Just A Minute: Lost In The Shutdown Chaos Were Alabama's Early Enrollees

I've been thinking for a while that it was really a shame that Alabama football had a number of players arrive early in the spring to get a jump start on their college careers, only to have those plans largely dashed by the coronavirus pandemic, when Nick Saban made an interesting point about them the other night.

Although he was speaking from what looked like the game room, complete with a pool table at his house here in Tuscaloosa, the Alabama coach was a special guest on Scott Van Pelt's SportsCenter. One of the questions the host skillfully asked was which players would be hurt the most by spring practices being canceled.

“I think the players that’ll be most affected by this are going to be the young players because I think spring practice is the first real opportunity that they have to learn things at a really snail’s pace,” Saban responded. “You don’t have to get ready for games. You’re not putting up new game plans every week where they struggle because they don’t even understand the basic concepts, and spring practice is where they learn basic concepts.

“So, if we can do some of that in the summer, I think that will really help them in the fall. But I think the young players are the guys that are going to have the toughest, most difficult time adapting to no spring practice.”

Under Saban, freshmen are pretty much treated like everyone else on the team, and everyone knows that anyone good to play and make an impact won't be sitting on the bench.

But a lot of that depends on getting acclimated and up to speed during the spring.

Overall, Alabama, welcomed 13 early enrollees in January, some of whom participated in a few bowl practices as the Crimson Tide prepared to face Michigan in Orlando. That's been the extent of their on-field experience so far.

Remember, some of them are being counted on to compete for rotation spots or more this season.

Bryce Young, who was named to the inaugural SI All-American Team, in particular has to get ready to play after second-string quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa recently committed to Maryland as a transfer.

The list is as follows:

LB William Anderson

WR Thaiu Jones Bell

LB Chris Braswell

LB Jackson Bratton

WR Traeshon Holden

ILB Demouy Kennedy

OL Seth McLaughlin

DB Malachi Moore

DB Jahquez Robinson

LB Drew Sanders

RB Roydell Williams

QB Bryce Young

Also enrolling in January was junior college product Ronald Williams, a defensive back brought in to immediately help the depleted secondary.

All of them went through the Fourth Quarter Program ... mostly under a different strength and conditioning coach, and then the spring got unplugged hours before the first practice.

Since then they've been studying the playbook, game film and instructional video.

How much can a big group of early enrollees help? Well, in 2017 the Crimson Tide had 16, and many of those freshmen came up huge in Alabama winning the national championship.

A year later and there were only five early enrollees, followed by 15 in 2019, which again looked good.

“Having 15 early enrollees that are here right now is going to really be helpful to their development and to how they can contribute to our team next year,” Saban said at the time. “I think it’s easier for those guys to get socially and academically acclimated to the university because they don’t have as much time commitment in football. The learning curve for them is certainly a lot better in terms of the time they have to learn what they can do to try to contribute to the team next year.”

Nevertheless, that group didn't get off to as good a start. Antonio Alfano, the top-rated player in the class, didn't pan out and has already transferred. So has Tagovailoa and defensive back Scooby Carter, while running back Trey Sanders missed the entire 2019 season with a knee injury.

Going through spring practices was the whole point of leaving high school early. At least they can honestly say that they didn't miss much because they're all shut down too.