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Alabama is officially down another linebacker.
Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban confirmed during his appearance at SEC Media Days on Wednesday that LB Keith Holcombe is no longer with the program, and will turn his focus to baseball.
“Well, obviously Keith Holcombe has done an outstanding job for us. He’s been a great contributor in the program, not only on the field but a great human being, outstanding student, been a really, really good leader for us, and I would love to have him come back and be a part of our team,” Saban said.
“But I understand that he wanted to play baseball. He’s always wanted to play baseball. He’s had an opportunity to play baseball, and we decided to give him the opportunity to go full time in baseball this year and then him make a decision about whether he wanted to continue that year of eligibility in football and baseball or just do it in baseball.
“And he has made that decision and — to play baseball and not be a part of the team. I think he would add a tremendous amount of experience, knowledge, and diversity to our defense because he’s very smart, if he decided to come back, but that doesn’t seem to be the case right now.”
After the dismissal of VanDarius Cowan and the loss of Terrell Lewis due to injury, Alabama is looking relatively thin at linebacker, and Holcombe as a senior would have provided some much-needed depth and experience at the position and special teams for the TIde.
Saban had previously said that he’s never satisfied with the depth at any position on his roster:
“I’m not comfortable with any position our team, relative to the depth we have out there,” Saban said. “I wish we had more depth. I wish we had more players. I wish more guys could contribute. Regardless of that circumstance, you know, we will try to develop and create whatever we have to do to try to develop depth at any position on our team. If that involves moving players, if that involves trying to enhance the development of younger players, that’s what we’ll do.”
The Tuscaloosa native was a special teams standout, totaling 11 special teams stops and 38 total tackles in 10 games as a junior.
Jordan Dajani covers SEC football for Saturday Down South and is a University of Tennessee graduate. He also has experience working in the NBA and with ESPN.
