There were seven turnovers between the Crimson and White teams.
“A big emphasis this spring has been the ball,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “How are we going to take care of the ball on offense and how are we going to ball-hawk on defense? Well, we obviously did a better job of ball-hawking on defense because that’s way too many turnovers, even though there are two games going on out there, not just one. But you have to take care of the ball.”
In the second quarter, quarterback Alec Morris lost a fumble, recovered by the Crimson team. The White team got the ball back on the next play when Crimson quarterback David Cornwell was intercepted by Jabriel Washington.
The interception was one of six total on A-Day.
“I think that obviously it’s a good play when you get a turnover, but when you’re playing against [yourself], did the guy that threw the pass throw at the right place, the right time and was it a good throw, was it a good play?” Saban said. “Was it a good break on the ball by the defensive player? So sometimes interceptions occur because of lack of execution and sometimes they occur because of great plays.”
In the second half, quarterback Jake Coker was intercepted by Maurice Smith on Crimson who returned the ball 51 yards for a touchdown.
There were five interceptions in the second half, three of which came in the fourth quarter.
“There was a couple of good breaks on the ball today and there was a couple … throws that shouldn’t have been made, so you can take from that whatever you’d like,” Saban said. “But it is a concern that we turned the ball over that much, and it’s encouraging that we got that many turnovers, but when you’re playing against yourself, you know, just like I love seeing our offense make good plays, but when they make them against our defense, it makes you say, ‘Wow, man.’ One of our big points of emphasis is to not give up big plays, so that’s something we need to work on, and we will continue to do that.”
Besides forcing seven turnovers, the defense had eight total sacks. The White team had five sacks for 32 yards while Crimson had three for 25 yards.
The White team defense held Crimson to -16 yards rushing on 14 attempts. Derrick Henry and Kenyan Drake on White were limited to 59 yards on 20 carries. Henry had 46 net yards on 15 carries and one score.
