Alabama Spring Game: Offensive Line's Progress Bodes Well for Crimson Tide

The Alabama Crimson Tide may have won the national championship game last season, but Nick Saban knows as well as anybody that each spring brings its fair share of challenges.

Despite a solid season for the offensive line last season, Saban made it clear early this spring that he was not happy with the Crimson Tide's second line.

Saban said two weeks ago, via ESPN, “When I say we need more guys to learn what it takes to play winning football, that would be one of the positions that I’m talking about."

Saban isn't one to whole-heartedly praise an entire unit, especially before a national championship, but he did admit he was pleased overall with the offensive line on Thursday.

The battle-tested coach said:

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“I think the offensive line really had a good spring and played very well. We've got a lot of experience. We've got a lot of games started by those guys, a lot of competitive character in that group, a lot of physical. We don't have a lot of depth but I think that that's going to be the real focus as we continue to try to create depth at that position.”

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The Crimson Tide currently have an impressive starting five of Barrett Jones, Anthony Steen, Chance Warmack, D.J. Fluker and Cyrus Kouandjio, but the depth does appear to be emerging, perhaps so much so that backup left tackle Austin Shepherd could legitimately challenge Kouandjio.

Steen said, via ESPN, “Shepherd is pushing to be the top of the line."

It's not that Kouandjio is going to be easy to surpass, given his tremendous work in a short period of time since missing the last five games of the season last year. But it is encouraging that there is some push from the second unit, because there didn't appear to be much at the start of the spring.

The Crimson Tide once again are likely to field a dominant team in the fall, but what's particularly concerning for the rest of college football is that their offensive line could actually be improved overall.

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