Alabama Football: Tide Need Young Linebackers to Step Up in Spring Practice

With spring practice getting underway on March 13, Bleacher Report will break down where Alabama stands at each position group heading in, players to watch and what needs to be done. Next up: the linebackers.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The success of Alabama’s defense may come down to whether one of its linebackers can learn how to tackle properly and consistently.

Reuben Foster has been a heat-seeking missile for most of his two years on campus, but most of the time that’s been a detriment. Foster can hit with anyone in the country. But he keeps his head down so low that he’s prone to stingers (hence the large, ridiculous-looking cowboy collar he wears).

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But with Trey DePriest graduating, there is a hole in the middle of the Crimson Tide defense that Foster will get the first crack at. He has experience playing there, mostly in mop-up duty, but it’s been a challenge for him to stay healthy.

Whether he can or can’t grab hold of that job, Alabama will need some young linebackers to step up across the board. There are several openings that can be filled by inexperienced players who have shown flashes but now need to put everything together.

For Foster, that will first, second and third involve tackling form.

He dealt with several neck stingers in last year’s spring practice, a result of that lowering of the head. Nick Saban talked about trying to break some of those bad habits in April and how much of a challenge that is. One of those stingers came at A-Day when he went to tackle Kenyan Drake. You can see what happened here:

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Foster got playing time against West Virginia with DePriest suspended and had his moments. But his desire to make the big hit sometimes got in the way of just making the play, and he had a tendency to over-pursue at times.

On special teams, though, he was a tone-setter.

Against LSU, for example, after Alabama had tied the game up late, the Crimson Tide still had to kick off to the Tigers to run off the last few seconds on the clock. Foster came down and clocked Leonard Fournette, which fired up the Alabama sideline even more:

That momentum carried over into overtime, where Alabama stole the win.

“That hit, great hit, really energized our team even more,” Saban said the following week. “I think we took that positive energy into the overtime period. Probably, one of the reasons we were able to have success in the overtime and win the game.”

If Foster can translate that success into the starting lineup at middle linebacker, his playmaking ability would work well next to Reggie Ragland, an experienced inside linebacker who showed last year he can handle a lot of heavy lifting on defense.

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Otherwise, the role of Ragland’s partner in the middle would fall to a true sophomore: Shaun Dion Hamilton. Hamilton played sparingly as a true freshman, mostly on special teams but a little bit in backup duty.

Outgoing safety Nick Perry told al.com’s Matt Zenitz that he’s expecting a big year from Hamilton.

“He’s just a hitter,” Perry said. “He’s one of the hardest hitters out there on our team. I don’t think a lot of people know about him, but he’s going to be a baller, and I think he’s going to play a really big role, a lot bigger than people think.”

Ragland or Hamilton, it’ll be up to a young player to step up.

On the outside, Alabama will be looking at similar situations. Xzavier Dickson carried a lot of the pass-rushing load with nine sacks. The next-best linebacker in the sack department was sophomore Ryan Anderson with three. Anderson will likely be asked to be the primary pass-rusher this season, building off of a breakout second year of sorts.

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There’s also a big opportunity for Rashaan Evans, arguably Alabama’s most high-profile 2014 signee who was able to get in on some of the action last year mostly on special teams or as a backup.

But this year Evans could become a regular in an outside linebacker rotation eager for new blood. Denzel Devall was once a promising prospect, but he played in just eight games as a junior. That, combined with Dickson’s graduation, leaves a big opportunity for Anderson and Evans to be the new faces of Alabama’s pass rush on the edge.

Inside and outside, Alabama needs its young guns to make the next step in their development. Spring practice will be the perfect time to gauge how far they are coming along.

Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes and reporting were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.