For the most of the second half against South Carolina on Saturday, it wasn’t that freshman-freshman combination at inside linebacker for Alabama.

The Crimson Tide made a switch early in the second half, going with sophomore Ale Kaho at Will linebacker in place of freshman Christian Harris.

After then going back to Harris for a series, Alabama turned back to Kaho, who was in at Will linebacker the rest of the time the first-team defense was in the game.

“There was a lot of confusion with the young guys with formations and motions and some of the things that they were doing,” Tide coach Nick Saban said. “We tried to get 8 (Harris) settled down by taking him out of the game and put in Kaho in for a series. Then, we put him back in the game and then we decided to play Kaho a little bit because he’s a good football player and he needs to get some experience himself.”

While Kaho finished with four tackles and a tackle for a loss, it was seemingly a tough game for him, too.

The former four-star recruit missed a tackle near the line of scrimmage on the first play of a South Carolina drive late in the third third quarter, a run up the middle from Gamecocks running back Rico Dowdle that went for a 12-yard gain. On the next play, Kaho overran the action on a run to the left. That created an opening for Dowdle, who capitalized with a 33-yard gain.

Later, Kaho gave up a touchdown in coverage while working with the second-team defense, an 11-yard score on a pass across the middle with 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

The overall struggles from that Will linebacker spot contributed to Alabama giving up 459 total yards to South Carolina, including 95 rushing yards on only eight carries during the third quarter.

“There was a lot of adjusting to do,” Saban said. “The young players had a lot of problems adjusting to the quads (with four players split out as receivers) and to the empty formation (with the QB as the only player in the backfield) into the boundary, which we had worked on. But it was a lot for the linebackers. So we had to stay pretty simple in terms of what we were doing, afraid that we would not do things correctly.”

Matt Zenitz is an Alabama and Auburn reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mzenitz.