What Alabama Football Players Are Up to on Spring Break

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Spring break can be an exciting and nerve-wracking time around a football program like Alabama’s.

The week off is nice, even though the Crimson Tide have had just one practice of their 15 allotted for spring so far. Even then, it can be some nice down time from classes and the other burdens of being a student-athlete before the grind of practice and end-of-semester coursework kicks in.

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But, as we’ve seen recently, it can also mean unwanted negative attention, no matter who is at fault. Last year, for example, now-former running back Altee Tenpenny was arrested on possession charges when he was back home in Arkansas.

So after Alabama’s first practice of the spring last Friday, Nick Saban had a message for his team about the week off:

"Well my message to them was, you know, we need everybody to make good choices and decisions about what they do and what they don’t do so that they’re always making choices and decisions that are going to help them be who they want to be. When you know you’re not supposed to do something that you want to do and you know it’s the wrong thing to do, please don’t allow yourself to do that so you won’t have issues and problems and you won’t have to deal with negative consequences relative to your behavior. So that’s kind of the message that we give to our players and I’m hopeful that—and I’m really almost confident that we’ve got pretty good guys on our team, we haven’t had a lot of issues, and hopefully we won’t have any over the next nine-10 days.

Linebacker Reggie Ragland said defensive coordinator Kirby Smart told the linebackers to “be smart about what you're doing. If you're going down there, don't do nothing crazy, just be respectful to everyone."

Center Ryan Kelly said the best thing to do in most situations is to just walk away.

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“Worst-case scenario, you just walk away, bite the bullet, I guess,” he said. “A lot of guys, we haven’t had a whole lot of problems around here, but things do happen. It’s always a nerve-racking thing for those guys, I guess.”

So far, so good for Alabama discipline-wise, now halfway through spring break. Let’s get a glimpse of what Crimson Tide players are doing with their break through social media. This is in no way an exhaustive list, but rather a snapshot into the lives of Alabama’s football team.

Several Alabama players have hit the beach. Freshman cornerback Marlon Humphrey shared a picture of him, Da’Shawn Hand, Reggie Ragland, Derrick Henry and Rashaan Evans enjoying the sun:

Other players shared that they were on their way or already there:

Kenyan Drake is in Powder Spring, Georgia, drinking Kool-Aid and watching some old games. He watched this year's Ole Miss game, where he suffered a brutal leg break. Drake, though, is already back practicing with the team and should be in line for a big year.

"

Never watched the Ole Miss lose last year. Finally about to watch it and put it behind me

— Kenyan Drake™ (@KDx17) March 18, 2015"

Drake and nose tackle Josh Frazier dropped in on their old high schools while they are back in their respective home towns:

Shaun Dion Hamilton is back in Montgomery:

Blake Barnett is heading back to California and experiencing the joys of air travel along the way:

While Henry and Evans are at the beach, they aren’t forgetting to stay in shape either:

Alabama players have chosen to spend their spring break in different ways, hitting the beach or going home. But they'll all be back together again on Monday, when spring practice cranks up into high gear, and they won't have an extended break like this until the summer.

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

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.