Tyler Booker opens up on JC Latham's impact on Alabama offensive line

This season, the Alabama offensive line is going to be anchored by JC Latham. In what will likely be the talented tackle’s last season at Alabama, Latham is impacting both the offensive line unit and individual teammates like Tyler Booker.

As Booker explained during Fall Camp, Latham is a huge reason why he committed to Alabama and he’s learned plenty from the star tackle since then.

“I’ve learned a lot from JC ever since my official visit,” Tyler Booker said. “And that’s when I really decided to commit.”

Both Booker and Latham went to IMG Academy in Florida together. Their relationship is a strong one and over the course of that relationship, Booker has seen Latham take massive strides as a player.

“I just saw how much he grew from being with him for years at IMG to being with him now, and just the way he approaches the game, you know. We’ll see certain fronts in practice and JC will point out the stunt coming or a blitz coming, but I’m still thinking about the IMG JC and I’m like, ‘Alright, man. I’ll take a look out there but I’m not sure if it’s coming.’ But when it comes it’s like, ‘Oh, shoot. JC has a jump on it,'” Booker said.

“So, he’s really intelligent and I’m glad his football IQ has grown so much, so, being able to trust him right beside me and have a jump on the defense because we know what they’re doing before they know it, it’s very reassuring. So, just learning how to understand what the defense is trying to do to us. That’s what I’ve learned from JC and I’m excited to learn a lot more and I’m excited to dominate alongside him.”

This season, Latham intends on bringing tons of energy to Alabama. In doing so, he expects to shock the world.

Tyler Booker says Alabama wants to make people quit

Under new offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, Alabama wants to be a physical football team. That has Tyler Booker and the offensive line excited as they try and make opponents quit.

“Knowing how he likes to call plays, I think he has the mentality for it, for sure. Just having an offensive coordinator who has that run-first mentality, has that, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna pass the ball as a complement to the run,’ that’s very reassuring to the offensive line, especially ours,” Booker said.

“We wanna make people quit this year, and there’s no better way to do that rather than to run the ball. So we’re gonna run the ball this year. We’re gonna pass the ball, as well, because we have a lot of talented guys at receiver and we have a lot of guys who can throw the ball very well. Just having that run-first mentality as an offensive line, that just gets us going because we wanna make people quit.”