TUSCALOOSA, Ala. _ As far as Nick Saban remembers he’s never had a true freshman start a season opener at left tackle.

Andre Smith had done so for his predecessor at the University of Alabama, and James Carpenter started his first game as a junior-college transfer in 2009. Yet when Cam Robinson takes the field Saturday against West Virginia in Atlanta (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN2), it’ll be new territory for everyone involved.

“Pretty much all I’m going to tell him is don’t let the crowd affect you, and there’s going to be a lot of noise,” said Austin Shepherd, who a year ago made his debut as a starter at the Georgia Dome, albeit as a junior right tackle.

“You kind of just have to X-out of everything, just play. Look at your player and don’t think about anything around you or your surroundings.”

Although Alabama’s unresolved quarterback competition between Jacob Coker and Blake Sims has drawn far more attention, coaches claim to be comfortable with either taking snaps. Consequently, the position group that might have the biggest impact on the Crimson Tide’s offense this season is the line.

The old sayings hold true: It won’t matter who the passer is if he doesn’t have good protection, and similarly the outstanding backfield trio of T.J. Yeldon, Derrick Henry and Kenyan Drake need holes to run through.

Considering that there will be a new quarterback regardless, the best way to take pressure off him will be with the running game.

“I tried to work on my run blocking the most because I felt that’s what I struggled with the most last year,” Shepherd said. “I feel like I’ve improved tremendous strides with that.”

Granted, Alabama had a good offense last year, but the line definitely dipped from 2012 – which is really an unfair comparison considering that the Crimson Tide had three All-Americans in 2012 with Barrett Jones playing alongside Chance Warmack and D.J. Fluker (the 10th- and 11th-overall selections in the subsequent draft).

The three players who replaced them now form the core of the line as returning starters, with Shepherd, Ryan Kelly at center and Arie Kouandjio the coaches’ preseason All-SEC selection at left guard.

“I think our communication was our biggest problem last year,” Shepherd said. “With three new starters we didn’t really know how to interact. I think that’s one thing we fixed in camp this year. We’ve kind of taught the younger guys how to interact with us.

“When someone makes a call, they echo it to me or Cam. We don’t always hear what’s going on inside because it gets loud. So that’s the biggest thing. Kelly will make a call and Shank will just echo it out to me so we can all just be on the same page.”

“Shank,” of course, is massive right guard Alphonse Taylor, who has taken all the first-unit snaps so far even though that wasn’t the original plan. Senior Leon Brown was the starter for both the Sugar Bowl and A-Day, the final scrimmage of spring practices, but sustained an offseason foot injury.

Coaches hoped that junior-college transfer Dominick Jackson would immediately challenge to start as well, but he missed nearly half of training camp with a high ankle sprain. For now both are listed as backups.

“We think he can be a really good player,” Saban said about Jackson. “Now he’s back in practice and Leon’s back in practice. That helps us depth-wise and as to who might be the starters at those positions somewhere down the road. I know all those guys want to play but it’s a long season.”

In addition to the strong hints that one or both might eventually end up in the starting lineup Saban also made it clear during training camp that he wanted to see the line be more physical. This will be the first real indication if things have improved since the last scrimmage, held two weeks ago.

“We always want to go up to his standards and I don’t believe that we can ever be there,” Kouandjio said of Saban’s never-ended drive. “I’m sure he’d like us to keep increasing our physicality in a sense and that’s what we’re out to do.”

As for Robinson, if he develops like Smith or Carpenter he’ll be in pretty good company. Smith won the Outland Trophy, became an All-American and like Carpenter was taken in the first round of the NLF Draft. Jones also won the Outland the season he filled in at tackle and this past spring Cyrus Kounadjio was a second-round pick in the NFL Draft.

“He’s just huge,” Shepherd said about Robinson. “He’s a big guy for being just 18 years old. He’s really going to be something special. He has good hands, good feet.”