Jumbo Package: Josh Jacobs, Freshmen to Carry the Mail at A-Day

Happy Friday, everyone. While A-Day is the headliner of the weekend, the baseball team will look to avoid a third straight sweep and snap an eight-game SEC losing streak with a doubleheader today against Mississippi State while #12 Alabama softball hosts a Washington team that moved into the top ten after taking two of three from #6 Oregon last weekend.

On to the football:

"Last year with Jalen, because he was a freshman and because of his athleticism, we became almost more of a quarterback-run, spread team and that's not really what we want to be," Saban said Thursday. "We want to be more pro style as we were, with a mix of a spread. We want a dual-threat quarterback who can make plays with his feet but maybe not necessarily have a bunch of quarterback runs to enhance the offense.

"I think that's the goal for what we want to do and I think Brian brings a special skill set being in the NFL with a very successful program and offensive team. And some of our other coaches understand some of the other spread concepts of college football, which create an advantage...so we're going to put a combination of those two things together and hopefully that will make us a more balanced team on offense."

Incendiary headline aside, as Cecil Hurt notes Saban wasn’t taking a shot at Lane Kiffin. Once you get into the season, fundamental development gets pushed to the side as the team uses its 20 precious hours a week to prepare for the next opponent. It was a bit concerning that the passing game regressed further following the “camp style” bowl practices, but with Kiffin doing two jobs it is fair to wonder whether Hurts got the same attention that Jake Coker did the year before.

In any event, Coach is taking responsibility for the rough passing game rather than putting it on his QB. Much of the spring seems to have been built around boosting Jalen’s confidence. Tomorrow will give us a glimpse of his growth.

If you were wondering about the rosters, Tua Tagovailoa tweeted them out yesterday:

First thought is that the kid must be crazy because Saban doesn’t traditionally hand out rep charts to the media before A-Day. Take another look, however, and you’ll see that the scholarship players are all listed in alphabetical order. Nice troll job, Nick.

With Bo Scarbrough (leg), Damien Harris (foot) and B.J. Emmons (foot) all on the shelf for this one, Josh Jacobs will be the bellcow for the Crimson team and the young runners are going to get plenty of action. To be frank, I think the white team wins going away. You have to figure that the ones will play somewhat even, but an offense featuring Mac/Tua with Najee Harris and Jerry Jeudy might just torch the second team defense.

“We have a kicker coming in that we really like so he’s going to be in the competition in the fall,” head coach Nick Saban said. “I can’t say now that’s going to work out, but we have high hopes that he’ll do a good job.

“JK is very good at kickoffs. He has done kickoffs in the past. He is good at long field goals. The competition is there is we have a guy that is pretty accurate that doesn’t have a real strong leg, and we have a guy who has a really strong leg that can kick long field goals. We’re going to have more of a situation like we had with Jeremy Shelly in years past where he kicked the short ones and someone kicked the long ones.

Saban is comparing Pappanastos to Shelley, not the incoming Joseph Bulovas. Bulovas has no problem with range:

Looks good from here.

Unfortunately there were some Alabama players in the news for the wrong reasons:

A video recording shows Alabama sophomore defensive back Deionte Thompson and another person kicking an 18-year-old victim in the head while he was incapacitated on the ground during a March 18 assault in Crystal Beach, Texas, according to court documents

Not good. If this is accurate, any punishment handed down by Saban might be the least of Deionte’s worries.

Foster’s urine sample at the NFL combine came back diluted, which, by NFL rules, means it is treated like a specimen that has tested positive for a banned substance, according to NFL.com.

The linebacker says that a case of food poisoning is to blame for the diluted test.

To get better before the combine, Foster was on IV fluids and claims he “drank and ate as much as I could without throwing up.”

Reuben’s story is plausible, but there is no way to know whether he intentionally tried to cheat the test or not. This is another little black mark for him, though.

Kouandjio was not arrested.

The initial report on the incident by the Buffalo News said Kouandjio asked an approaching deputy to shoot him. But Scott Zylka, the public-information office for the Sheriff's Office, said Kouandjio did not say that. Zylka described Kouandjio as "compliant, courteous and polite" during the incident and never presented a threat to the safety of law-enforcement and emergency personnel or to himself.

Very bizarre, to say the least. The first breaking headlines on this featured the “shoot me” quote, and it’s good to hear that it never happened. Hopefully he is OK.

"To be honest with you, my main goal in football was to win a national championship at Alabama," Coker said. 'That was my dream growing up and I got to fulfill that. I have no regrets with what I've done or what I'm doing now. I had a blast doing it and I couldn't be more happy with the outcome."

Coker said will make an appearance at Alabama's A-Day spring game on Saturday, participating in the celebrity dodgeball game scheduled for halftime at Bryant-Denny Stadium. On Tuesday, he will introduce keynote speaker Nick Saban at the annual Team Focus fundraiser at the Mobile Convention Center.

We couldn’t be more happy with the outcome either, Jake. Good luck with your next chapter.

A standout at St. Paul's in Mobile and Alabama, McCarron broke into the NFL under Cleveland coach Hue Jackson, who was the Bengals' offensive coordinator at the time.

But Sashi Brown, the Browns' executive vice president of football operations, seemed to shoot down the idea of trading for either quarterback.

Asked during a Wednesday press conference if he envisioned trying to trade for a veteran quarterback during the draft, Brown answered: "No."

It’s looking more and more like AJ will end up spending one more year as a backup in Cincinnati before getting his shot.

That’s about it for today. Have a great weekend.

Roll Tide.