Kalen DeBoer leaves competition open in return game, kicker spot

In his first Spring as the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, Kalen DeBoer is making sure to take the time to develop a strong special teams unit. For now, that means having an open competition for the return game and the kicker spot.

Recently, DeBoer explained that the focus is on fundamentals right now. However, he doesn’t want to talk about a depth chart just yet.

“With the punt return, kick return, we haven’t done anything live,” Kalen DeBoer said. “We’re working on just the skills of catching. I don’t really want you to get to a depth chart with all that, we got a lot of guys back there. We’ll continue to assess but we got some explosive guys back there that I feel good about.”

In recent seasons, Alabama has found incredible consistency at the kicker position, especially given the troubles that college kickers can have. That’s, in large part, because of the excellence of Will Reichard, who made 99.3 percent of extra points and 84 percent of field goals in his career.

Will Reichard is moving on now, though, and Kalen DeBoer is having an open competition to replace him. That includes players currently listed as placekickers on the Crimson Tide roster, Conor Talty, Reed Harradine, Reid Schuback, and Upton Bellenfant.

“At the kicker position, it’s kind of everyone’s had their days. Both doing really well and they’ve been pretty consistent for the most part. We had a windy day a couple of days ago, a couple of practices ago, and struggled a little bit, right. But those are great learning moments and really trying to push through and today was a pretty good day,” DeBoer said.

“Today was a really good day– making all their kick, really didn’t have any long field goals except a session we had early on where we were trying to challenge them for five minutes. But they’re all just keeping their head down, literally like they need to, and doing a good job there. It’s really an open competition there for a lot of guys take advantage of.”

Kalen DeBoer evaluates where Alabama’s running game stands

Another key group that Kalen DeBoer shared some thoughts on, was where the running backs currently stand for Alabama.

“We had a strong performance in the run game a week ago,” DeBoer said. “It was solid today. I think the defense did a nice job recovering from last game. And I think they did a better job, offensive line-wise, in pass pro. Some of that is assignments and more reps. Some of it is just hunkering coach and getting back to work.”