford’s availability for the A-Day Game…

“Right now, I wouldn’t plan on him being in… just with the limited practice that he’s had throughout the spring. And he didn’t practice today. I wouldn’t be putting him out there in that spot. But he’ll be with us here sooner than later in the regular workouts. He’s doing all the things to make sure he’s ready to go.”

DeBoer on how he balances tradition and doing his own thing…

“I’m laughing because when I talked to the guys about the steak dinner, I referred to it as, what did I say, ‘beenies and weenies,’ a slip of the tongue. Of course we had a good little laugh out there on the field. There’s some traditions that the guys certainly bring up that have been important, that they feel strong about. I’m still learning some of those, things that haven’t maybe come up yet. You’re still learning some of those really neat things that are important to these guys because it’s happened in the program for many years.” 

DeBoer on the overall buy-in from the team…

“I think it’s, I mean you use the right word, I think ‘buying in’ because I think it’s continued to be a process. Somebody asked me that question a few times and said, ‘Hey, have they bought in?’ I don’t think, I know we’re not to that point yet. I like where we’re at and I like the mindset and the effort they’re putting into the buying in of what we’re trying to do. But this whole piece, this whole thing we’re on right now, this journey is about the process. I really feel like they are buying in.

“But you’re talking about 100, close to 120 players. I’m sure there’s some guys still trying to feel it out and still trying to figure out their role whether it’s because of the schemes we run or whatever it might be, the depth chart, still trying to figure all that out. I feel great about, overall, generally, both sides of the ball, all phases and the team in general, there have been some leaders that have done a great job, especially early on, in January, February of staying the course and I think a lot of guys have just followed along.

“I think it’s been great. The staff getting to know the guys and really focusing on the relationships and our players appreciating that as we teach them the game and they learn what we want them to do in all the areas of our team.” 

DeBoer on the decision behind playing Tybo Rogers in the playoffs…

“Yeah, I released a statement. I understand there’s more to it down the road but I can’t really comment on that right now or don’t have anything to add.” 

DeBoer on his message to the team with the spring portal opening…

“I guess anything I would say to them would be in regards to the date of the portal coming up. It would just be about us taking the next step and focusing on themselves and our team and getting better on Saturday and also enjoying everything that comes along with A-Day and the hype and the celebration, all of that.”

DeBoer on the ideal qualities in an X-receiver…

“All our guys, we would like for them to be very versatile. So, an X-receiver, I know we think of him in a lot of cases, a lot of offense of being an outside guy. For us, you’d love to have that guy you can isolate 1-on-1 individual routes on the backside maybe of a 3×1 formation. A guy who can take the top off, that’s a guy in our offense also if he’s got the skillset he can move inside and we can get him in the slot.

“That’s what our system allows our staff to do is move guys around, cater to their strengths, find a way to get those matchups. I think each receiver, yes, we kind of slot them into a position and for us we call it the H, X and Z. But there comes a point and time too where we just gotta get them in the right spots, especially in the critical moments and the times where we got to get certain people the ball to convert third downs, to score in the red zone, whatever those times might be.”

DeBoer on the staff contribution to creating competitive balance…

“I think there’s a couple of things. They’re just continuing to do a great job of pushing their position groups, their size of the ball. Continuing to adjust. There’s a push that we want, but also there’s a time at different points in the spring where you’ve gotta peel back maybe a day, try to re-run or reload some plays in a practice to continue to work on them more than maybe what you anticipated. Some concepts these guys are familiar with because they’ve run these concepts many times before we got here.

“And some, maybe they’re just a little different or tweaked a little bit or something completely new. So we adjust, and I think the staff’s done an awesome job of balancing putting the pedal down, building the relationships. They’re super competitive. They have fun jabbing each other on on each side of the ball when that time comes up. I saw it again today. I think that competitiveness mixed with the balance of out there enjoying the moment is something that our players see and it trickles down to them. And it’s not just on the field, it’s off the field. It’s around the offices, meeting rooms, whenever we’re together.”

DeBoer on if he still gets as much out of spring practice with the portal…

“Oh yeah, I definitely think so. A lot of guys still getting their reps, and our install that we’ve gotta have. I remember Kane’s install from a couple of years back and he’s doing very similar, maybe even more, than I remember at that time. Offensively, it’s fullsteam ahead. Yeah, I think the guys have done a good job. I don’t think we’ve really wavered. And it would definitely not be because we’re thinking anything that the portal might come into play with.”

DeBoer on the position groups that have impressed him the most…

“I think impressed would probably be kind of related to maybe where you felt like you were maybe a little bit younger. And so impressed, there’s a couple of things, right. The sides of the ball or position groups that have the veterans, you expect them to go out there and get it done. And so, I really like some things that are happening up front, defensive line-wise. But I also think defensive back-wise, there’s some young guys that have grown. So I’m impressed with some individual play, considering how old and how young they are. I think our running backs, we’ve got some strong running backs in there that are just really steady.

“And then on offense, kind of picking two on each side, just the number of quarterbacks that we have that you would feel comfortable putting out in a football game. I mean, really all four. They are extremely solid. Doing a great job of their accuracy, their reads, competitiveness. I mean, just picking things up each and every day. That group has done a really good job — I don’t want to say top to bottom — just across the board.”

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