Everything Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama's first spring practice

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama held its first practice of the spring on Monday morning. After the Crimson Tide worked out in shorts and helmets, second-year head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to local reporters in the Hank Crisp Indoor Practice Facility. Here’s everything he said.

DeBoer on injuries…

“Before we get into questions and so forth, just want to – because I know you guys are all wondering on the updates with some guys injury-wise – so I’ll just read off the ones that will be out for the spring. A couple guys that are limited, too, and a couple that are full-go. Alex Asparuhov, he’ll be out. David Bird will be out – a long snapper. Bubba Hampton will be out. Kevonte Henry, Domani Jackson, Deontae Lawson, Danny Lewis, Keon Sabb. And then we have some guys that are limited really just to indie only and non-contact – Justin Jefferson, Kadyn Proctor, James Smith. Pretty much most of those injuries are all just from last season still and expected. Nothing new there from our standpoint. I know it’s probably new for you.”

DeBoer on Alabama’s first spring practice…

“But good to get out there Practice 1. It comes and goes fast. Guys did a nice job, workmanlike mentality. Just out there doing what they can, I think, just like they have been the first 6-7 weeks of training. Doing what they can to be their best and bring others with them. Good leadership, accountability from just requiring the maximum effort, maximum strain. And I liked what I saw.”

DeBoer on if injuries can be blessings in disguise for inexperienced players to get reps…

“With the list, yeah, there’s a lot of guys that are returners and upperclassmen, so yeah, there’s a chance to build some depth with our guys and get some younger guys a lot of reps.”

DeBoer on who he’s seen leadership from so far…

“I think it’s a bigger group because we do have a lot of guys that are returning. So there’s probably 10 guys that decided to come back, and I think all of those guys, along with any of the returners that were significant contributors – I mean, I could go on down the list. I just feel like maybe we don’t have someone who’s just over-the-top strong and one who commands all of it, but I think all of them working together and just kind of picking each other up on top of themselves, I think it’s in a good spot.

“And I expect it to be a lot better. But I think it’s at a good starting spot at this point of the year. Anything starts over with a team. It doesn’t matter if it’s the leadership, the installs, the drill work. It all starts over every single season.”

DeBoer on how he defines a successful spring…

“I think it’s always about just continuing to climb, continue to have progress. Challenged the guys out there. You’re either getting better or getting worse. That’s individually. That’s us collectively. It’s your side of the ball. And so I think that’s a good starting point is which direction did you go? And I expect a great attitude. Energy, effort, all that, it’s always going to be that Practice 1, and I expect that every single practice. But there are some times where a guy maybe is coming back from injury or a rep that didn’t go as well. We’ve gotta pick each other up. And that’s, to me, it’s either you’re going up or you’re going down. That’s what I’m always gonna gauge it by. Because in the end goal, it’s to be our best and to your best individually.”

DeBoer on if Ryan Grubb will gravitate more to the offensive line…

“I think Coach Grubb will always still be involved with the quarterbacks. I just am a strong believer that your play-caller has to be around the quarterbacks. But on your note, you’re very right. It allows him to just do what you want a coordinator to do, that’s oversee every position, and he certainly has a lot of history and background with the offensive line. So I think there’s eyes that start in certain spots when you’re a coordinator beyond just the quarterback, and I think a lot of times his eyes, yeah, he can see it all. He can see them line up on the perimeter. But he also is really feeling and seeing and has an intuition on what’s going on up front on the offensive line. That’s really good with he and Coach Kap.”

DeBoer on if the quarterback battle solved itself today…

“Solve itself? No. No, it’s something that — they’re all at different points. Few things procedure-wise that were a little different. Good to see those guys all operate through that. They had their times where, of course, they looked really good and times where they got to continue to grow and get better.”

