Where Alabama Stands at Punter, Kicker Week before 2025 Season

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama's competition at quarterback has been settled for over a week now with Ty Simpson being named the starter, but the Crimson Tide is still trying to find the right pieces to replace its main starters on special teams from a season ago.

It does sound like Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer has found his guy at punter to replace Jame s Burnip though. Redshirt senior Colorado School of Mines transfer Blake Doud has stood out at the position since the first scrimmage.

"He’s really to the point where he was at statistically at kind of what we thought he would be before he transferred," DeBoer said after Thursday's practice. He transfers here, and spring he’s kind of feeling it out, gets in our weight program. We push our specialists in the weight program, and sometimes that forces you to go down before you go up. He’s definitely on an upward trajectory. The first scrimmage, I was impressed. Getting in the stadium, I was like, ‘OK, can he sustain this?’ And he certainly has statistically, and you can even see it visually. If you’re out there watching, you can see an improvement that’s happened over the last two weeks.”

Last season, Doud led a ll Division II punters with a 46.6 yards per punt average. For reference, Burnip averaged 45.4 yards per punt in 2024 for the Crimson Tide.

After a disappointing outing in the scrimmage where he missed several field goals, redshirt sophomore Conor Talty had his best day of practice in a week and a half on Wednesday according to DeBoer.

"Here on the practice fields, he’s done a nice job," DeBoer said. "We’ve got to make sure it just translates over to our own stadium, and we’ll keep working on that. He had a really good day yesterday. Got back to where I felt like he was hitting… it was going where he wanted and had good distance. We challenged him with a distance kick that we thought he probably wouldn’t make the uprights, and he was halfway up the uprights on it. Did a nice job there."

Talty has been waiting his turn behind Will Reichard and Graham Nicholson the past two seasons. He has yet to attempt a field goal at the collegiate level, but is 4 for 4 on extra points and was responsible for kickoff duties for Alabama last season.

No. 8 Alabama will open the season at Florida State on Aug. 21.