Roll Tide Nation

We have already given you a few tips on what to watch for on A-Day for the offense and defense. You should also be looking for a few other VIPs, and not just Laura Rutledge. Several recruits are scheduled to be at Bryant-Denny on Saturday. The most important of these are 5-star WR Julian Fleming and 5-star WkDE/OLB Reggie Grimes Jr.

5-STARS

Fleming is the top receiver for 2020 and No. 5 overall player. He hails from the tiny burgh of Catawissa, PA. He was also in T-town for A-Day a year ago but this visit will be an official one. Being from a small town with a population of around 1500, I get the feeling he sadly will go to Penn State. It’s interesting to note that his QB last season, Stone Hollenbach, is (preferred) walking on at Alabama this fall.

Grimes is a name many Crimson Tide fans should be familiar with. His father of the same name was a standout defensive lineman for Alabama in the late 1990s. His mother ran track for the Crimson Tide. He is from Mount Juliet outside of Nashville where dad grew up as well.

OTHER 2020

Other rising seniors scheduled to be in attendance:

Jacobian Guillory, 4-star DT, Alexandria, LA - The signature for the No. 145 player looks like another classic showdown between Alabama and LSU.

All week we’ve previewed what to watch for tomorrow’s A-Day. Today, we wrap that up and give you even more bonus ‘Bama action with a preview of the A-Day Game as well as some additional areas to pay attention to as the Tide completes its Spring camp.

But first, we’re sending an invite to you all to join us for some food and frivolity at Druid City Brewing in Tuscaloosa on Saturday before the game. So, if you are in town, stop on by and say hello, and have some boudin.

In this week’s episode:

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The Game:

1:00 Central, ESPN2 and available for streaming on ESPN+
Stats livestream via Sidearm Sports, if you can’t watch
Saturday, April 13 2019
Bryant Denny Stadium
Admission: Free. But you can be all fancy and get a field suite or other upgrade here.

Transit and Parking:

Traffic is a disaster between the never-ending construction (where workers may turn a spade once every two weeks), Tuscaloosa’s outsized population for its infrastructure, and 90,000 new guests. Just be prepared for that. Here is a map of all the road closures. Roadblocks around campus begin at 10:00 a.m. local.

Gameday Disability Lots 2 and 3 are closed. However, Disability Lot 1 (Wallace Wade) and Lot 4 (Campus Dr. Deck) are first-come, first-serve and are free.

Other public parking is also first-come, first-serve and is free on campus. Parking map is here. But, you can pay for reserved parking at the South Ten Hoor lot — $20. That’s worth it, IYAM, since the game is free. Given the snarl of traffic around campus and downtown, you may be better served taking the Crimson Shuttle.

Per the University, re: RVs:

The Crimson Tide baseball team won their first SEC series of the year, taking two out of three games from South Carolina this weekend. The series was scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but due to rain the teams played a day-night double header on Friday and a single game on Saturday. The Tide used outstanding pitching to win both games on Friday, and lost a heartbreaker on Saturday in 12 innings by a 5-4 score. Sam Finnerty pitched an absolute gem in the first game as the Tide won 9-0, and Brock Love stared on the mound in game two, a 4-1 win.

Game One: Won 9-0

The story of the game was senior right hander Sam Finnerty. “Fin” pitched the first complete game of the year for the Tide, a sparkling 79 pitch, four-hit shutout. Finnerty struck out five, and walked none, and was in control from beginning to end.

The Tide jumped out early with three runs in the first inning, highlighted by an RBI single by Morgan McCullough and a two run double from Brett Auerbach. Bama put the game away in the second on another RBI single by McCullough and a long grand slam home run off the bat of Tyler Gentry. The round tripper was Gentry’s team leading sixth of the year. Bama only scored once more, a single run in the third, on a blast off the top of the scoreboard by freshman T.J. Reeves, his fourth of the year.

Finnerty stayed on cruise control, never throwing more than 14 pitches in any one inning, the fifth. The caveat to that is he struck out all three batters that frame. Only once did the Gamecocks have three balls on a batter. Finnerty gave up a one out single in the ninth, but got a 6-4-3 double play to end the game. With the win Finnerty improved to 5-3 on the season. Fifty-nine of Finnerty’s 79 pitches were for strikes. Daniel Lloyd allowed all nine runs for SC in three innings and suffered the loss, dropping to 2-3 on the year.

The 2019 college basketball season concludes in the biggest spectacle of the sport called the “Final Four”. 353 schools began the season hoping to raise the trophy in early April. 68 teams entered the tournament last month and only four remain. Two games will be played on Saturday with the winners facing off on Monday night. All three games will ridiculously take place at the cavernous U.S. Bank Stadium - home of the Minnesota Vikings - in Minneapolis, MN. There should be plenty of crappy seats to go around.

Virginia vs. Auburn
Sat Apr. 6, 5:09pm CT
CBS
UVA -5.5, O/U 130.5

Virginia Cavaliers (33-3)

For those of you uninitiated to the customs of Virginia, let me introduce you to the U-V-A Chant:

There is also the Wahoowa Chant:

WAHOOWA, WAHOOWA UNI-V, VIR-GIN-I-A
HOO-RAH-RAY, HOO-RAH-RAY RAY! RAY! U-V-A!

Auburn Tigers (30-9)

Unless you prefer to have yourself mocked into oblivion so badly that you have to deactivate your Twitter account, you will not be rooting for Auburn in any capacity. If you wish to say a little prayer that nobody gets physically injured, that is okay. Beyond that, no. And to your rebuttal in the comments section, let me stop you right here. No.

Alabama held their second scrimmage of the spring on Saturday. The biggest news of the day was the injury of offensive lineman Jedrick Wills. In his press conference following the scrimmage, Nick Saban reported “Jedrick Wills sprained his ankle today. We don’t know the extent of the injury. We’re doing an MRI. He didn’t come back - we didn’t expect him to come back. We wouldn’t let him come back. So, we’ll see what the deal is when we do our MRI and all that probably on Monday. But no other significant injuries to report.”

There was some early speculation that it was an Achille’s injury. However with Saban saying they “wouldn’t let him come back,” it sounds like Wills wanted to return to the scrimmage. Hopefully, this is a sign that the injury is not as severe as it could be.

After Wills went out, Matt Womack slid over to tackle and Emil Ekiyor took Womack’s place at guard.

(Second Team) Quarterback Controversy?

Saban liked what he saw from both first teams, offense and defense, but was not so pleased with the second teams.

There were reports that backup quarterback Mac Jones had a rough day, throwing four picks. Saban commented that some of the interceptions (not specifying whose) were “off of peoples hands, tipped balls” and “not all the quarterback’s fault.” While others were “not as good a decisions as we’d like.” Tua Tagovailoa, who threw a pair himself, had a ball picked off by Jared Mayden that walk-on tight end Giles Amos let go through his hands.