TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) \u2014 No. 8 Alabama might be without starting guard Jaeden Roberts for its season opener at Florida State on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Roberts, a fifth-year senior who has started 21 games over the past two seasons, missed the last two weeks of practice and remains in the NCAA concussion protocol.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
\u201c(Jaeden)\u2019s in question with what he\u2019s going through with the protocol,\u201d coach Kalen DeBoer said Monday. \u201cHe\u2019s progressing, so we\u2019ll kind of see here.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Roberts can’t play, Alabama would turn to senior Geno VanDeMark. VanDeMark played in all 13 games last season for the Crimson Tide, including one start. He has appeared in 31 career games, with nine starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe threw him out there for a couple series a game last year,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cAnd he did a great job. We\u2019ve referred to him as a Swiss army knife guy so he\u2019s really valuable to us. So you feel like you don\u2019t skip a beat, and he was competing for (a starting spot) in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
VanDeMark and Texas A&M transfer Kam Dewberry had been vying for the starting guard spot opposite Roberts.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
The only other injury of note for the Tide: running back Jam Miller will miss several weeks with a dislocated collarbone sustained in the team’s second scrimmage of training camp. He is expected to return for the team’s Southeastern Conference opener against Georgia in late September.<\/p>\n
Alabama’s offensive line \u2014 four of five projected starters have at least 20 games of experience \u2014 is expected to be a strength this season even though the unit was part of an offense that finished 47th nationally in rushing yards in 2024, 61st in sacks allowed and 90th in tackles for loss allowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeel like they\u2019re in a good spot,\u201d offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said. \u201cA lot of starts with the guys on the field.”<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) \u2014 No. 8 Alabama might be without starting guard Jaeden Roberts for its season opener…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[5183,16680,11404,399,68037,71962,71961,398,396,397,71959,99,36319,7084,71960],"class_list":["post-109638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-alabama","tag-crimson-tide","tag-florida-state","tag-football","tag-jaeden-roberts","tag-jam-miller","tag-kalen-deboer","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-season-opener","tag-sports","tag-starting","tag-texas-am","tag-vandemark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}