SABAN’S 100TH // RECRUITING UPDATE // BARNETT PLAYING UP TO STANDARDS

Alabama’s star quarterback Blake Barnett of Santiago HS in Corona, CA is rounding into form. The 6-4, 205-pound Barnett, who might be the nation’s premier prep signal-caller for 2015, has passed for 1,341 yards and eight touchdowns and rushed for 299 yards, averaging 7.0 per carry, and three touchdowns in helping Santiago to a 3-2 record.
In a recent game against Hart HS, Barnett was 31 of 53 for 384 yards and three touchdowns. He ran eight times for 109 yards, including a 62-yard TD run.
“He’s doing really well,” Santiago head coach Jeff Steinberg says. “I feel like that every game he’s showing improvement. Our last game before the bye week, he pretty much played up to the standard that we expected of him with his arm and his legs and being able to extend plays and hit his second and third receiver.”
Barnett was in Tuscaloosa the weekend of September 20th on an unofficial visit for the Florida game. It was Barnett’s first opportunity to see an Alabama game in person. The Tide’s 672-yard offensive outburst and Blake Sims’ 445-yard and four touchdown passing performance made quite an impression on Barnett.
“He was pretty impressed with that,” Steinberg says. “But he just had a great time just being around the other recruits, guys that he’s going to be with there over the next four or five years, and to get an opportunity to sit in on meetings and see how the offense is run and how they manage the team pre-game and gameday. Just to be a part of that before you actually get there, I know he came back pretty excited.
“Obviously SEC football is just on a whole other level. He said it was just fantastic at game, in the stadium just kind of sitting back and taking it in and being around the Bama fans. He really enjoyed himself.
“It was kind of neat for me to watch the game back here and then share some things with him from my perspective when he got back,” Steinberg says. “We talked about how some of the plays they run look very much like what we’re doing. He said, ‘Coach, they’re doing a lot of the same stuff we’re doing.'”
After Barnett completes his senior season, he’ll play in the Under Armour HS All-American Game. Following the game, he’ll fly directly to Tuscaloosa to begin his Alabama career. He’ll take part in spring practice, competing with other Tide quarterbacks—Jacob Coker, Alex Morris, Cooper Bateman and David Cornwell—for the starting job.
“There’s just such a difference from the level of play from high school to college football, but I think he’s coming into a really good situation to compete,” Steinberg says. “He just recently signed a Financial Aid agreement with Alabama, so he’s really excited about getting there and getting going when the time comes.”

Arkansas Game Notes

Game captains
Alabama’s captains for the 14-13 victory at Arkansas were Jalston Fowler, Austin Shepherd and Dalvin Tomlinson. The Razorbacks won the coin toss and elected to receive the opening kickoff.

Series History
With the win, Alabama leads the all-time series with Arkansas 15-8 (18-7 before forfeited and vacated games), and has won eight straight in the series.

Nick Saban coaches 100th game
at Alabama
The game at Arkansas marked the 100th game of Nick Saban’s career at Alabama. His record on the field for those 100 games is 84-16 for a .840 winning percentage. He joins Paul “Bear” Bryant (287) and Frank Thomas (146) as the only coaches to coach 100 or more games at Alabama.

Ragland leads defense with career-best 12 tackles
Junior Reggie Ragland led the Crimson Tide with a career-high 12 tackles against the Razorbacks, seven of which were solo. He also had one of Alabama’s six pass breakups on the night.

Xzavier Dickson getting pressure
Senior Xzavier Dickson added another sack in last Saturday’s game at Arkansas giving him a team-high five sacks for the season. He had two in both the West Virginia and Ole Miss games.

Scoring streak continues
With junior T.J. Yeldon’s 22-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter, Alabama has scored in 175 consecutive games—the longest streak in program history.

Punting game
Freshman JK Scott had another solid outing for the Crimson Tide. He finished the game with eight punts for 354 yards equaling an average of 44.2. Three of his punts went over 50 yards and seven of the eight were inside the 20. He is averaging 46.7 yards per punt with 19 punts on the season for 887 yards.

Game Notes: Courtesy UA Media Relations

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