re: Official In-Season Practice, Injury Reports and Press Conferences Thread: 12-0

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Alabama returned to the practice field Tuesday afternoon for its second practice of Western Kentucky preparation. The Crimson Tide players practiced outdoors and in full pads on a sunny, 91-degree afternoon.

Here are several tidbits from the media viewing portion of Alabama's Tuesday practice session in Tuscaloosa:

- Blake Barnett and Jalen Hurts led the two quarterback lines in passing drills with the receivers with Cooper Bateman and David Cornwell behind them, respectively. Hurts threw a nice deep ball to ArDarius Stewart. Sound familiar?

- Barnett and Hurts also worked on an interesting play with the running backs. Hurts was in the shotgun with B.J. Emmons in the slot to his left and Bo Scarbrough as the H-back on the right. Emmons motioned toward them, Hurts faked the ball to him and Scarbrough provided the lead block for a quarterback run play. Barnett did it, too, with Joshua Jacobs out wide.

- Barnett and Hurts also both threw pinpoint passes to the running backs on wheel routes out of the backfield. Barnett threw a nice ball to Damien Harris, who led the tailbacks in individual drills, and Hurts did the same to Emmons.

- There was no sign of wideout Cam Sims (shoulder) for a second consecutive day. He will be questionable, Nick Saban said, for Saturday’s home opener against Western Kentucky after sustaining the injury this past weekend.

- The first-team secondary remained the same from the season opener during nickel drills with Marlon Humphrey and Anthony Averett as the cornerbacks, Eddie Jackson and Ronnie Harrison as the safeties, Minkah Fitzpatrick as the Star and Reuben Foster and Shaun Hamilton as the inside linebackers toward the end of the second of two media viewing periods.

- Spotted a couple of Crimson Tide players wearing scout-team jerseys Tuesday afternoon. Defensive linemen Johnny Dwight, O.J. Smith and Quinnen Williams wore Nos. 9, 3 and 91, which represented Hilltopper linemen Omarius Bryant, Chris Johnson and Trae Jones. Wide receiver Xavian Marks also wore No. 15, which belongs to WKU receiver Nicholas Norris.

*** What’s next: Alabama will practice again Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. CT. Tomorrow’s afternoon practice will be followed by head coach Nick Saban’s final press conference of the week -- at approximately 6 p.m. CT.

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Sixty minutes were all the Crimson Tide needed to remind college football that they’re still an apex predator on Saturdays.

Two days later, they issued a memo on why they’re unmatched the other six days of the week: A support staff unrivaled in maybe any sport.

Hiring Steve Sarkisian gives Nick Saban at least eight off-field analysts on his staff, and that’s in addition to 12 officially listed football operations, player personnel and program coordinator employees, and a special assistant to the head coach (Bobby Williams).

Between that group and Saban’s nine assistants, there are now five former head coaches working at Alabama (Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin, Mario Cristobal, Bobby Williams and Mike Locksley — h/t Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman).

That’s an astounding number, and it’s yet another example of just how shrewd Saban is when it comes to personnel.

Sarkisian finds himself in the exact same place Lane Kiffin said he was in 2013: rock bottom. USC fired Sarkisian amid allegations that he was drinking on the job, this after he apologized for erratic behavior while addressing boosters at a preseason Salute to Troy event. He checked himself into a treatment facility after USC announced his dismissal.

None of that changes Sarkisian’s shrewd skills as an offensive coach and recruiter.

He has serious problems that came to light within the past year, sure. Not many programs would risk hiring someone who’s stability has been under such scrutiny. Then again, not many programs are Alabama, where The Process or whatever you want to call it has created a rock-solid foundation that can handle coaches like Sarkisian and Kiffin. Either they conform to Saban’s system, or they’re spit back out.

In this case, Alabama is a coaching treatment facility. Check in, get better and soon enough you’re on your way to a better place.

Kiffin is the success story. His head coaching tenures at Oakland, Tennessee and USC were littered with controversy. In two-plus years at Alabama, where Saban has been able to insulate Kiffin and keep him focused, he’s been one of the top-five play callers in the country.

Sure enough, those 2017 head coaching rumors are already surfacing.

Sarkisian can be groomed as Kiffin’s replacement if he leaves. He already comes from the same offensive background, so the transition wouldn’t be difficult. At the very least, Alabama has a guy that knows quarterbacks. Pairing him with Jalen Hurts or Blake Barnett should scare the rest of the SEC.

If the coaching carousel was a stock market, Saban would be filthy rich — or richer, at least. This is a classic low-risk, high-reward move for Alabama, especially considering the infrastructure already in place.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Saban has the clout to make these types of hires happen. After all, Alabama is the same school that fired Mike Price for his extracurricular shenanigans. What Saban has built is akin to the Patriots under mentor Bill Belichick, who often acquires “troubled” players like Randy Moss and reaps fantastic results.

