Alabama's offensive line seeks to rebound from penalty and sack-marred performance

Alabama center Parker Brailsford knows offensive linemen mostly get talked about thanks to negative numbers like penalties and sacks.

The fourth-ranked Crimson Tide’s blockers are getting plenty such attention this week.

A line forced to mix and match because of injuries to tackles Kadyn Proctor and Elijah Pritchett allowed four sacks against South Florida and committed nine penalties with two negating touchdowns.

Brailsford and his fellow linemen are hoping to go back to the anonymity familiar to linemen everywhere starting with Alabama’s first road game Saturday against Wisconsin.

“Honestly when you guys (reporters) don’t talk about us, that’s the best thing,” said Brailsford, who transferred from Washington with coach Kalen DeBoer.

“When our running backs, our quarterback, our receivers get recognition, I just feel like that’s the same thing as us getting recognition, because we’ve got to do our job for them to do theirs.”

Alabama is hoping that shaky performance in a 42-16 win that was a one-point game going into the fourth quarter was a blip, not an ongoing concern. It’s entirely possible since the shuffled starting unit only worked together a couple of practices before the game.

The numbers were an offensive lineman’s bad dream: six holding penalties (one was nullified by a defensive flag), an illegal block in the back and two false starts.

Proctor, who started as a freshman last season, has missed the first two games with a left shoulder injury. DeBoer said he expects Proctor to be “pretty dang close” to able to get onto the field by week’s end.

Alabama was trying to hold Pritchett out to heal a minor injury but inserted him at the end of the game. The Tide scored 21 points over the final 5:50, including a pair of long touchdown runs.

Alabama slid Tyler Booker from left guard to left tackle. He was replaced by Michigan State transfer Geno VanDeMark, a six-game starter last season for the Spartans. Wilkin Formby, a redshirt freshman from Tuscaloosa’s Northridge High School, started at right tackle.

Formby was called for four holding penalties (one off-set) and VanDeMark drew two holding penalties and another for false start. Booker said the offensive linemen collectively decided during the game “we're going to right our wrongs right now.”

The offense did produce a dominant and more pristine fourth quarter.

“We were just definitely beating ourselves,” Booker said. “I'm glad we went through this adversity so we know how to learn from it in the future.”

It was a mistake-filled performance but offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan and Brailsford both said they’re not leaning on injuries to explain it away.

Sheridan said the general policy remains to field the offensive line group that gets the most repetitions together in practice.

“We don’t make any excuses,” the Tide offensive coordinator said. “The guys out there are starters and the expectation is they will play well and execute and do their job.

“We don’t allow anyone in the building to talk about shuffling. The guys who are ready to practice, that’s who we practice with and prepare them to execute, do their job. And if they are out there on the field they are capable of doing it. That’s where our focus is.”

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John Zenor, The Associated Press