Jordan Battle offers high praise for Tyler Steen, offensive line

Jordan Battle enters 2022 as one of the nation’s top safeties, and has been honing his skills going against the talented Alabama Crimson Tide offense. If Battle ever found himself blitzing up the middle, or having a guard shed his block and move to the secondary, he’s had a few run-ins with the offensive line on the practice field, and he had nothing but great things to say about his O-line.

“The O-line is growing with chemistry. Tyler Steen has gotten in and grown in confidence,” Battle said. “Being able to compete with Will Anderson every day, he’s gotten better. Older guys like Kendall Randolph trying to be a leader, Darrian Dalcourt being a leader. Emil [Ekiyor], and Javion Cohen are trying to be leaders, and [Cohen] is also stepping into a big leader. He’s grown very well.

“The O-line is getting better and better every day. You can see them competing with the d-line every day. Kind of have scuffles here and there, but you know that’s going to happen. You’re at Alabama, competing every day. It’s kind of fun seeing the o-line and d-line compete.”

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Steen, who was teammates with Battle at St. Thomas Aquinas High School (Fl.), transferred in from Vanderbilt this offseason and is expected to be a contributor at the offensive tackle position up front for the Tide. Alabama lost their top tackle from last season in first round draft pick Evan Neal, and will either Steen and/or five-star sophomore JC Latham to step up at the position to help protect their Heisman trophy-winning star quarterback Bryce Young.

Head coach Nick Saban has previously raved about Steen, but stated he has to focus on his consistency and performance on and off the football field during the season, creating those good habits everywhere he goes.

In recent history, if Saban’s players are best interested in winning National Championships, he’s been able to turn them into NFL Draft prospects, no matter where they’re coming into the program from. Saban highlighted that this is not an easy process, and hinted at the importance of doing things you may not necessarily want to do in order to be successful – which translates directly to Steen.

“He did speak to me,” Battle said about Steen’s decision to transfer. “[He] reached out to me before he made his decision to come here. I told him it’s going to be work. It’s Alabama. Don’t expect it to be easy. It’s going to be hard. So he understood that and he wanted to take that role and be able to compete with us. Thankful for that.”

With such high praise from his head coach and teammate, the former three-star recruit is set to make his first start for the Crimson Tide Saturday night against Utah State. That game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. ET live on the SEC Network.