PHOTOS: Alabama Football Holds Second Scrimmage of the Spring Inside

The University of Alabama football team took part in its second scrimmage of the spring on Saturday afternoon at the Hank Crisp Indoor Facility. The scrimmage lasted for close to two hours and was moved indoors due to heavy rain in the Tuscaloosa area.

“After 11 years, we had to go inside for a scrimmage,” head coach Nick Saban said. “We feel like we’ve been very fortunate, but I also think it’s an opportunity for our players. Sometimes you get rain delays places – we had one at Missouri a few years ago that was over an hour long – players have to be able to respond and react to things like this. You think it’s going to be a nice day, and all of a sudden it isn’t. None of this stuff can affect how the guys go out there and compete.”

The scrimmage was Alabama's second of the spring, and the 12^th of 15 spring practice sessions that will include the annual Golden Flake A-Day Game at Bryant-Denny Stadium on April 21 at 1 p.m. CT. The game will air live on ESPN with Adnan Virk, Joey Galloway, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe calling the action.

“I do think there was some improvement in terms of how we played versus last week,” Saban continued. “It’s really hard to know because the two things we really want to evaluate is how many mental errors do you make, how many unforced errors do you have, how many missed tackles do you have on defense? These kinds of things, I think, can be sort of terminal. I do think we made some improvements in that area, but I also think we need to continue to improve, especially with some of our younger players.”

The Crimson Tide scrimmaged for roughly 130 plays during Saturday’s session.

“We’ve won a lot of games around here being relentless and competitive, overcome adversity, keep playing the next play, sort of having the mindset with tremendous intangibles.” Saban added. “That’s something that I think we have to earn and we have to keep growing and build on as a team. I think that’s something that we want to definitely be able to finish the spring with. There are going to be some teams that would look at it like we have two days left (of practice) and A-Day. Let’s just take it easy and try to endure the practice. I want every player to go out there with the right attitude about what they need to do to get better to benefit them as players and also to benefit their unit and our team. That’s going to be the goal for the rest of the spring.”

Alabama will return to the practice field on Tuesday and Thursday next week to make final preparations for Saturday’s A-Day Game.