Alabama’s first team offense wins a sloppy A-Day

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.–While the defense had seemingly won the first two scrimmages of the spring, it was the offense who took home the victory on A-Day.

Despite struggling at times, the first team offense White team of Alabama defeated the Crimson team 27-14 to complete spring practice for the Crimson Tide.

Quarterback Jake Coker took the field first for the White team and looked to be the most competent of the passers. The Crimson team rotated Cooper Bateman, David Cornwell and Blake Barnett — who switched teams during the game — but none of them did as well as Coker.

“This game was set up to try to look at the quarterbacks, to try to give them an opportunity,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said. “I think the guys that played with the second team, because of the offensive line, was not up to snuff and where it needs to be, relative to the second defensive line. They probably didn’t have the same opportunity to have success.”

Coker went 14-for-28 passing, throwing for 183 yards and one touchdown, with Robert Foster coming up a yard short on what should’ve been his second touchdown pass. He was also the only quarterback to not be “sacked,” which at A-Day is being touched by a defender.

Coker and the White team offense leaned heavily on wide receivers Foster and ArDarius Stewart, who were named co-MVPs for the game. Foster had six catches for 125 yards, while Stewart caught eight for 118 yards and two touchdowns.

Running backs Derrick Henry and Kenyan Drake also looked productive for the White team, even though Drake wore a non-contact jersey. Henry rushed for 53 yards and a touchdown during A-Day.

Cornwell had the second-most yardage of any quarterback, throwing for 110 yards and one touchdown with two interceptions. After Barnett switched over to the White team, he hit Stewart for a touchdown in the waning moments of the fourth quarter.

But the quarterbacks were not all perfect. Coker, Bateman, Cornwell, Alec Morris and Barnett combined for six interceptions for the game, and still managed to put points on the board. Through all of his positive play, Coker’s main mistake was throwing an interception that was returned for a 50-yard touchdown by Maurice Smith.

A crowd of 65,175 fans were on hand to see Coker run a restricted version of offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin’s schemes. The attendance is the ninth-highest in Alabama’s history, but the smallest spring game attendance number of Saban’s career in Tuscaloosa.

While A-Day is a decent litmus test of where Alabama is headed into the summer, it’s rarely indicative of what’s to come in the fall. Coker has a better grasp of the playbook, has learned how to throw it away, and also seems to have improved his decision-making barring that one interception, which all points to him being the favorite to start in the fall.

But Blake Sims didn’t look great in last year’s A-Day and he led the team to an SEC Championship.

It’s interesting to watch, and will be better once fall rolls around, but this 2015 Alabama team is far from settled.

“There can be no great conclusions drawn from anything that happened today, other than we were pleased in what we saw in some of the guys,” Saban said. “We will certainly take that into fall camp and summer and try to build on it. I was encouraged by the way the first offense played.”

What is settled is that offensive lineman Cam Robinson is a threat in the receiving game, and Kiffin likes his steak cooked medium well.