Is Kendall Randolph one answer? Is JC Latham another?
A surface look at the offensive tackles who worked with Alabama’s first-team offense in Saturday’s annual A-Day scrimmage would suggest not.
A deeper one, however, reveals all sorts of reasons why it’s far too soon for Alabama fans to press any panic buttons about what was Alabama’s most crucial competition of the spring. The Crimson Tide’s 15 spring practices wrapped up at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and it doesn’t take a football savant to know that protecting the edges of the pocket for a returning Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback is paramount, especially in an era of college football that more than ever demands efficiency in the passing game.
If Alabama’s championship hopes for 2022 are to stay upright, Bryce Young must stay upright as well.
That’s easy math.
The harder math – calculating who will man the all-important tackle spots in the fall, and how they’ll perform in doing so – wasn’t settled or solved on Saturday. Randolph and Latham played well enough in the spring to compete with the first team in scrimmages, including at Saturday’s public unveiling, with Randolph on the left side and Latham on the right. That’s about the only part of the equation that’s clear, along with more confirmation that the Crimson Tide’s pass rush could be downright ferocious in the fall.
The first-team defense was all over Young in a scrimmage where the touch of a pass rusher’s hand was all it took for a sack and a whistle. The White-team pass rush, mostly with edge pressure, notched 10 of those touch-sacks against the first-team offense. On one second-quarter drive in particular, star linebacker Will Anderson Jr. notched two sacks over a three-play stretch with a quick move around Randolph, followed by a power move.
From a pass protection standpoint, it was a mighty tough day for the tackles. At the same time, it’s foolish to come to much of a conclusion about Alabama’s strength at that position in mid-April.
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