Alabama photo by Kent Gidley / Alabama true freshman nose guard DJ Dale (94) has started the first three games this season.When Alabama opened its 2018 football season with a 51-14 drubbing of Louisville, the Crimson Tide did so without any freshman starters on defense.
In fact, nose guard Quinnen Williams and safety Xavier McKinney were the only sophomore starters.
This year is completely different. Alabama had three true freshman defenders in the 42-3 opening rout of Duke in Atlanta, with DJ Dale starting at nose guard, Shane Lee at middle linebacker and Christian Harris at weakside linebacker.
A fourth true freshman, Jordan Battle, started at strong safety in the Tide’s second game, a 62-10 slaughtering of New Mexico State.
This is Nick Saban’s 13th season in Tuscaloosa, and the coach can never recall having to start so many defenders straight out of high school.
“We knew we were going to have to have a lot of depth in our defense with the freshmen,” Saban said this week, “and we were really pleased with the freshmen we were able to recruit last year. They have done a nice job of working and developing and continuing to improve, but we’ve had some unfortunate bad luck or whatever you want to call it, losing players at certain positions.
“These guys have had to be pressed into duty before we thought they would, and we’re working hard to try to get the confidence they need to play well on a consistent basis.”
Current sophomore cornerback Patrick Surtain gave Alabama a freshman presence last year by breaking into the starting lineup in the fourth game against Texas A&M and remaining there the rest of the season.
Dale, a 6-foot-3, 308-pounder from the Birmingham suburb of Pinson, capitalized on Williams forgoing his redshirt junior and senior seasons for the NFL draft in Nashville, where he was tabbed by the New York Jets as the third overall pick. Lee and Harris were battlefield promotions that followed season-ending injuries last month to Dylan Moses and Joshua McMillon.
Harris was replaced during last weekend’s 47-23 victory at South Carolina by sophomore Ale Kaho, and that position has been up for grabs in practice this week leading into Saturday’s game against visiting Southern Mississippi.
Should Dale, Harris and Lee make their fourth starts this season against the Golden Eagles and Battle make his second, Alabama could have five true freshman defensive starters. Junior defensive end LaBryan Ray underwent foot surgery this week and will miss at least six weeks, and his most likely replacement is Justin Eboigbe, a 6-5, 294-pounder from the Atlanta suburb of Forest Park.
“Justin is a fast, twitchy guy who reads plays really easy,” senior defensive tackle Raekwon Davis said this week. “He’s good at technique. Justin is a special guy.”
All of Alabama’s freshman defenders will have to be special if the Tide are to make their sixth consecutive appearance in the College Football Playoff. Auburn, LSU, Texas A&M are looming obstacles down the road, but Tide freshmen under Saban have a way of not playing like freshmen for long.
“We don’t want to ask players to do things that they don’t know how to do or if they haven’t had enough reps in practice to develop confidence in,” Saban said, “so it can be a little limiting at times.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.