Practice Report: Alabama Football Wraps Up A-Day Preparations
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama football completed its 14th and final practice of spring on Thursday afternoon on the Thomas-Drew Practice Fields ahead of Saturday's 2021 Golden Flake A-Day Game.
The workout lasted for two hours and players participated in only shorts and helmets. The weather at the Capstone was sunny with a high of 73.
Saturday's spring game will kick off at 12 p.m and be televised on ESPN. Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban addressed his excitement and what he is looking forward to this weekend, when speaking with the media via Zoom.
"We're certainly looking forward to A-Day," Saban said. "This gives players an opportunity and a real game-like situation to be able to go out and compete against one another. I think we're still going to keep the same format. The first defense is on one team. The first offense is on the other team. The first offense is with the second defense. The first defense with the second offense. So the ones are always playing against the ones, and the twos are always playing against the twos. We will hold some guys out there will be, you know quite a few guys out of the game, but this is going to be a game where a lot of the young players, you know, really get an opportunity to play. We'll probably make it pretty simple on offense and defense so that you know guys can go out there and play fast and, you know, sort of, show us what they can do.
"So I think the big question is, that every player should ask themselves, you know, how do you add value to yourself, and I guess you could self assess and say, 'Did I create value for myself this spring, this offseason program by how I improved, what I did?' And you really don't do that by feeling entitlement or feeling like you don't need to do something or you don't need to improve because of maybe something that you accomplished in the past. It's really got to be committed to an investment in your future. When you invest in your future, that's any of us and all of us, you have an opportunity to get better, you have an opportunity to improve your status, you have an opportunity to create value for yourself. And then you also when you're in a team situation you have a chance to add to the value of the team and what the team can accomplish.
"I know the players are really looking forward to at least having 50 percent stadium full, that'd be great. I encourage people to come out. We're going to honor the national championship team from last year, which you know is a tremendous accomplishment, and a team that accomplished a lot of adversity and really hung in there and stayed together, and I have tremendous gratitude and admiration for what these guys did and I think, you know, our fans have an opportunity to show that you know when they come to the spring game for our current team, and actually the team last year who, you know, won the national championship. So we're excited about the game we're looking forward to, it's always a lot of fun."
