Alabama cruised to a 48-10 victory at home over East Carolina, and quarterback Keelon Russell led the Crimson Tide to victory in his first collegiate start.
Russell completed 17 of 29 passes for 249 yards, and he ran 13 times for 86 yards and a touchdown.
Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer shared what he thought Russell did well in his first collegiate start.
“Just taking off and going and making plays,” DeBoer said. “Balancing that with keeping his eyes down the field. I think he’s just a tough guy to defend, and we knew that. I thought he took advantage of his ability. We were able to really open up a lot of the playbook, and you know, first, second down, if we’re in the perfect spot for third down, you can see what type of weapon that he can be to continue to move the chains.”
DeBoer expressed that Russell’s poise is impressive but said there are a few things to clean up.
“I think his poise when the bullets are flying is really good,” DeBoer said. “The football part, thinking pretty quick and going and making plays and instinctive, he made a lot of big plays, and that’s what we’ll focus on first, but then, we know that you just can’t have a wasted play or burn a timeout. It’s easy stuff. It’s stuff that can get cleaned up. Having some urgency on him on it for him I think will be the case. I have no doubt that he’ll take care of that.”
DeBoer also said, “we’ve always been quarterback driven,” and he believes the sky is the limit for Russell.
Russell has a few things to tighten up before next week’s game at Kentucky, but he showed off the exciting tools that makes him one of Alabama football’s top playmakers.
