4/17 A-Day Game 2008
A-Day is becoming quite an event, isn’t it? Last year we drew over 92,000 fans for the A-Day spring game, and this year we drew over 78,000. To put things in perspective, those two attendances rank first and second on the all-time list for spring games. If you were there, you should feel proud of yourself. This type of enthusiasm is contagious, and several recruits have mentioned the A-Day game as a major selling point for them.
As for the game itself, it’s really hard to draw too many conclusions after watching it. As I’m sure you are all aware, intra-squad scrimmages present somewhat of a paradox in that something good from the offense can just as well be interpreted as something bad from the defense, and vice versa. However, I did see several things in Saturday’s scrimmage that I found encouraging. For one thing, it appears that our defensive line has progressed quite a bit. I’ve been hearing for awhile now how much Josh Chapman has improved at the DT position, and he certainly seemed to be a disruptive force throughout Saturday’s game. Alfred McCullough also appears to be greatly improved. You know how important I think DTs are, and having these two young talents really bodes well for the future. In general, I thought that we had several defensive linemen that looked solid, so our depth should be really good this year.
Our linebackers are definitely an area of concern this year, but I was very happy with the play of Corey Reamer. For those of you that don’t know, Reamer was a safety coming out of high school, and I was impressed with his limited play as a true freshman in 2005. Unfortunately for him and for Bama, he tore an ACL the same week that Prothro had his horrific injury, so this year will his first time on the field in quite some time. Reamer was a real headhunter at safety, and I think he can be a standout at the LB position. Of course, we know how good Rolando McClain is (even though he got humbled by Terry Grant near the goal line), so at least our LBs have potential. And don’t forget about Jerrell Harris coming in as a true freshman. I expect to see these three on the field as starting linebackers very early in the season.
I was really surprised at the play of our WRs. The coaches have been raving about the route-running abilities of Darius Hanks, and he certainly appears to live up to that billing. Mike McCoy (JR), Brandon Gibson (RS-FR), and Earl Alexander (RS-FR) all made outstanding catches, and Marquis Maze (RS-FR) appears to have a lot of potential. Of course, as impressed as I am with these guys, I still stand by my prediction that Julio Jones will be the best WR on campus as soon as he arrives this fall. It’s never a good thing when you lose your top 3 WRs like we did last year, but at least it looks like the position has some solid talent waiting in the wings.
Our QB play looked decent, but I have to say I was a little disappointed in the play of Nick Fanuzzi. I know; he’s only our third string QB, but I have been hearing really good things about him. Maybe it was an off-day for him, but he certainly didn’t look game-ready to me. Our other QBs looked pretty good, including our fourth-string QB, Thomas Darrah. However, my understanding is that both the offense and the defense kept things pretty vanilla, so QB play can look dramatically different in real game conditions. I think we’ll be all right at that position, but it’s hard to get much of a reading from this game.
In general, I think this can be a pretty good team. I’ll post more predictions as we get closer to the season, but there is definitely progress from last season to this season. The players seem physically stronger, and the defense appears to have a better idea of how to run Saban’s very complicated schemes. And don’t forget, the team that you saw on the field last Saturday is going to get a significant boost from the incoming freshmen.
As always, feel free to send me any questions or comments. Until next time, Roll Tide!
Kenny
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