CECIL HURT: Players are getting over the initial nervousness

When spring practice began last Saturday, Rashad Johnson already had some familiarity with Nick Saban, the new University of Alabama head football coach. There had been individual meetings to familiarize the players and the new staff. There had been some offseason conditioning work in which coaches -- including Saban -- were allowed to observe under NCAA rules.

But it still wasn’t quite the same thing as having Nick Saban standing in the middle of your first drill of the spring, according to Johnson.

“I wasn’t that surprised," the junior defensive back said when asked about Saban’s well-publicized role supporting his secondary coach, Kirby Smart, as what he describes as “a graduate assistant."

“We all knew that he had coached defensive backs at Miami," Johnson said after Wednesday’s practice. “We were already ready for him to come over there. But that first day, you do get a little nervous. Some of the guys got, well, emotional.

“He talked to [the defensive backs] about that after practice. We settled down and got better after that."

Saban has continued to be a “hands-on" coach, though. He spoke Wednesday about his love for close contact with the players, saying he would not be comfortable with the “CEO" style of head coaching.

He even related a story about talking to Buddy Ryan, the former Arizona Cardinal head coach, about that topic.

“Buddy told me, not in an arrogant way, that when he became a head coach, he lost his best assistant," Saban said. “That was true. When he was defensive coordinator at Chicago, he was Mike Ditka’s best assistant. He was always somebody’s best assistant. When he became a head coach, he turned the defense over to somebody else and it was never the same. I’ve always remembered that."

For the past couple of days, several Alabama players have been asked, as Johnson was, about their first impressions of Saban, and particularly about the changes that the players -- who can tell such things better than anyone -- detect on the practice field. Most, including Johnson and quarterback John Parker Wilson, have gently steered the conversation away from comparisons between last year’s Alabama staff under Mike Shula and the new Saban-led group of coaches. They’ve been even more reluctant to talk specifically about offensive or defensive schemes. Those aren’t exactly top secret (Saban said Wednesday that Alabama was implementing the same defense he’d been using, as a head coach or an assistant, since 1983), but do seem to be on an unofficial “the less said, the better" list.

“Lofty 2007 expectations" might be on that list as well, but Johnson didn’t shy away from addressing that topic.

“I believe anything is possible," Johnson said. “If we get here and work hard and do the things Coach tells us to do, why not? He’s won a national championship before, so we need to listen to what he says."

Johnson’s enthusiasm for the new head coach was apparent, and not surprising. The former walk-on from Sulligent earned his Crimson Tide scholarship the hard way and isn’t one to shy away from intensity, in his own play or in a coach’s style.

“My attitude is, any time a coach tells me something, he’s telling me the best thing I can do," Johnson said. “I’m not going to question that, no matter how he is telling me.

“I’m not going to worry about how a coach is talking to me because he is trying to make me better.

“When he stops talking to you, that’s when it’s time to worry."

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of the Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0225