Or you can compare it to the Arizona Cardinals drafting Tyrann Mathieu with Patrick Peterson already on the roster. With Kiffin in Tuscaloosa, Sarkisian has a friend and colleague who can help him stay on track and get his life back together as he battled reported alcoholism.

If Sarkisian can do that, he’ll have his career revived in no time, courtesy of the Alabama doctors at Last Chance U: Coaching Edition.

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The first punch cut through the air unobstructed, so JuJu Smith-Schuster reared back and launched another. USC had been stewing since the start of Tuesday’s practice. Much of the energy was productive. But now it was convulsing into hostility...

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TUSCALOOSA -- Burst is a word that was used a lot when describing Damien Harris’ Week 1 performance against USC on Saturday. And it is an accurate depiction of one of the plays that made the sophomore’s eyes light up.

Midway through the third quarter of Alabama’s season opener, Harris took a handoff from true freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts, burst through a hole his offensive line created for him between the left guard and center and juked Trojan safety Marvell Tell on his way to a 73-yard pickup that was cut short of crossing the goal line by the speedy Adoree' Jackson.

The sophomore running back burst through the holes provided by his offensive line like that for a couple of big gains Saturday night and burst onto the scene is his debut as the Crimson Tide’s starting running back. But that burst, that nifty footwork are not attributes Harris acquired when he stepped on AT&T Stadium’s field. He honed those skills over the spring and summer.

“It’s something I worked on in the offseason, trying to have better balance, better footwork, bursting out of my cuts,” Harris said during his debut in the Naylor Stone Media Suite on Monday. “Those are the things Coach (Burton) Burns emphasizes for us to get north and south as fast as possible. It’s something we work on day-in and day-out.”

Harris led Alabama in rushing in its 52-6 win over USC with 138 yards on nine touches. His 73-yard scamper was his longest run of the night, but he also reeled off a 46-yard run -- that was also prematurely ended by Jackson.

As much as he worked to improve his shiftiness and burst on the field, Harris has ran the ball like that since he arrived on the Tide campus last summer. Sophomore defensive tackle Da'Ron Payne and his fellow defensive linemen are tasked with stopping Harris, Bo Scarbrough and the rest of Alabama running backs in practice every day. That burst is nothing new.

“Damien runs really well during practice,” Payne said. “I think that’s what (he) took over to the game.”

Harris, a former five-star prospect, was the No. 1 running back, No. 1 player in Kentucky and No. 31 overall player in the 2015 recruiting cycle, according to the 247Sports Composite. But he is not the only five-star running back on the Tide’s current roster. He and Scarbrough both share that distinction, and both were listed as co-starters on the team’s initial depth chart.

Nick Saban said Harris and Scarbrough would be the backs he would start the game with, but most people assumed Scarbrough would be the first back on the field and see the most success. But the Tuscaloosa native only mustered 36 yards on 11 carries. Still, Harris did not feel disrespected by the lack of attention he received from reporters and fans, alike.

“I didn’t think about that at all, to be honest with you,” he said. “I just worked on getting better every single day.”

One of the reasons Harris was on the field first is because of his prowess as a pass blocker, which is something a tailback at Alabama must do well. That is an area where Harris feels more comfortable than a year ago.

“It’s something I worked on a lot last year,” Harris said. “... In high school, you don’t have to block that many people, so last year that was a big learning curve I had to take on head first. I worked a lot in the offseason working on it.”

Comfortability with that, the work he put in in the offseason, none of those things change the way a running back looks at an opening along the line of scrimmage. That 73-yard run in the third quarter was one of those moments, and the Berea, Ky., native attributed anything but his burst to his ability to a large chunk to the Tide’s 465 yards of offense against USC.

“Anytime you see a big hole like that, your eyes kind of light up,” Harris said. “It’s plays like that you really want to thank your O-linemen for and make sure you give them all the credit because without them the play would have never gotten started. They did a great job of opening it up and I guess my eyes did get kind of big. I just wanted to make play.”

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Entering the season, many thought sophomore running back Bo Scarbrough would be the top back in Alabama’s backfield to begin its national title defense in 2016. But in the season opener against USC on Saturday, it was another sophomore, Damien Harris, who started the game and shined on the national stage instead of the Tuscaloosa native.

Scarbrough saw the field, entering the game in the offense’s second possession and compiling 36 rushing yards and a touchdown on 11 carries. But the 6-foot-2, 230-pound running back only averaged 3.27 yards per carry with a long run of nine yards in his 2016 debut, compared to Harris’ 15.3 and true freshman tailback Joshua Jacobs’ 5.0 averages.

