Everything Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer said after 2026 A-Day

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama held its 2026 A-Day on Saturday, April 11, at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters in the stadium’s media room after the public scrimmage ended. Here’s everything DeBoer said about the 13th spring practice.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“It was a good day for some football, and I appreciate all the fans that came and supported the guys today. It was a great event, too, at Denny Chimes, celebrating our captains from the 2025 season. A great tradition that is unique, and it’s awesome getting to see those guys before the NFL Draft. I thought the guys competed again. It’s a unique situation with our practices, two of them still being next week. We’re not done yet. We get back to work on Tuesday and Thursday. We still have a lot of opportunities to get better. A lot of situational work that we can get to. Good back and forth, much like many of the other scrimmages. You can see how we orchestrated it with where we spotted the ball. There are some advantages the offense gets towards the end. We have to get that red zone work in. There are a lot of things to learn. There is a lot of situational stuff that we can get better at.”

DeBoer on Keelon Russell leading five straight drives to end A-Day…

“We just had to limit Austin just with some stuff. That was why. This week was a little bit where Keelon got some more reps just with some things Austin is going through. Austin has been good for the most part, but wasn’t able to finish it out. But he will be fine.” 

DeBoer on Alabama WR Noah Rogers being carted off…

“He will have to get evaluated. Unfortunate with him getting dinged up. We’ll kind of see what that looks like. He will go get the MRI and all of that kind of stuff and see what happens. We’ll have more information here as we go through the spring and summer.”

DeBoer on Alabama’s run game…

“There are times in a game where you try to have the approach of wearing down, you work plays off of plays. You are going out there, it’s ones and twos, and you are back and forth, so sometimes it’s even hard for me to sit back there and think about what group had the most consistency. A couple seams at times that I remember, I think with the ones, and that is really who you are trying to hone in on. Both sides of the ball, trying to keep it simple and get guys out there. There is more complexity that you can have with the defensive scheme. There are more things that you can do offensively as well. I think there are a few things that we can hang our hat on that we can execute well. There were some backs who you guys saw that stood out, who can make the cuts. And We ran some people over when they needed to, who got it done, and maybe who has some more work to do.

“What I do feel is that their communication, their technique and execution is getting better. It’s not something that happens overnight. They continue to work. We still have a whole week ahead of us in practice and we expect them to get better. I think from the center on out, the communication, guys are on the same page. There are not a lot of guys busting assignments, which is going to happen here and there still in the spring. New faces have been inserted, but I thought for the most part, we are getting the play off to a good start here in the early stages of spring.”

DeBoer on the plan for Michael Carroll — guard or tackle…

“The last part of spring he has played mostly guard just with the physicality he brings. He played some guard early on when he came in here. We knew he would be pretty good at it, like really good at it. There are some things that he can do against the big matchup, and then also in the pass protection he can get out there in space because of what he can do as a tackle. He is a flex guy, for sure, but he has taken more guard reps here in the latter part of the spring.” 

DeBoer on clarification on Austin Mack…

“He is dinged up. He will be alright. He will be fine.”

DeBoer on EJ Crowell, who did not scrimmage…

“With EJ, just not a lot of reps in the first couple of practices and really nothing since. It is. You are going off of what you saw there and you have optimism. There is a lot to learn for him. Even just the contact, the physicality that comes along with the next level up. From an athleticism (standpoint), speed, has got good strength. You are optimistic. There is a lot of promise. It’s going to be pedal to the metal for him to learn the schemes, getting comfortable with the guys around him. Obviously, there is pass protection which is highly important for a running back as well.”

DeBoer on Ryan Coleman-Williams’ improvement this spring…

“Ryan’s consistency was something all spring long that I know he should be feeling good about. But, Ryan’s expectations are just like all of ours. He expects an elite performance. He is going to continue to grind and he is a leader for us on our football team. And he can be because he works as hard as anyone who is out there, so it is paying off and showing up. There has been a consistency and I know people are always going to ask about catching the ball and that is what I am talking about. I am talking about the consistency there. Not making just the easy ones, making the hard ones as we have seen him get accustomed to and making.”

DeBoer on what he wants to see the defense improve on…

“I think we just have to continue to execute. When we have pressures and things like that, we have gotten a lot better. That was something we kind of slotted that as an area we could improve on from last season. We know the different variations of things that we can do with our defense. There is a lot that we put in. Up front, I think it’s continuing to build and grow and see how far those guys can go. We have a pretty good idea with the secondary and what they are capable of. You’re always going to work on tackling. You’re always going to work on pursuit. The effort stuff has to happen. That has got to be a must. I don’t think we have ever really had issues with that. Our guys are accountable to it, so now it’s about execution on the blitz pattern. The execution on base stuff. We want Coach Wommack to have everything at his fingertips that he needs to be successful. We are taking those steps daily to do that.”

DeBoer on the defense generating pressure…

“It’s hard when the quarterback is non-contact. Sometimes I get caught looking down the field every once in a while trying to see things too and then all of sudden there is a guy in the quarterback’s face. I thought they did a good job generating pressure in different ways. The key to me is that they are all working together and that goes back to things we need to continue to work on. I thought last year one of the ways we improved our pressuring of the quarterback was guys doing their job and working in unison and not giving lanes for the quarterback to step up. I think once in a while there are still lanes for the quarterback to move up. I saw Keelon right at the end do exactly that. He found some space on a run/pass option. It puts a lot of pressure on your defensive backs. To me, that’s an area where we can continue to improve with our defensive front.”

DeBoer on if the quarterbacks took a step forward…

“I thought they looked more comfortable today. Both sides, trying to get back to the basics. At the end, you feel both sides trying to get through some of the red zone concepts that we haven’t practiced as much. Once we saw a couple big receivers not getting lined up with a lot of confidence and now the quarterback is double checking, that is stuff we have to work on next week. Getting to clean all of the time until there is not a question whether someone knows their responsibilities. That goes along with the installs. Red zone is a part where you have to be clean and if you are not on the same page. We saw a takeaway. I can’t say if that was someone who didn’t do their job or know what they were supposed to do, but that is a big deal to us. We were very good in the red zone last year as a team. Pretty balanced between offense and defense and our execution down there. We have to keep working on it. We will do a lot of things with the two-minute drill and things like that next week. We haven’t done any of that. Just with a lot of new faces, we wanted to get our base stuff in and next week, we will get into a lot of those situations. Red zone. Two minute drill. Things like that.”

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