Nick Saban has said that he’s giving each of his quarterbacks a chance this spring, and Saturday’s A-Day spring game was no different. All five quarterbacks saw action before the first half concluded, and the Alabama quarterbacks threw a combined six interceptions on the day. Still, QB Jake Coker played well overall and exited the game with the better performance of the group.

Coker’s first half was quite impressive throwing 10 of 16 for 147 yards and a touchdown. He dialed up the talented WR Robert Foster several times, and at the half, most of the talk was about how impressive Coker had been. A mixed second half with a third-quarter pick-six dampened the mood some, but overall, Coker played well overall.

Coming into A-Day, redshirt freshman David Cornwell had been in a tight race with Coker, but Cornwell failed to impress with two interceptions thrown in the fourth quarter.

When asked about the turnovers, Saban’s post-game comments on the SEC Network told the story: “Like I said, now we know what we got to dael with.. we’ve turned the ball over way too much all spring long. One of the big emphasis was for the offense to take care of the ball and we obviously have to do a better job at that. I think the quarterbacks will learn from those experiences and we’ll get better because of it.”

With regards to the quarterback competition, Saban was non-committal: “It’s really not fair to make that judgment because some guys played with the better players, and other guys didn’t have very good offensive lines…they didn’t have as good of skill guys because we don’t have a lot of depth there. So it’s not really fair to assess. But I’m happy with the way several of the guys handled the situations they were in. Jake played pretty well. We’ll see where we’re at, and go from there, and invest our time accordingly.”

Other notes from the spring game:

  • Alabama announced an attendance at 65,175 for A-Day.
  • The Alabama defensive players enjoyed passing the “Ball Out Champion” pro-wrestling style championship belt back and forth after each turnover. The belt has been a motivational tool all spring for the defense to encourage the pursuit of forced fumbles and interception opportunities. As Saban mentioned in his post-game comments, taking the ball away has been an emphasis for the defensive players all spring. They did plenty of that during the spring game.
  • Kenyan Drake returning to the field after suffering his broken leg injury last season was a welcomed sight for Alabama fans. Drake looked healthy, though he played the game in a no-contact black jersey.
  • Nick Saban and his staff were all business most of the day, but made room for some fun in the 4th quarter when the Alabama offense ran a throw-back pass to 320-lb offensive tackle Cam Robinson who caught it before being gang tackled by most of the defense.
  • Alabama has to be pleased with the wide receivers as they seek to replace the production of the departed Amari Cooper.