On Wednesday, during the SEC coaches teleconference, Nick Saban shed light on Scarbrough, his assessment of his play and progression and what he would like to see out of the sophomore moving forward this season.

“We’re encouraged by the progress that Bo’s making,” Saban said. “We’d like for him to continue to make a significant contribution for us. This was basically Bo’s first game where he played much, and I think that we weren’t disappointed at all with the way he played.

“I think attention to detail in some things would probably help him have more success, and that’s why we practice. And that’s why we’re going to continue to try to help him improve on those things so that he can have the kind of success that he’d like to have.”

Before Saturday’s season opener, Scarbrough had led the running backs through individual drills at practice, with Harris right behind him. Since then, the order has flip-flopped with the leading rusher at the front of the line.

Scarbrough started the A-Day game in the spring and many figured him to be the starter once Derrick Henry left early for the NFL Draft. Those expectations have not been met -- at least not yet. And Saban has attempted to quiet them for Scarbrough in order for the second-year back to reach his full potential this fall at a position that is desperate for experienced depth.

“I think expectations are an external factor that players have to put out of their mind and understand that whether it’s in preparation, how you manage your roles, you’ve got to focus on the main thing,” Saban said. “Keep the main thing the main thing, which is ‘What do I have to do to go out there and execute and play well and that’s going to give me the best opportunity to get the results that I want? Creating anxiety for somebody’s expectation or what somebody thinks I ought to do is not beneficial to performance at all.’ We try to get our players to understand that.”

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Jeff Brohm watched Alabama throttle USC at his house Saturday evening. The Western Kentucky football coach knew his team was tuned in too, he just hoped they weren't watching all that closely.

Brohm knew what he'd be facing this coming Saturday when his Hilltoppers visited that team they watched hand USC its worst loss in 50 years. WKU's offensive outburst in a 46-14 Thursday night win over Rice certainly felt a little more distant when the No. 1 Crimson Tide put 52 on USC.

"I try not to talk about it too much," Brohm said in a telephone interview. "I think myself, the staff and the team, we understand what we're getting ourselves into. This is not only Alabama, the tradition, the history, but this is Alabama at the very best."

And Alabama doesn't traditionally give much hope to Group of Five opponents visiting Tuscaloosa. Since losing to Louisiana-Monroe in 2007, Alabama's dominated the next 15 such opponents. The average score of those 15 games: 43-6.

New Hilltopper quarterback Mike White is coming off a 517-yard debut against Rice. He became one of only eight quarterbacks since 2000 to throw for more than 500 yards while completing 80 percent of his passes.

Though a starter previously at South Florida, Brohm said he "definitely played at a higher level than I thought he would" against Rice.

Brohm knows the reality of White's circumstances will be quite different in Bryant-Denny Stadium at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. WKU likes the deep ball, but that requires a few seconds in the pocket.

"Normally, by that time," Brohm said, "there's a good chance the quarterback is on his back."

Alabama sacked USC quarterback Max Brown three times in the first half Saturday. It led the nation in that category a year ago.

"We get it," Brohm said. "We're not blind to it. But at the same time, as a young team, if we can find a way to not beat ourselves and to hang in there for as long as they can and hope they make a few mistakes or something happens and we get a little luck, you just never know."

WKU is 3-3 against SEC opponents in the past five seasons with two wins over Kentucky and other at Vanderbilt last season. Alabama whipped the Toppers 41-7 when they were an FCS transitional program in 2008, then again 35-0 in 2012 as a Sun Belt team. Now, coming off a Conference-USA championship, consecutive bowl wins and receiving votes in the polls, WKU has Nick Saban's attention.

"We had two teams in our league that actually lost to teams that were nowhere near this good," Saban said. "Nowhere near what they accomplished a year ago. Nowhere near the number of players coming back."

There's always a battle against complacency in Tuscaloosa coming off a blowout win over name-brand opponents. WKU last visited Alabama a week after the Tide thumped No. 8 Michigan 41-14 in Cowboys Stadium. Saban ranted to the media about not respecting the Hilltoppers because he saw lackluster effort in practice.

Alabama cornerback Marlon Humphrey sounded like the 2016 group would take another approach this week.

"They do a lot of formations, a lot of things we are going to really watch a lot of extra film for," he said. "They're not your typical Western Kentucky team. I definitely think they are pretty much a top team, so we can't take them lightly."

The mental challenge is quite different in Bowling Green, Kentucky this week. They're trying to avoid watching too much film of Alabama practical reasons.

"We try not to emphasize the positive too much," Brohm said. "We watched the film with them and when they watch it, they understand these guys are big. They're strong. They're fast basically at every position. They're the best in the country. ... All those things you're hoping to try to find a weakness here or there to exploit.

"But with these guys, it's hard to find."

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