If Alabama football coach Nick Saban ever needs a break from delivering his message each spring of starting anew, he has quite the voice in Ryan Anderson.
The fifth-year senior outside linebacker was among the most productive players down the stretch for last season’s Crimson Tide, recording eight tackles for loss in the final six games. Anderson announced in January that he was returning for a final year in Tuscaloosa, and he has stuck with the starting-from-scratch theme ever since.
Alabama’s defense has 15 players returning who compiled 10 or more tackles last season.
“You can have all the pieces to the puzzle, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to put it together,” Anderson said in a news conference this week. “Everybody has to go back to work so we can get back to where we just came from. It’s a whole new team and a whole new unit.”
Spoken like someone who has sat through his share of Saban sermons since signing out of Daphne (Ala.) High School in 2012.