Nick Saban Offers Final Injury Update Heading into Tennessee Game
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Ahead of No. 4 Alabama football's game this weekend against Tennessee, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban offered a final injury update for the week.
For linebacker Drew Sanders, Saban revealed that he is highly doubtful for Saturday's game against the Volunteers. For defensive lineman Byron Young, though, the outlook was far more positive.
“Byron Young has practiced," Saban informed the media via Zoom. "He practiced today. We’re hopeful that he’ll be able to contribute some in the game. Drew Sanders is probably very doubtful for this game but we’re hopeful that maybe he’ll be — with the bye week coming up in another week — it just depends. They gotta re-X-ray his wrist and make sure that everything is ok in there and we’re hopeful that he’ll be back for LSU.”
Sanders has missed Alabama's last two games at Texas A&M and Mississippi State due to a hand injury. Young, however, left the Crimson Tide's game in the fourth quarter last Saturday against the Bulldogs and was unable to return to the field. Saban later revealed that Young was dealing with a shoulder injury, but Wednesday's outlook now looks positive.
However, one more injury is now present on the Alabama defense.
Saban revealed that defensive back DeMarcco Hellams has been dealing with an ankle injury all season. The injury status of Hellams now clears up last Saturday's game that saw Daniel Wright start at free safety instead of Hellams, who usually plays the position.
“We have confidence in both of those guys," Saban said. "They've both played a lot of good football. DeMarrco has been struggling with a kind of lingering ankle injury all the way back from fall camp. I thought that he's been a warrior all year long, fighting through this battle and in practice, overcoming adversity every way that he could, doing everything he could to help the team.
"But I also think that if he can't play 100 percent in some circumstances that we should try to protect him and give him an opportunity to have a chance to get back to 100 percent, which we try to cut down his reps the last couple of weeks. We still have every confidence in him playing in the game and he will play in games, and he may even start in the game because we view him as a starter.
"But last week, especially against the spread offense that we were playing against, we wanted to make sure we had fast, healthy guys out there that could cover people and cover ground and break on the ball and DeMarrco does those things extremely well, but you got to be 100 percent to do that, and we're trying to get them there.”
