re: Bama Football Tidings

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Going back to the spring, it was clear Nick Saban challenged the defensive line.

Without an experienced anchor in the middle like Da’Ron Payne or Quinnen Williams, there were some growing pains in the March/April scrimmages.

"The first group played fairly well,” Saban said after March 30 after the first simulated game. “The second group was not that great.”

Move ahead five months and there’s progress entering Saturday’s season debut with Duke. Injuries haven’t helped the depth and it sounds like Raekwon Davis is stepping into the vocal role vacated when Isaiah Buggs graduated and Quinnen Williams went pro.

“They've been really good,” Saban said Wednesday. “I've been pleased with, you know Raekwon's had a great camp. He's really played well. A couple of the young guys. DJ Dale has done really well. LaBryan Ray is doing really well.”

Both Dale and Ray missed time in the preseason with injuries, though. Backups Stephon Wynn and Justin Eboigbe were also hurt in August and Eboigbe is likely out for the Duke game.

“Justin was doing really well and got his foot hurt,” Saban noted Wednesday. “But I don't think that's a long-term thing.”

Saban in the spring also mentioned the summer enrollees who would need to step in to bigger roles adding depth after the first wave of freshmen arrived in January. Only Byron Young of that defensive line group appeared on the two-deep released Monday.

Highly-touted summer enrollees Braylen Ingraham and Ishmael Sopsher were in scout-team jerseys Tuesday while five-star spring arrival Antonio Alfano works to find a role.

After the second scrimmage of the spring, Saban spoke about the issues he saw in the second- and third-string defensive linemen.

“I think when they get into competitive situations, they completely just dumb down,” Saban said after the April 6 scrimmage. “They can’t focus. They’re supposed to slant. They don’t slant. So it’s really you could see the talent, you could see the ability, but they’ve got to develop confidence when they hear a call that this is what I do and trust in that and believe in that.”

Raekwon Davis, now a senior, remembers the problems his unit faced in spring practice while noting the improvements.

“That my actions showed,” Davis said. “Doing better in practice, doing the little stuff he like, at the time we weren’t doing that. And that’s all that was. We weren’t doing the little things.”

And that’s better now?

“I hope so,” Davis said. “I mean I haven’t heard (Saban) yelling in a little minute so who knows.”

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