Kalen DeBoer Details Where Alabama Football Stands on Special Teams

TUSCALOOSA, Ala - Alabama football was inside Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday for the final time before the program packs up and heads to Florida State for the season opener. The Crimson Tide scrimmaged for two hours as the players looked to make a big final impression on Kalen DeBoer as he and the staff kick off their second year in charge.

While the Crimson Tide offense and defense garner most of the attention in camp the program must replace all three specialists from a year ago. Alabama's seen transfer Blake Doud and freshman Alex Asparuhov challenge one another for the honor of replacing James Burnip, and enters the year with redshirt sophomore Conor Talty as the most likely option to fill Graham Nicholson's place-kicking shoes.

"I think punting-wise, Blake's [Doud] done a really nice job," DeBoer said on Saturday. "Last scrimmage, I shouldn't say scrimmage, last Saturday here was really the best day I've seen him have. I think he continued to have a really good week and then today came out in our drill work, we didn't get as many punts in the scrimmage, working into the scrimmage that I was hoping to. I think we were probably two or three less than what I was looking for with partial script of what we wanted to get done, but he's had a really good eight days. I think Alex [Asparuhov] continues to get better and push. Just with his injury that he had, he's so far ahead of schedule with his recovery and so now he's really getting into that rhythm and showing a lot of improvement there.

Then Conor [Talty], Conor's done a really good job on the campus in the complex. Last week he missed, I'm not sure what it was, but we've got to keep getting work in the stadium here. He missed a couple today. From a field goal standpoint, the ones further out. Probably 40, 38 to 44, somewhere in there, between a couple of those. We've got to keep getting him the work. I was disappointed that he didn't hit them all because he's done a nice job in our practices and we've been working that every day with him being new and that whole unit being new, so we've got to keep working."