92,000+ for practice
The incredible turnout for A-Day has been receiving a hefty amount of media attention. While the fans are getting most of the attention, there's still a lot to talk about football-wise...
To say that Lindy's hit the nail on the head with their prediction about A-Day would be a bit of an understatement:
The Associated Press story is, of course, all over the place and over at ESPN, the story has the video that appeared on SportsCenter as well.
Birmingham News:
One good thing to see from the White team on Saturday was the ability to seal the deal:
Leading 17-13 with 6:19 left, the first-team offense (White) took the ball and went on a 15-play, 77-yard drive, capped by a 28-yard field goal by Leigh Tiffin. It essentially ended the game.
"We do a lot in practice, maintaining drives, and that's one of the things Coach Saban has preached with his Fourth Quarter Program," said White team center Antoine Caldwell, who received the Dwight Stevenson Award as the game's most valuable lineman. "Having that mental toughness to close out games. We did a great job on that last drive and all spring."
Mobile Press-Register:
Perhaps our penalty parties will be over this fall. Only one penalty (a defensive offside) was assessed at the game. Hopefully Coach Saban's "Fourth Quarter" program will have the squad in better shape and less prone to mental errors.
Mal Moore was obviously pleased with the turnout on Saturday. He should be happy because the Saban hire probably saved his job. Anybody else remember him being booed last year?
Huntsville Times:
Coach Saban chimes in with some fantastically smart-ass remarks to the media regarding Jimmy Johns winning the "I Like to Practice" award:
Now for some stuff from places you wouldn't expect...
Chattanooga Times Free Press:
Columnist Darren Epps says that the 92,000+ fans at A-Day ends the argument on which SEC team has the most passionate fans. It's great that the column comes from an out of state paper.
Well, until this one: 92,138.
The argument is over. There were 92,138 Alabama fans packed into Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday for a televised spring game, and officials had to turn people away in the second quarter.
This article (also from the Chattanooga paper) has a bunch of great quotes from the players about how astonished they were by the fans. My favorite was from Bobby Greenwood:
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There is simply no way that we could talk about a practice game this much and not post this clip: