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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama may have more changes on the offensive line than expected, and not just at center where junior Ryan Kelly will be out at least a couple of weeks with a sprained knee.
During the observation period of Monday’s practice, Alphonse Taylor was practicing at left guard, while Arie Kouandjio was being held out of anything involving any contact. Kouandjio had spoken to reporters earlier in the day, but said nothing about an injury.
Senior Leon Brown was at right guard with the first unit. During last Saturday’s 23-16 loss at Ole Miss he was pulled at the end of the third quarter and Taylor inserted. It went largely unnoticed due to Kelly’s injury and the problems the offense was having getting snaps off.
“We have to make the guys who are playing there better,” Coach Nick Saban said on Monday. “I think Leon actually played better in this game, to his credit. Shank got an opportunity to play and he actually played better in this game.
“I know for fans there’s always hope. Put the other quarterback in. Kick the other kicker. Well, if they were better we’d play them to start with. So we have to make the people we have better. And they’re capable of playing better and we’re certainly going to do everything we can to support them and helping them do that.”
Alabama ran behind the right side of the line only a few times against the Rebels, including a third-and-1 that was stonewalled. Brown had a false start penalty and was bowled by Robert Nkemdiche on Alabama’s second possession of the game.
After Kelly’s injury, redshirt freshman Bradley Bozeman was inserted and the offense had numerous problems. The first play resulted in a false start and on the next series coaches had to call two timeouts to avoid delay-of-game penalties.
“It’s a big loss,” senior guard Arie Kouandjio said about Kelly. “ Things are going to change with a different guy. At the same time I don’t think it changed too much. They’ve been practicing to be pretty consistent. I don’t think it was too bad.
“I thought it was a pretty good job for his first shot.”
Alabama’s other options at center are true freshman Josh Casher, who made the trip to Ole Miss as the backup left guard and emergency center, and J.C. Hassenauer.
“Well, it’s not a position where you can just throw a guy in and say, ‘OK, you play center now,’ that you’ve never played before,” Saban said. “You’ve got to snap the ball. You have to be able to step and snap the ball. Most players who haven’t played center are not accustomed to doing that.
“We can’t just move the right tackle to center and say, ‘Be a center.’ It doesn’t work that way,” Saban said. “I wish we could, so we could sort of always have our five best guys out there, but the center is the one position that a guy has to – whether it’s shotgun snaps, quarterback-center exchange – there’s a lot of things that need to happen correctly before you ever go block the guy you have to block.
“These are the guys that we’ve tried to develop at this position, so that’s the way we have to go right now.”
Meanwhile, sophomore Grant Hill, who had been the backup left tackle, is still out with an illness. Saban said he hopes to return to practice sometime this week. Freshman Ross Pierschbacher, who was an emergency option on the left side of the line at Ole Miss, was practicing at right guard behind Brown. Dominick Jackson was the second-unit right tackle.
T.J. Yeldon (hamstring) and Derrick Henry (shoulder) also appeared to be limited, with sophomore Altee Tenpenney leading the running back drills. With Denzel Devall (ankle) out Dillon Lee was working with the outside linebackers.
No. 7 Alabama visits Arkansas on Saturday (6 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.
