Jumbo Package: Saban sees Hurts’ improvement in Daboll’s quarterback-friendly offense

Following its second scrimmage, the Tide held a closed practice yesterday with no media viewing session. This is fairly standard as Alabama begins installing its season-opening game plan. So, news is a little light.

Alabama began its film room study of the ‘Noles, and while there are some obvious parallels to draw with Alabama, the more telling analogue is Clemson, especially in defensive scheming and size/explosiveness at the receiver position:

Pierschbacher said, "The size, speed, explosiveness and just how they play. I think their D-line is a little more up field than ours is. They try to penetrate. So, it's a big challenge. We've been working hard this camp to try to match up with them."

The Seminoles were effective reaching the quarterback a season ago. Their 3.92 sacks per game led the nation while Alabama was third with 3.60.

Evans saw a comparison between Florida State and the last team Alabama faced

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Deionte Thompson is looking more of a go this fall. According to his attorney, the abiding amount of evidence and witness statements seem to exculpate him from the assault in Galveston earlier this season. The prosecutors there are still weighing the evidence to determine what, if any, charges they will pursue, but it’s looking like Saban was right when he labeled this one “a big nothing of a case.”

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Interesting tidbit here in AL’s piece on Brian Daboll pertaining to the offensive system. In short, I don’t think it’s really anything we’ve seen before under Saban. It’s a system that Saban says has helped Hurts develop on the field and mentally, with his confidence:

"And quarterbacks will understand concepts for each side of the field," said former New York Jets quarterback Chad Pennington, who played under Daboll. "There will be certain concepts and those concepts have certain rules. [The Patriots] have always been very good about the spacing of their routes and that everything has a rhyme and reason... I think it's a quarterback-friendly system."

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The AP Top 25 poll was released, and for the 10th straight year Alabama makes an appearance at No. 1. For the 6th year, it has begun the season at the top. Alabama’s previous two appearances as Preseason No. 1 under Nick Saban have not ended well (Kick Six, three-loss 2010.) That’s not out of the ordinary -- here’s what happened the other times Alabama was Preseason No. 1.

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This is a cool story on the nickel defense, a look so ubiquitous it may as well be the base one for some teams. Even Alabama had extra men on 47% of its snaps last year.

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For those of you heading to the Chick Fil A Kickoff Classic, you’ll be greeted by Atlanta’s new monstrous $1bn stadium. Here’s what to expect.

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Want to see a collection of stiff-arms? Sure you do.

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Collection of Bama Miscellany:

Harris and Bo were third: but, I’m calling bullshit on this one. The P12 had the worst adjusted run defense of any major conference last year. Of course two teams that run the ball a ton in the Pac 12 are going to force more missed tackles.

Josh Jacobs was the most elusive freshman back by a wide margin. Let’s hope his hamstring injury is on the mend pretty quickly -- he’s too valuable to be on the bench or playing at 60%.

That’s it for today. Roll Tide, degenerates