DeBoer on Keelon Russell’s added weight…

“I saw him last summer, you know, and I saw him in person for one game last fall. He’s in pads and all that at time, too. He looks good right now. Strong and moves around. He’s just a good all-around athlete. The weight program, certainly for any new guy is going to be critical. It’s good to get that first phase under your belt. That’s why being an early enrollee is so important. Obviously now and through the spring, the reason — there’s multiple reasons, but one of the reasons why we go every other day and not back-to-back ever is just so we can get big days of lifting in, really, a minimum three times a week.”

DeBoer on the plan for left tackle with Kadyn Proctor out…

“It’ll be a combination because we don’t want — we got to have some guys that can move out [from guard] because we’re thin at that position, especially when you look at the experience at that position. We have a couple guys we can move out. Olaus played a little bit of tackle, a couple snaps. But we want to make sure he can focus on guard, too. So as we go through the spring, we just didn’t want to throw a bunch of freshmen out there with the ones or some younger guys. That was kind of one of the rotations we used in one of the team periods today, for example.”

DeBoer on if Michael Carroll will play guard or tackle…

“He took some reps there today. You don’t want to — especially for a young guy — there’s a lot of, what I call, bullets flying. You don’t want to make it harder than it needs to be for him. But you try to keep him in the same position for multiple practices, but also that flexibility for a guy like Michael does exist. He does have that frame where he could play some tackle, but even though, like you said, he down the road — end game — probably more of a guard.

“But that’s what I love about some of the guys. They’re athletes. They are versatile. They can play maybe not all five spots because that gets a little confusing, but they can play right side, left side. Right tackle, left tackle. Right guard, left guard. Interior guys you try to get to learn center, as well.”

DeBoer on what he wants to see from the eventual winner of the QB battle…

“Well, I mean it’s got to be a guy who can deliver the ball, command the huddle, command everything we do with the team. That presence, that belief and confidence in your signal caller. It starts with a lot of that — just the belief. The belief comes because you’re making the throws and you’re getting the ball in a fashion where they can go make their plays and reap the rewards of all the work they’ve put in.”

DeBoer on Keelon Russell’s readiness compared to other freshmen QBs…

“He’s up there. He certainly is. He’s got a long way to go because I think that’s the way he looks at it. He’s excited about what this growth’s going to be even during this spring. But his ceiling and what he accomplished through what you can see on the high school film, he’s a pretty elite quarterback coming in as a high school senior, current freshman for us.”

DeBoer on how the bowl prep benefited Alabama’s young linebackers…

“Really those guys being here for the pre-bowl practices, that was really good. Abduall, Luke, Duke— all three of those guys really got a feel. It’s a social thing, too, just getting comfortable with some of the relationships. And then they get here, and they’re already kind of off and rolling. In some ways it ain’t gonna be long, and we’re not going to think of all of these early enrollees, not as freshmen any more. We’re going to think of them as almost sophomores.”

DeBoer on a thin tight room with Danny Lewis out…

“You’re right. Certainly are. We’ve got some belief, and we love what Josh Cuevas can do. As far as numbers and guys that have a lot of experience, we certainly are thin there. We expect Danny by the summer to be back and rolling. He knows our system, it’s just a matter of the progress we want to see him make. Getting the reps that would’ve been his.

“It’s unfortunate that he has his injury, something again going back to last fall during the season, but there’s some other guys who are going to hop in there. You’ve got J, and you’ve got Peter who came in and just some other guys who are taking a good chance to take advantage, and they get to develop, too. We’re going to need them this fall when the season hits.”

DeBoer on in-helmet communication at linebacker with veterans sidelined…

“Right now, we’re not concerned about how many are on the field, so multiple guys can hear the communication. We’re not under those regulations in practice. It’s good for all of them to get that experience. We’ll go with the veteran guys. Deontae this fall will probably be the primary guy. Justin will be the No. 2. Both of those guys are out, so there’s a lot of stuff being thrown at some new faces on the defense when it comes to communication and the green dot.”

