re: Spring Football News & Info

quote:

---

Alabama punter Mike Bernier has entered the NCAA transfer portal, per source. Was Alabama's punter the final eight games of last season.

---

quote:

---

By Matt Zenitz | mzenitz@al.com One of Alabama’s specialists has entered the NCAA transfer portal.

Mike Bernier, who was the Crimson Tide’s punter the final eight games of last season, went into the transfer portal Tuesday morning, according to a source.

The redshirt senior has been competing with sophomore Skyler DeLong and freshman Will Reichard for Alabama’s punting job this spring.

Bernier averaged 38 yards per punt last year. He was recognized as one of the Tide’s players of the week after recording two 41-yard punts against Tennessee in his first game as the team’s primary punter.

---

quote:

---

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Hours after Alabama’s first spring scrimmage ended and most everyone had left the football facility on Paul W. Bryant Drive, film study started for Tua and Taulia Tagovailoa.

The older brother provided the younger brother with some late-night advice after his first scrimmage.

“Just things that I see,” Tua said Monday. “I had the opportunity to bring my brother up here late at night, probably about 12:30 to 1, and just sat down with him in our offensive staff meeting room and just watched film with him. He just wanted to know the things that I’m seeing out there, and I got to help him with that.”

Tua does that with all of Alabama’s quarterbacks, but a trip to the facility after midnight is likely only reserved for a member of his family. But just like the other signal callers, the Crimson Tide’s incumbent starter wants to see Taulia succeed and is more than willing to help him do that.

“There’s a lot of things he can work on,” Tua said. “We talked about it in our quarterback room, things that I can work on, things that the other quarterbacks can work on. It’s all about getting better in our quarterback room. So, he knows he’s got to get better, and we all know we’ve got to get better. We’ve just got to push ourselves and one another.

“I think they need the reps though. God forbid anything does happen again to me. But I think the experience that these guys get with taking reps with the ones taking reps with the twos, it’s going to be really a big difference. Inexperience, game experience and how they go out there and how their approach is going to be going into games, as well.”

Taulia was Alabama’s top-rated quarterback signee for the 2019 recruiting cycle, according to the 247Sports Composite. He was the No. 5 dual-threat quarterback, No. 8 player in the state of Alabama and No. 180 overall prospect. The 5-foot-11, 211-pound freshman threw for 3,728 yards and 35 touchdowns as a senior at Thompson (Ala.) High School less than a year ago.

In Saturday’s first scrimmage of the spring, Taulia led the third-team offense. He also got some work with the twos. And simply on the surface, one of the Tide’s new quarterbacks performed well.

“For a young guy coming in for his first scrimmage, I thought he handled things very well. He was very cool, collected,” said Alabam junior safety Xavier McKinney of Taulia. “But I mean, I’m sure he still has a lot of things to work on and improve on. I can’t tell you what that is because I’m not a QB, but he looked pretty good in the first scrimmage.”

Tua is the starter, and Mac Jones received reps with the ones at twos this past weekend, but Alabama will need both of its early enrollees, Taulia and Paul Tyson, to grasp the playbook and make progress over the course of the offseason before the 2019 season kicks off in August.

The young players know that, and that’s why Tua and Taulia were dissecting film of Saturday’s spring scrimmage hours after it ended at Bryant-Denny Stadium and well into the morning hours.

“We need to kind of see who's going to be the next best guy and if anybody can challenge the first two guys,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said. “That’s kind of where we are today and that’s how we had it planned. I think those guys have a ways to go. First time out there, they did some good things but it was also pretty obvious that it was their first time out there.”

---

quote:

---

The Superstar
This Tua Tagovailoa kid is pretty good. I think we should keep him. He didn’t throw an interception until the 9th game of the season, a road win over LSU, which was also the first time he had to actually play in the fourth quarter. Along the way, playing mainly in the first halves of games, Tua completed 355 of 455 passes (69%, nice) for 3966 yards, 43 passing touchdowns and just 6 interceptions. He didn’t have a multi-pick game until the SECCG. And, while a testament to his escapability as much the offensive line’s excellent play, he only had one game where he took more than one sack (MSU 4). He chipped in another 5 scores on the ground, rushing 57 times for 190 yards. And, importantly, Tua led a ‘Bama offense that scored almost 50 points per game and became the first team since the 1988 Yale Elis to beat all of its regular season opponents by 20+. While his first half could have gone better against Clemson — to put it mildly — he still had a complete game that would otherwise be quite acceptable against an elite defense: 294 yards, 65% completion percentage, 2 TD, 2 Ints, just one sack taken.

People were impressed, and his trophy case grew fat:

Sporting News College Football Player of the Year; CFPA National Performer of the Year
Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, National Quarterback Club College Quarterback of the Year
Heisman Trophy runner-up
First-Team All-American, First-Team All-SEC, Consensus All-American
SEC Offensive Player of the Year

SEC (also are school records):

QBR (199.4. Surpassed Baker Mayfield’s 2017 FBS record)
Yards per attempt (11.2); yards per play (10.1)
Passing TDs in a season (43)
Single-season passing yardage (3,966)

Alabama

Total TDs (48)
Touchdowns in a game (6, Iron Bowl); T-most passing TDs in a game (5, Iron Bowl)
Most 4-touchdown games in a season (6)
Most 300-yard passing games in a season (6)

Following Saturday’s closed scrimmage, Nick Saban named Tua Tagovailoa the Tide’s starting quarterback for 2019. Thanks for ruining the surprise there, coach. I have no idea what to write over the summer now.

Tua was robbed of his deserved Heisman Trophy by a combination of ‘Bama fatigue, ESPN trying to manufacture a race where there was none, second halves spent on the bench, and a bad SECCG game played on one leg — the latter particularly harmed him, but the others arose because he was simply too good. I get the feeling we see a more pitiless Nick Saban in 2019 and even more obscene statistics from Tua: this team has a chip on its shoulder, Steve Sarkisian has never seen a forward pass he didn’t love, and there’s not a former SEC Player of the Year on the bench to split reps with.

Let the #TankForTua movement begin. And the Miami Dolphins are well underway; they began in January.

---