Alabama Fall Camp Battle + Player Making a Leap: Day 5

Each day of fall camp, we will look at a battle for a position or role on the Alabama football team along with a player who is making a leap. Most players improve year-to-year but you are always hopeful some critical players are making a big leap forward in their development. Fall camp is the time to do it.

UA Fall Camp Battle

A new position at Alabama is the husky spot, which is basically a nickel corner role. Under Nick Saban, this position was referred to as ‘star’. The husky position is super similar to the star position but under Kane Wommack, I think the preference is always going to be for more of a physical presence. Saban often utilized a cover specialist at this spot (Terrion Arnold played there quite a bit last season) but Wommack is going to target more legit ‘safeties’ for this unique position.

There is a fun battle for the starting spot. The favorite is veteran redshirt junior, Devonta Smith. Smitty dealt with injury issues in 2023 that kept him out of the regular lineup for most of the season. He was banged up even at the start of Spring ’24. That allowed true freshman Red Morgan to slide into the husky role and he saw significant time with the 1s in the spring and he became one of the bigger stories on the team in March/April.

Smitty returned to the starting role at husky prior to the latter portion of spring practices and he ran with the 1s on A-Day. When Fall Camp began, Devonta was back with the 1s at husky and continues in that spot to present day. However, when speaking to the assembled UA beat media crew today, Kane Wommack was highly complementary of the freshman, Red Morgan. So was safeties Coach Colin Hitschler. It’s clear they are sky-high on young Morgan.

Smitty is the favorite, he’s the veteran. But nothing is settled. We can’t rule out young Red making a real run at a starting spot over the course of the season. He’s clearly not making it easy on the more veteran player.

Player Making a Leap

An assumed starter in the Alabama defensive backfield is USC transfer, junior Domani Jackson. The former five-star cornerback spent two years in the Pac 12 before arriving in Tuscaloosa in January. He was a “1” throughout the Spring and continues in that role through five days of Fall Camp.

Why is he a candidate to make a big leap forward in his development this Fall? This guy hasn’t actually played a ton of football. It’s crazy when you think about it.

Last season, 2023, he was a full-time starting cornerback at USC. It wasn’t always pretty. And this is part of the reason why — very, very little game experience.

In 2022, he was a true freshman. He didn’t play a ton. Most true freshman don’t. So, he did not gain much game experience and that was understandable.

In 2021, his senior season at Mater Dei, he was injured and lost for the year very early. He hardly saw any game action at all.

In 2020, his junior year at Mater Dei, that was the Covid year … schedules in California were limited to non-existent.

In 2019, he was a sophomore in high school. Sure, he played some high school football in 2019. It’s crazy we have to go back that far.

So that’s what … one full season of starting football games for Domani? Now coming off that experience, Domani can finally develop all this raw talent. He told the media just today “I feel like a sophomore”, and he was referencing that lack of game experience at this level. Or, heck, any level.

A kid like that … it would not be crazy at all to see him take a tremendous step forward in his development. Sure, he is a returning starter at the Power Four level but he is a strong candidate to make a big leap.

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