Quarterback battle highlights Tide’s return to practice

The Alabama football team returned to practice Monday after an Easter respite.

With one week of practice between the team and its first spring scrimmage, Tide coach Nick Saban said he challenged his players to pick up where they left off, building with the team’s end goals in mind. Some players, he said, were more capable of that than others.

In the quarterback battle, the experience mostly resides with rising junior Cooper Bateman, the team’s lone quarterback who has played in a game. He even started the loss to Ole Miss a year ago.

“Cooper’s done a good job,” Saban said. “He obviously has the most knowledge and experience with the offense. He's also the guy that's probably gotten more reps with the ones than anybody else.

“He's done a nice job. I think there's things that he needs to work on and we need to work on with him so that he can go out there and play with the kind of confidence and be the kind of leader and be the kind of decision maker that we need at that position to play winning football.”

Three others are competing for the job — redshirt freshman Blake Barnett, true freshman Jalen Hurts and sophomore David Cornwell. Saban said Cornwell is benefiting from a different kind of experience, which comes from his three years with the program in addition to his talent.

“David has a really good arm,” Saban said. “His arm talent is probably as good as anybody we have. His accuracy's good. He's smart, a very bright guy. I think he's got enough experience in the offense having been around here to really have a good understanding of it. I think he's made a lot of progress.”

Saban added that the winner of the quarterback race will need to prove himself over time.

“The guy that wins the quarterback job is going to be the guy that wins the team over with his ability to play on a consistent basis, make the kind of choices and decisions, show the kind of leadership to affect other people,” he said. “I think this is something that everybody in the group needs to work on.”

The trenches in front of the quarterback race its own rebuilding in spring, with multiple players moving across the offensive line. Already, Saban said, that unit is starting to show some depth. Sophomore Lester Cotton has practiced at both tackles, while sophomore Ross Pierschbacher — a starter at guard last season — has continued to work at center.

“I think the challenge is going to be with the new guys that we have coming in and the experience that we have coming back, is getting the best five guys at the best positions that we can,” Saban said. “And how we do that is going to be a little bit of a work in progress, but the faster we can do it, probably, the better off we are.”

For now, it’s all about getting offensive linemen as much work as possible during the spring.

“I think what we’re trying to do right now is get everybody a lot of turns so that we can make a good decision about who we want to invest the time in in the future to get the best five guys in the best spots for us to have the best offensive line in the fall,” Saban said.

After getting the weekend off from Easter, Saban noticed his veteran players didn’t slow down Monday.

“The one thing that you notice in players that have a little maturity, have a little experience, is you give them the weekend off for Easter and they come back and they don't skip a beat,” Saban said. “You see some of the younger guys on the team that you're really trying to work with, they don't seem to be able to retain the things that you worked to get them to this point and you take a step back, and now you've got to try to take two steps forward.”

Sean Landry is a correspondent for the Anniston Star

This story was originally published March 29, 2016 at 8:35 PM with the headline "Quarterback battle highlights Tide’s return to practice."