Date of 2021 A-Day Game Officially Announced

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The 2021 A-Day Game will be held on April 17, Alabama football officially announced on Friday afternoon.

After skipping the annual scrimmage game last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alabama football will host A-Day inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in front of a limited amount of spectators. The event will be ticketed, and will roughly host 20 to 25-percent of the stadium's capacity.

Alabama football made the date official via social media:

📅✔️ pic.twitter.com/qIZ4XVpsNM
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) February 12, 2021

“The plan is, at this point, to have a full spring practice, to have an A-Day,” Alabama director of athletics Greg Byrne to the Crimson Tide Sports Network on Friday afternoon. “It’s not done yet, but we’re probably gonna end up having to ticket the event because we will have to limit capacity somewhere probably in the 20-25 percent range. We haven’t finalized that yet, working through those details, but we are gonna have it, which we didn’t have last year, so that’s another good step for us.”

Along with the cancellation of A-Day in 2020, the Crimson Tide program also canceled spring practices altogether as a precautionary measure due to the pandemic. Alabama has yet to announce when its spring practices will begin this year, but an announcement is expected to occur soon now that the date of A-Day has been revealed.

In total, Southeastern Conference football programs will be allowed to host 15 scheduled practices this spring. Despite the Crimson Tide being able to win its 18th national championship at the end of last season even without hosting spring practices, the sessions remain vital for the team's incoming freshmen, including its 15 early signees and five coaching additions.

In his interview with the Crimson Tide Sports Network on Friday, Byrne stated that the program will adhere to the guidelines issued by the SEC once the final preparations are resolved.

“We are still talking to our medical task force from the SEC,” Byrne said. “A couple of them met with the ADs last week. They gave us an update. There’s concern about the variance right now that are out there and trying to understand what they mean. Their message was we’re making progress, but you also can’t put all your guards down. You still have to be vigilant with this."

He also remained optimistic for the future as more and more vaccinations are distributed to the general public.

“As more and more people are getting vaccinated, I’m starting to hear some more encouraging things from, eventually, hopefully getting rid of masks and not having it be where if somebody has been exposed and they got vaccinated, hopefully, that’s gonna allow them not to have to be quarantined," Byre said. "And those are all positive steps that we need to take in order to get back to normal, but I’m sitting here more optimistic that we are gonna get back to normal here sooner than later.”