DeBoer on Alabama’s wide receiver room, Miami transfer Isaiah Horton…

“It’s a room that got longer. Jalen Hale coming back, he was here, but just not with us because of his injury, Isaiah and even a young guy in Derek Meadows. The room in general when you look at them is longer, taller. 

“Isaiah, in particular, since you asked, just a lot of production. He’s been out there. The lights aren’t going to be too bright for him. You can see just his focus in the phase of workouts that we had. It’s important to him. He came here for a reason because he wanted to be pushed. He wanted to be challenged. He wanted to come around here. He wasn’t scared of competition— some guys that are in the program like Germ and Ryan that had a lot of production themselves. He added to the room, and we’re excited about his personality, his attitude he brings. It’s been nothing but positive.”

DeBoer on what A-Day might look like…

“I guess I would consider last year’s spring game, A-Day, probably a modified game. We didn’t split teams up. We talked about the O-line depth, talked about the tight end depth and we’ll see how the spring goes. To me it’s just something where we want to have controlled reps, so lining up and getting something out of the practice. Because I think all 15 practices that we get are really important, getting something out of that.

“And as we go through the spring, we’ll continue to figure out where we’re at, to see what we want to do when it comes to the day itself. So we want to make it a great celebration for our fan base. We want to put some football out there because we know everyone associated with our program can’t wait for April 12, but we also gotta do what’s right for us. So that’s kind of something as we get closer that I can probably give you more info on.”

DeBoer on what his mindset after bowl game, what he wants to build on from last season…

“It first just starts with work. Just put in the work and just show up and focus only on the day. I barely even wanted to give the guys the schedule of March and what it looked like, other than that I just needed to tell them what day they need to be back from spring break. We’ve been so focused just on that day and that day only, not getting ahead of ourselves. They definitely don’t know anything about what the spring game would look like, because really, we focused on today, and tomorrow we’ll have a team meeting just to focus on learning from today and taking from that.

“So it’s not getting ahead of ourselves. It’s just coming in and working. And example of just even our winter workouts, our fourth quarter, it’s never focusing on, and it’s kind of related to this same topic, it’s never about trying to see or wonder, what’s this workout all going to involve? Or, can I make it through it? It’s about going as hard as you can that rep. And you might not make it through the whole thing because there’s no gas left in the tank.

“But you can see this competitive stamina continue to build throughout the fourth quarter workouts, because guys just gave it everything they had that rep, then they focused on the next one. And I really love the mindset and that’s one example of how we’re trying to approach it.”

DeBoer on the FOX Nation documentary on Alabama’s 2024 season…

“I think it’s good. There’s just so many people who don’t understand these guys and their stories. I think that’s what you really want to come out and what I think we wanted, I know we wanted in a documentary was, there’s so many really neat personalities, characters on our team. Just learning their journey, you know they all have a story. There’s football, right? In order to have something around Alabama Crimson Tide football, there’s got to be some shots of games, locker room, I know people like to see that because you’re not in there with us.

“But it really was actually not much of a distraction. There was one camera around practice really the entire time. So, I love that maybe there’s some interviews or the camera went home with some guys and we get to learn more about their families. We know a lot about them, but I think there’s probably been something here or there that I’ve actually learned, even watching it, that’s really deep and something I didn’t know going back to their childhood days, especially only being here one year.

“But I think it’s been cool. Share with everyone the journey, but also get a chance to be in the facilities and the program maybe a little bit more than most would have the chance to. 

DeBoer on his daughter, Alexis, hitter home run vs. Alabama…

“It was a cool moment. Proud of her. I think when it comes to your kids, you want what they want. You want them to be happy. I’m that dad coach, so I love seeing the response to adversity, but you also want your kid to enjoy those moments that you work so hard for. So I’m really proud of her and everything she does. It’s not just being a softball player, but being a person. It’s not easy being a coach’s kid sometimes, so the way she handles it along with the rest of my family, my other daughter as well, certainly proud of them.”

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