While Alabama won’t be playing a traditional A-Day game in 2025 – indeed, Alabama might not ever play a traditional A-Day game again, nor might any other school – there will be a public practice to close the spring, non-televised.
Given the way the 2024 season ended for Alabama, there is significant fan interest regarding exactly how Kalen DeBoer plans to avoid some of the pitfalls that led to a four-loss season, and especially regarding the way Alabama played in at least two of those losses (Tennessee and Oklahoma). The following are five questions – and some potential answers – regarding those changes as spring practice winds up.
1. What is the fate of Bama’s offensive design now that Jalen Milroe is no longer the QB?
Any time there is a change under center from one season to the next, that position automatically becomes the position of greatest concern. It’s especially true this offseason given the erratic play of Jalen Milroe in 2024, the upcoming NFL Draft and three distinct QB personalities vying for the job in spring camp.
One mock draft has Milroe going possibly as high as the second overall pick to Cleveland. While that would certainly be a surprise to us, we don’t think Milroe will last beyond the top to top-middle of the second round regardless of concerns about his play. Milroe, as expected, tested off the charts physically this offseason, and since NFL general managers love trends, Milroe will likely be the beneficiary of the trend of athletic former Alabama quarterbacks getting a shot in the pros. We’re specifically talking about Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa.
What’s left behind in Tuscaloosa is one of the most talented three-man depth charts of any team in the country. Ty Simpson flashed at times as Milroe’s backup in 2024, Washington transfer Austin Mack was so highly thought-of by the DeBoer staff that they moved on from Julian Sayin and brought Mack with them from the UW program, and then there’s Keelon Russell, the consensus No. 1 recruit of the 2024-2025 cycle.
Early reports indicate that Simpson is putting some early distance between himself and the Mack-Russell combo, with no clear No. 2 emerging at this time. A lot of Bama fans expected Russell not to just break away from Mack early, but to challenge Simpson for the starting the job. The former may yet happen, but the latter currently is not happening.
The big question is what all this does to Alabama’s offensive style. With Ryan Grubb replacing Nick Sheridan as offensive coordinator, Alabama is expected to throw the ball more in 2025 and be more wide-open with its offensive concepts. Sheridan’s gameplans often looked to make use of Milroe’s ability as a pseudo-running back, and when it worked, it was genius. But it didn’t work often enough, especially down the stretch. Grubb will be tasked with making the backfield running game more effective – Jam Miller and Justice Haynes were disappointing in 2024 – while at the same time giving the quarterback more responsibility.
This will depend on what appears to be growing confidence in Simpson winning the job. He has drawn comparisons to Bo Nix, Andy Dalton and a less frenetic Johnny Manziel; the primary goal for Simpson will be how quickly he can get comfortable under center and get used to the speed of SEC defenses, as he will likely have just one year at the helm before heading off the NFL himself.
2. If Alabama wants to throw more, it will need better receivers. What’s the story there?
In 2024, Alabama had two wide receivers that could play for anyone (Ryan Williams, Germie Bernard) and no one else who looked ready to play for anyone else. Two receivers emerged, one in the spring (Jalen Hale) and another in fall camp (Cole Adams), but then Hale was lost for the season with a leg injury and Adams was injured multiple times in the first third of the regular season and ultimately had to shut it down. More frustrating was the fact that a pair of promising upperclassmen, Kobe Prentice and Kendrick Law, failed in multiple opportunities to become the regular third receiver; both have since left the program.
For 2025, Alabama has already made a concerted effort to get bigger. Miami transfer Isaiah Horton is 6’4” and very physical, and is the odds-on favorite to become the third starter. Hale and Adams are back, and redshirt freshman Rico Scott emerged at the tail end of the year, started the bowl game and looked generally promising. Alabama also added a pair of talented true freshmen, Lotzeir Brooks and Derek Meadows. While Brooks is a slot-type receiver – and is expected to be an early contributor – Meadows arrived on campus ahead of schedule physically and is nearly 6’6”. Converted cornerback Jaylen Mbakwe also has promise.
Looking at DeBoer’s Washington teams, the Huskies liked to focus on 6-7 players at the receiver spot, which means a couple will be left out of the regular rotation barring further injuries. Aeryn Hampton is missing spring with an injury, but that still leaves 9 players to compete for snaps.
It will also be interesting to see what Bama does with the tight end spot. Gone are C.J. Dippre and Robbie Ouzts, big-frame tight ends who ended up becoming regular contributors as receivers. Danny Lewis Jr. is expected to start at one of the spots this fall, but he is missing the spring with injury. That leaves just Josh Cuevas as a returning contributor, and Cuevas is more at home as an H-back or even slot receiver than he is an on-the-line tight end. As a result, the depth chart is really just theoretical right now. Redshirt freshman Jay Lindsey would probably be the starter at Y if Bama played a game today. Former Mississippi State offensive lineman Jayden Hobson would back him up. Cuevas would start at H ahead of senior Peter Knudson, who transferred from Weber State, walk-on Peyton Fox and signee Marshall Pritchett, who has flashed as a receiver but who needs to add weight. Bama swapped walk-on defensive lineman Lane Whisenhunt over to tight end this spring to bolster numbers.
The Y position, Dippre’s old slot and the one Lewis is expected to eventually fill, will likely go to a player who is primarily a blocker, as Bama tries to re-establish the running game.
