Alabama Football: What we hope to learn from Saturday’s scrimmage

Alabama football has spring scrimmage No. 2 Saturday afternoon. Fans are hoping the scrimmage provides some answers about the team, particularly on defense.

By the time the sun sets on Saturday, in the general direction of Columbus, MS, we would like to know ‘somethings’ about Alabama football. The Saturday afternoon, second scrimmage of the spring season is a good vehicle for revealing valuable insights into the 2019 Alabama football team. There are four things, in particular, we would like to learn.

The scrimmage is again closed to the general public. Not much information came out last week. Since the Will Lowery Twitter explosion, Saban’s lockdown on scrimmage information has been pretty effective. Try as he does, Nick Saban cannot lock down all shared observations. Word gets out, carefully, and usually slowly. From Saturday night, through Monday or Tuesday, some scrimmage information will circulate.

We hope what gets out gives us information on four ‘somethings’

• Does Alabama football have a competent and consistent punter and kicker? If so, who or whom among Bulovas, Reichard and DeLong will it be? With Mike Bernier placing his name in the graduate transfer portal, we assume he is out of the running.
• How much is the drop off in the interior of the defensive line without Quinnen Williams? A drop off is somewhat inevitable but how close is Phidarian Mathis to being an All-SEC nose tackle? And when he rotates out, is there a much bigger drop off with the next man up? Rumor is D.J. Dale has looked very good in practice. We want to know how good in a game-like situation?
• Can Alabama football field a capable second inside linebacker when needed? And though it is too soon to know, who is the most probable replacement should an injury befall Dylan Moses? The practice order in drills indicates the next three after Moses are Josh McMillon, Markail Benton and Shane Lee. Is Ale Kaho so far behind, the potential of him filling in for an injured Moses is a pipedream?
• Is Eyabi Anonma stepping up enough to be more than a pass rushing specialist and what about Anontio Alfano? The pair play different positions but along with Terrell Lewis, the three were expected to terrorize opposing quarterbacks next fall. Lewis is still recovering from injury. There has been a positive buzz about Eyabi. In terms of chatter, Alfano has all but disappeared. Alabama football fans want answers.

Our ‘somethings’ turned into a deluge of questions. There will never be complete answers after Saturday’s scrimmage or next week’s a-Day game, and probably not even after the first scrimmage of fall camp.

We have questions about the offense as well, but not with the same sense of urgency. As long as Nick admits his offense is ahead of his defense, we’ll look for defensive answers first.

Just in case any readers of this post are attending the scrimmage, we have a comments section below. We are pretty sure you are safe sharing scrimmage observations there.