Kalen DeBoer provides special teams update that could worry Alabama fans after finally seeing years of sustained success at kicker and punter
Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to the media following the Crimson Tide’s second scrimmage of fall camp and provided an update on Alabama’s specialists.
Alabama football has a monumental task ahead on special teams.
The Crimson Tide are attempting to replace all three of its specialists — including kicker, punter and long snapper — from a season ago. For the second-straight offseason, the starting kicker must be replaced after losing Graham Nicholson to graduation. Not only that, but multi-year starters James Burnip and Kneeland Hibbett are both in the NFL now, so this is the most turnover that Alabama has seen in a while.
David Bird has transferred in after two seasons at Cal, and he seems to have a firm grip on the long snapping duties vacated by Hibbett. Blake Doud, a transfer from Colorado School of Mines, continues to battle it out with freshman Alex Asparuhov to be Burnip’s replacement at punter. And after sitting for the past two seasons behind Will Reichard and Nicholson, Conor Talty is now expected to replace the latter at kicker.
After Alabama’s second fall camp scrimmage on Saturday, Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer was asked about how the specialists were coming along. His response started by addressing the punters, which included Doud doing well in camp and Asparuhov making encouraging strides working his way back from an injury that forced him to miss spring practice.
“I think punting wise, Blake has done a really nice job,” DeBoer told reporters. “Last Saturday here was really the best day I’d seen him have. I think he continued to have a really good week. Then today, came out and in our drill work – we didn’t get as many punts working into the scrimmage as I was hoping to, we were probably two or three less than I was looking for with the partial script of what we wanted to get done. He’s had a really good eight days.”
“I think Alex continues to get better and push just with his injury that he had. He’s so far ahead of schedule with his recovery, so he’s really getting into that rhythm and showing a lot of improvement there.”
Those are the encouraging updates.
So between those and knowing Bird has been reliable at long snapper, you can at least feel good about two of the three specialists positions. Talty is a little more uncertain right now though. No, it hasn’t reached a panic level yet, not even close, but DeBoer did mention that the Chicago (Ill.) native has struggled some in the two scrimmages that were held inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.
“Conor’s done a really good job on campus in the complex,” DeBoer said. “Last week, he missed, I’m not sure what it was. We’ve got to keep getting work in the stadium here, he missed a couple today. From a field goal standpoint the ones further out probably 40, 38-to-44, somewhere in there between a couple of those. Got to keep getting in the work. I was disappointed he didn’t hit them all because he’s done a nice job in practice. We’ve been working that every day with him being new and that whole unit being new. We got to keep working.”
Obviously, that sort of update is going to concern fans. Nicholson wasn’t anything to write home about a season ago, but he also wasn’t asked to do much. He only attempted 10 field goals, converting eight of them while making all 53 of his extra point attempts. The previous five seasons included Will Reichard, arguably the most reliable kicker in school history.
It’s still too early to panic though. Talty is still adjusting to his added role after only handling kickoffs last year.
