Alabama football notes: Crimson Tide wide receiver Darius Hanks' first love was baseball

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- If this whole football thing doesn’t work out, Alabama wide receiver Darius Hanks has an athletic backup plan.

The NFL is his goal, but his first love was baseball. It could be the career path if his time at Alabama doesn’t land a spot in the pros.

“I was pretty good,” Hanks said. “I could have got drafted coming out of high school if coach (Nick) Saban coach convinced me to come to Alabama for football.”

His baseball skills still have a use on the football field.

With Mississippi using the rugby-style punter Saturday, he was brought in a short returner in front of deep man Marquis Maze.

“I sort of favor baseball players and their judgment of how to play shortstop and all that kind of thing,” Saban said. “(We thought) he would make good judgments and decisions about being able to play the hops, play the ball, and all that kind of stuff, and he did that. So we saved a lot of field position by being able to get the ball fielded, even though we only had 12, 13 yards in positive returns.”

Coverage emphasized

A week after struggling with kickoff coverage, Saban said practice for Saturday’s game with Tennessee included extra work on the special teams unit.

Two Rebel returns topped 40 yards after the coverage team opened the season with lock-down tackling.

“We need to kick the ball consistently down inside the five-yard line,” Saban said. “Cade (Foster) is capable of kicking touchbacks. He’s only had a couple or one this year. All those things contribute to how well you cover them.

“Where are your coverage people when the guy catches the ball? That’s the first thing I look at. It’s the speed of the coverage team, but it’s also how far the ball is kicked. All these things are issues. We need to improve on them.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Alabama football notes: Crimson Tide wide receiver Darius Hanks' first love was baseball."