Penalties were down, use of new technology was up in first Alabama scrimmage
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Penalties happen in football. Especially early in the preseason.
But Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer was pleased with the amount of flags – or lack thereof – that were thrown on the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Saturday’s closed scrimmage.
“I thought we did a lot better job today,” DeBoer said. “Really did a really good job actually when I think about it. I don’t know the number, but very few.”
Alabama spent two hours in full pads and ran 102 plays inside its home stadium, in what was its ninth practice of fall camp. While the 2023 season is only three weeks away, it’s still early in the preseason, but the Crimson Tide has seemingly prioritized playing clean football.
Last year, Alabama finished fourth in the SEC and tied for 49th nationally in penalties per game (5.6). Washington, with DeBoer at the helm, was even lower at 7.5 flags per game, which ranks 11th in the now-former Pac-12 and tied for 125th in all of FBS. However, the former head coach of the Huskies has liked what he saw from his new team on Saturday morning.
For Alabama, with it implementing a new offense and defense because of the coaching change, a simple but big point of emphasis this preseason has been simply lining up in the right spot and things, from a procedural standpoint, going well. Coaches have praised some of the young guys in that area, and DeBoer didn’t recall many mental errors from the scrimmage.
“The offense maybe drew the defense off one time,” DeBoer said. “So just procedure-wise, I don’t know if there was any false starts offensively. No illegal formations, no movements. If there was, maybe it was one that I can’t remember, but that’s where I think we were pretty clean.
“So the mental mistakes, or what I would call a foolish penalty where we’re just not sharp, really kind of honed in on that here. So I think we took the next step with the other penalties, too. I don’t know if we got any holding calls out there. We had one kind of illegal block back, crackback block that was really good for us to actually have happen because we can learn from that and talk through that. Maybe one pass interference.
“The penalties were really down and minimal. So I like the way we’re having some urgency, and we’ll move around offensively. The guys are all getting set, so all the processes that we have in place, the guys are doing a really good job.”
Alabama DL vs. OL (Courtesy of UA Athletics)
Alabama tests out new technology in scrimmage
Scrimmaging inside the stadium has plenty of benefits, but this time of year, it helps the coaches to prepare their players for what to expect during games this fall, especially all that is new.
Coaches can now talk with one player on each side of the ball when they’re not together on the sideline thanks to in-helmet communication. Alabama has been practicing that since the spring, but practicing in the stadium helps the players get a better feel for the next month.
“Really trying to take advantage of being in here,” DeBoer said. “You’ve got the coach-to-player communication. We use that every day in practice. It shuts off with 15 seconds, but really simulated with the officials and what that looks like pretty much down to the second. So got some good work there.”
Quarterbacks and inside linebackers will be the players sporting green dots on their helmets this season thanks to the new rule, but others will be able to access other new technologies.
Also new this fall are tablets. Alabama will be using iPads and can have up to 18 of them in the coaching booth in the press box, sideline and locker room. According to the NCAA, the video on the tablets can include “the broadcast feed and camera angles from the coach’s sideline and coach’s end zone” but cannot include analytics, data or data access capability.”
All team personnel will be allowed to view the tablets during the game, and Alabama was able to work those into their scrimmage time on Saturday, three weeks before the season starts.
“We took two breaks of six minutes or so, just to get on the sideline and be able to understand what that looks like,” DeBoer said. “Because at this point, we aren’t really able to practice that in our complex during normal practices.
“Just using that and really understanding what the benefit is to take advantage of the confirmation or learning opportunities that can happen in between drives during the breaks that we had today, but also not dwelling on it so much as to where it affects our mindset and where our poise and confidence is heading into the next drive.”
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