Practice Report: Exactly a Month Before Season Opener, Alabama Preps for First Scrimmage
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The countdown now gets serious.
With the University of Alabama football team set to open the 2020 season in exactly a month, Sept. 26 at Missouri, the Crimson Tide started to turn its attention toward its first scrimmage of fall camp.
The team was again in full pads.
Conditions for Wednesday afternoon's practice were partly cloudy and 90 degrees, but with a heat index of 102.
With rain from Hurricane Laura expected the chances of Alabama moving inside the Hank Crisp facility over the next couple of day are pretty good. That includes Saturday, when Nick Saban said the first scrimmage of the fall will be held.
The early forecast is for thunderstorms in the morning, scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon and an 80-percent chance of rain.
Of note from the practice video, there’s a player wearing a black no-contact jersey with the linebackers in the background. It looked it was Ale Kaho, who missed the first few practices with a knee injury.
Kaho’s the only injury announced so far during camp.
Although the university has had a major spike in coronavirus cases, with 531 positive tests announced on Monday (there's been no update since), senior tackle Alex Leatherwood told reporters that he's still confident in playing this season,
"We feel more than safe because of the precautions and things we have put in place, and the things that we’re doing just to make sure we’re all healthy," he said. "Yeah, we feel good."
Alabama has had heavy installation so far, with Saban comparing the first 10 days of fall camp as being like a minicamp with six hours a week on the field, six hours in meetings.
Combined with the Zoom meetings during the offseason the players have been picking things up faster than usual.
"I think one of the things that’s really important on every team _ I talked to our team about this the other day _ is what kind of humility do you have as a person and as a competitor," Saban said during his Monday virtual press conference. "Because people who have humility are always working to get better. People who don’t have humility are always looking for ways to think that I’m entitled to not have to do what everybody else does. And I think when you have that, it’s hard to develop team chemistry and I think it’s hard to have your best players be the best competitors on your team.
"We’ve obviously had two opportunities _Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan _ the last two years that our players have had the opportunity to talk to. They were very loud and clear on the fact that they were never satisfied. They had lots of humility. They always respected their opponent. They were working hard to get better every day, and I think that’s really, really important When you don’t have humility, it can cause a little complacency which creates a great disregard for not doing what’s right, because you feel like you’re entitled to something. And that’s not good for team chemistry."
Alabama Crimson Tide practice: August 26, 2020
Practice video and photos will be added when available
