Blake Sims’ bid to replace AJ McCarron as Alabama’s starting quarterback hit a snag Saturday afternoon when the Crimson Tide defense dominated the annual A-Day game at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.
At Auburn, Nick Marshall threw four touchdowns in two quarters as Auburn’s first team routed its second team 58-3 in its spring game.
Playing with the offensive starters on the Crimson Team, Alabama’s Sims completed 13 of 30 passes for 178 yards in a 17-14 loss to the White Team. Sims had a late touchdown and two interceptions.
“Nobody ever has a bad spring game, let’s start with that,” Coach Nick Saban said.
“Everybody needs to understand that in games like today we really limit what we do on offense, we really limit what we do on defense, and we really don’t try to feature players. That may be a little bit of a disadvantage to our players. Blake Sims did some things at quarterback that we really don’t feature.”
Sims passed to sophomore wide receiver Chris Black for a last-minute 55-yard touchdown, but he also had an interception returned for a touchdown by defensive lineman D.J. Pettway early in the third quarter.
Sims’ longest possession was just five plays, while redshirt freshman Cooper Bateman led drives of 14, 10 and eight plays for the White Team. Neither side was able to score in the first half when both teams had 116 total yards.
Sims’ uneven performance came with Jacob Coker looking on. Coker is transferring to Alabama after graduating from Florida State next month. He backed up Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston this past season.
During the first two spring scrimmages, which were closed to reporters, Blake completed 40 of 62 passes for 455 yards and 5 touchdowns, but Alabama didn’t release any interception numbers. On Saturday, Sims connected on just one of his first six attempts.
Meanwhile, Alabama’s defense had 19 tackles for a loss, 7 sacks and 4 interceptions in front of a crowd of 73,506.
Auburn’s Nick Marshall threw four touchdowns in two quarters as the first team routed the second team.
Marshall, the Tigers’ starter last season who occasionally struggled through the air,completed 13 of 22 passes for 236 yards. Wearing an orange non-contact jersey, Marshall kept only once on a zone-read play.
“I think the big thing [in Marshall’s improvement] is just being more comfortable,” Tigers Coach Gus Malzahn said. “You can see him in the pocket. You can tell he’s really improved.”
Backup Jeremy Johnson had less success with the second-team offense in the first half before moving to the first-team offense in the second. Combined, he was 9-of-21 for 130 yards and a 38-yard touchdown pass to Tony Stevens. Despite those struggles, Malzahn was still pleased with the promising sophomore.
“Jeremy’s had an excellent spring,” Malzahn said. “(Offensive coordinator Rhett) Lashlee’s given him about 25 percent of the snaps with our first group. We feel like he could play for most teams in the country.”
Auburn’s receiving corps also was impressive. Coates made a one-handed touchdown catch, D’haquille Williams debuted with five catches for 88 yards and a touchdown while Quan Bray caught two TD passes.
Sports, Pages 34 on 04/20/2014