Resumption of classes for the fall semester at The University of Alabama is still over a week away, but Crimson Tide offensive tackle Jonah Williams has been filling his notebook since Bama started fall camp at the first of the month.

The 6-5, 301-pound junior earned first team All-America as Bama’s left tackle in his sophomore season, was a Freshman All-America as starting right tackle in 2016, and is now considered by some to be the best offensive lineman in college football.

One reason for his success may be daily preparation cerebrally.

Williams decided to keep a football notebook, something he uses to help himself emphasize areas where he wants to improve.

Williams came up with the idea on his own, but said “I know a lot of other guys do this, too.

“I write down in my notebook emphases for the day. I put down three things.

“And then I’ll take some things from the scrimmage and say, ‘Well, maybe I did one or two of those things well, but now I have three more things to improve on.’ And I have to keep improving on the one thing I didn’t improve on in the scrimmage.

“I think that’s the way you have to look at it, especially in camp.”

That sounds like an adjunct to part of the Nick Saban fall camp process in which everything is thrown at the players, the coaches see what sticks, and what doesn’t they go back and work through it again.

Jonah Williams has been two-year star

On Monday, Williams was discussing Alabama’s first scrimmage last Saturday, in which he said both the offense and defense did well — as said Saban. “Both units had good days,” Williams said. “I think that’s kind of what you want to see out of a balanced team. You want to have the offense making plays and the defense making plays.

“You can’t look at a big picture and say, ‘Did the O-Line do well?’ You have to look at it as each individual guy has X, Y, and Z to work on. Going forward into the walk-through we did this morning, the practice tonight, the practice tomorrow. There’s a lot between now, the scrimmage and the actual season starting.”

Williams shared insight into his notebook when asked what is on his list.

“Keep my shoulders square in pass [protection] after three sets; your right foot starts to turn outside and your shoulders start to turn, so keeping that forward. Left hand inside on the frontside outside zone in man blocks. Stuff like that.

“I try to be very specific with it instead of just going in there and say, ‘I just want to create movement.’ You know what I mean? You’re just going to go out there and try to hit a guy way hard, and he’s going to get his hands in your chest and you’re going to get blown back.

“That’s not how it works.”

Another thought Williams has is that he doesn’t have to set a date to be ready for the season. “I’m not even thinking about ‘I want to have a great practice,’” he said. “I’m thinking that I want to feel confident when I’m looking at my guy [across the line] and I know my assignment and that I can execute that assignment. I want to feel confident that my first step out of my stance is a positive step, that I feel balanced and confident.

“I think you can get overwhelmed and you can really kind of lose sight of what you need to do. When you say, ‘I’m ready to play right now,’ or ‘I’m not ready to play right now.’

“I don’t want to look at it as when we have a third down tonight in practice…I don’t want to think about that as any different than when we have a third down in a game sometime down the road. I want to be confident. So that’s kind of my goal.”

And that’s worth writing down.