Thursday practice report

The Alabama Crimson Tide football team practiced outside on Thursday afternoon with overcast skies and temperatures around 84 degrees.

• There were no players in black, no-contact jerseys.
• Freshman wide receiver Chris Black, who has been nursing a shoulder injury, was not at Thursday’s practice. Following the practice, Nick Saban noted that Black’s shoulder injury will require surgery and that he would be out three to four months.
• Freshman linebacker Reggie Ragland was working with the inside linebackers again. He and fellow freshman Dillon Lee swapped spots during yesterday’s practices, but both were back where they began the fall for Thursday’s practice.
• Wide receiver Kenny Bell made a really good grab on a ball thrown by Alec Morris. Yesterday, Bell had a moment or two of frustration when Morris missed him during a drill for the second strep rep.
• Sophomore offensive lineman Arie Kouandjio seems to have gotten a bit bigger. He has been receiving consistent work with the second unit on the offensive line. Kouandjio is coming off an injury-plagued 2011 campaign, and he spent a good portion of the spring in a black, no-contact jersey. So far this spring he appears to be back at 100 percent.
• Senior interior defensive lineman Jesse Williams worked, as expected, with other projected first-string linemen Damion Square and Quinton Dial during drills. Williams looks even bigger than he was last season and will likely play an even larger role on the 2012 version of the Alabama defense than he did in 2011. He recently bench pressed 600 pounds. If there was a void left by the strongest player on the Crimson Tide’s 2011 team, Josh Chapman, Williams should fill the void nicely.
• During coverage and recognition drills, freshman Landon Collins was working alongside a few Crimson Tide players believed to be Alabama’s first-team defensive backs. Collins, as noted in a previous report, looks like an upper classman based on size alone, but he appears to be translating even quicker to the Alabama defense than most probably expected.

The Tide will go through another round of two-a-day practices tomorrow (9:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.). On Saturday, the Tide will hold its first scrimmage of the fall.