3. The OL needs to show substantial improvement, quickly. Is it possible with this group?
It’s basically two questions: Can the tackle group improve, and can guard Tyler Booker be replaced?
The second question is the easier one to answer: Alabama won’t have the same talent going forward that it had in Booker, but it might have a player more suited to the offensive style. Booker was able to fit at left guard because despite being the larger-frame OL favored by the Nick Saban staff, he was uncommonly quick on his feet, and his leadership skills filled in a lot of gaps. There’s a reason Booker is 50/50 to go in the first round of the upcoming NFL Draft.
Replacing him will likely be one of three players – seniors Geno VanDeMark or Kam Dewberry, both former transfers, or sophomore Olaus Alinen, who has been a pleasant surprise so far this spring. VanDeMark got off to a slow start in 2024 after transferring in from Michigan State, but he finished the year as the de facto sixth starter on the line and can play all three interior positions as well as potentially filling in at right tackle. Dewberry, a Texas A&M transfer, is a big body who is regarded as a talented run blocker. Alinen is somewhat in the middle of the two. VanDeMark probably has the inside track at the moment, but his versatility is so prized that Bama may want to insert him strategically at multiple positions rather than have him stuck in one place. If something were to happen to center Parker Brailsford, VanDeMark would probably become the starter there.
The other question is much more difficult to answer, because for the second straight year, Alabama won’t have LT Kadyn Proctor available for spring practice. Proctor fought multiple injuries in 2024 but the worst was by far a shoulder injury that probably should have ended his season early. He’s taking the spring off to have it surgically (and hopefully, permanently) corrected, but his absence creates a vacuum of sorts, as true freshman Jackson Lloyd is filling the position in his absence. Ideally, Lloyd would be competing at right tackle against Wilkin Formby and Casey Poe. The one silver lining is that in addition to creating snaps for Lloyd at left tackle, Bama is getting a significant look at Ball State transfer Arkel Anugwom, a raw prospect who has been playing football now for less than 3 years. Anugwom has grown several inches and put on substantial weight over the last couple of offseasons, so taking him in the transfer portal made a lot of sense as sort of a lottery-ticket grab. The problem, though, is that adding Proctor in fall camp reshuffles the deck again, and Bama won’t have a clear picture of what it either has or doesn’t have until the season actually starts.
4. The running game was a stealth reason for Bama’s struggles in 2024. Will it be better?
Jam Miller and Justice Haynes got out of the gate quickly in 2024 but by the middle of the year, the Bama running game was basically Jalen Milroe and nobody else. Haynes was particularly a disappointment given the expectations he brought with him as a recruit. Whether the problem was Miller and Haynes being exposed as average, the struggles of the offensive line, or the offense’s design, the end result was that Bama became a team that lived and died almost solely on what Milroe could muster from the QB spot.
Haynes left the program over the break, but Miller is back and, by all reports so far this spring, is having a much better time of things in his second camp as the starter. The backup will likely be either Richard Young, who flashed at times in 2024, or Louisiana transfer Dre’lyn Washington. Other players, like big Daniel Hill, scatback Kevin Riley and talented signee Akylin Dear, will also get their shots.
As to the question of whether this group will find significantly more success in 2025, a lot will depend on what happens up front along the offensive line, but also will depend greatly on how Grubb and DeBoer leverage the running game. In DeBoer’s final year at Washington, Mississippi State transfer Dillon Johnson came just shy of breaking the 1,200-yard mark as UW’s starter, but the Huskies ranked just 104th at 118.4 yards per game as a team. Those numbers are so at odds with one another that it’s hard to say whether Washington ran the ball well or not; at least Johnson certainly did. That leads to the question of whether 118.4 yards per game gets the job done in the SEC.
In our initial pre-spring story, we hinted that it wouldn’t surprise us to see Washington take over for Miller as Alabama’s primary running back. While that doesn’t seem to be on the verge of happening, it’s clear that Alabama will have to use the running backs more frequently in 2025 with Milroe gone, and the running game can’t sputter again like it did a year ago if the Crimson Tide wants to have any kind of postseason success.
5. Good SEC teams have deep defensive lines. Does Alabama?
If Alabama gets the kind of good injury luck on the defensive line that it did in 2024, all things considered, Alabama has enough depth. But it’s a pretty narrow shot.
Tim Keenan elected to return, as did James Smith. They’re the only two proven big bodies Alabama has and two of only three players Alabama has seen plug into the middle and actually stop offenses from moving the ball. Alabama got a very brief, but eye-opening performance from Jeremiah Beaman against Michigan, which means that the Tide might be able to weather the loss of Damon Payne to the transfer portal.
In order to know whether that will be enough, one would have to know the ultimate goal for the DeBoer staff regarding size of defensive linemen, because the “sweet spot” for Bama under the DeBoer staff seems to be quicker, smaller linemen in the 270-280 pound range. Florida transfer Kelby Collins fits that profile, as does Edric Hill, L.T. Overton, Jah-Marien Latham and Jordan Renaud. Isaia Faga is another. Signee London Simmons is bigger, but he won’t join the team until the summer.
As a going concern, Alabama will need to add several players to the defensive line over this recruiting cycle. Keenan will be headed to the pros after this season, and Smith seems no worse than a 50-50 bet assuming a good year. That would leave Alabama with only five true tackles across two positions, not nearly enough to cover a season in the SEC. Will DeBoer’s emphasis on speed help make up some of the difference?
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN