Jumbo Package: Saban visits the Car Wash, big recruiting weekend as practice starts next week

Happy Friday, everyone. We don’t have a full practice schedule yet, but we do know when the Alabama Fan Day event will happen.

The University of Alabama football team’s annual Fan Day will be held Aug. 3 at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

The Crimson Tide will hold a two-hour open practice at Bryant-Denny Stadium starting at 2:30 p.m. Players and coaches will be available for autographs following practice on the field for 45 minutes beginning at around 4:45 p.m.

It’s getting closer, folks. As Cecil notes, things are a little more tame these days.

“I’m never washin’ my baby again, Pawwwwwl!”

Alabama is hosting another cookout this weekend, and the list of visitors is impressive. In addition to commits such as LB Drew Sanders, who has shot up the rankings to #25 overall on the 247 Composite and fellow LB Quandarrius Robinson who checks in at #30, the staff will have another shot to pitch elite pass rusher Reggie Grimes plus two flip candidates in Jamil Burroughs, an Atlanta area safety who is currently committed to Georgia, and elite LSU commit WR Kayshon Boutte. The top pass rusher in the 2021 class, in-state prospect Dylan Brooks, will visit on Friday. It’s behind a paywall, but you can find the entire visitors list here.

It was Saban’s turn to do ESPN’s car wash circuit where guests visit several of the evil empire’s many properties to get asked the same questions over and over. Christopher Walsh has a good summary for you.

“Tua plays the best when he takes what the defense gives. I think any quarterback wants to make plays and I think we have some outstanding receivers who can make plays. So the instinct is let me get them the ball and let them make a play. But you have to take what the defense gives you, you cannot try and force things. Because when you force things as a quarterback, to me, that’s when bad things happen. That’s when you throw interceptions, that’s when you don’t take care of the ball, that’s when you hurt the team. When Tua has done the first part of that the right way, he’s been phenomenal, and he’s been phenomenal most of the time because he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes.”

Tua growing up just a little in that fashion would go a long way toward this team winning it all this season. Saban also mentioned that he is pleased with the coaching staff and player leadership, and admitted to engaging his team through the media.

Oh, and as Cecil notes, he also reiterated that he ain’t going anywhere soon.

But as he wound up the day on “College Football Live” with Maria Taylor and Joey Galloway, Saban closed with exactly what Alabama fans (and perhaps a recruit or two out there) wanted to hear as we asked what he would do after he was “finished” with coaching. It’s a fair question, one Saban fields occasionally, but his answer was immediate.

“I know what I won’t be doing,” Saban said. “It’s not sitting at home. I lasted six hours after my surgery.

“When you get in a leadership position for a long time, it would be kind of hard to work for somebody else. So, maybe it’s somewhere in business or something, I don’t know. But I’ve got a lot of years left doing this.”

“A lot of years” he says. Sounds like a lot of titles to me.

Landon Collins certainly loves his old coach.

“As a coach, he represents his players as a player’s coach,” Collins said. “He makes sure all his players underneath him are (better off) as a player, as a father and as a man. He tries to teach us to be a man and a great player all at one time, so he does it all.”

Great stuff, Landon. LSU fans still get salty about him along with most everything Alabama, and thanks to the new beer and wine offering inside the stadium, now they will be even more drunk when we visit.

Last, this was posted earlier in the week, but it’s good enough to mention. The comments about getting the wrong people off the bus are particularly enlightening.

Yeah, there are times that players are encouraged to explore the portal, and that’s perfectly fine.

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

Roll Tide.