TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- There was plenty to applaud this past Saturday.

Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa generated several booming cheers on his way to four total touchdowns in the Crimson Tide’s 62-10 win over New Mexico State in its home opener. But the star quarterback also had a front-row seat to the plays the drew some of the loudest roars.

As UA’s first-team holder, Tagovailoa had an up-close look at true freshman placekicker Will Reichard, who kicked field goals of 48 and 49 yards against the Aggies -- the first makes of his career.

“Once he made his first kick, he was just comfortable the entire time after,” Tagovailoa said. “That was pretty much the icebreaker. It gives the team a lot of confidence in him, and he has a lot of confidence in himself to know that his team is there with him. He feels like he’s very supported.”

Reichard has kicked every field goal, extra point and kickoff for the Crimson Tide this season, and for the most part, the Hoover, Ala., native has performed well. In the season opener against Duke, he missed two long field goal attempts, although Nick Saban was pleased with how he kicked the ball, and against New Mexico State, one of his kickoffs landed out of bounds, resulting in a flag.

Outside of the kick that crossed the wrong white line, all of Reichard’s other kickoffs have been touchbacks. Keeping the coverage unit from expecting that will be a point of emphasis this week in preparing for a South Carolina team that leads the SEC with 55.5 kickoff return yards per game.

“Will kicked off well in the game,” Saban said. “Kicked one out of bounds, probably tried to over kick it a little bit. Had a lot of touchbacks. We have to really try to encourage our kickoff team to not let up in kickoff coverage, thinking that everything is going to be a touchback and then not cover the kicks.

Alabama freshman kicker Will Reichard

“… This team we’re playing this week is a really good kickoff return team. They’ve got a good kickoff returner. They’re leading the conference in kickoff returns, so we’ve got to focus on what we’ve got to do to cover and kick the ball in the right place, and obviously, we don’t mind at all when we kick touchbacks, but we can’t rely on that all the time.”

On top of handling every kicking duty through the first two games, Reichard has also punted the ball. He punted twice in the Duke game and against NMSU, he split the punting responsibilities with sophomore Skyler DeLong, with DeLong punting three times and Reichard punting once. Entering Week 3, DeLong is averaging 41.0 yards per punt, while Reichard is averaging 39.67.

Whether or not that platoon approach continues or Reichard will once again have a full special teams plate this weekend at South Carolina hasn’t been decided yet, Saban said Wednesday.

“Both guys need to continue to be able to punt in the game like they punt in practice,” Saban said. “If we could get that, we’d be good with either one of them. So, we’ll continue to evaluate that.”

The nation’s No. 1 kicker in the 2019 recruiting cycle, according to the 247Sports Composite, Reichard has been busy to start his freshman season. But when it comes to execution on kicks -- of several varieties -- his coaches and teammates are confident the freshman will get the jobs done.

“That was awesome,” Tagovailoa said. “I don’t want to bash any of the other kickers we’ve had, but it’s really good to know we have someone that we can really, really trust to put out there and we don’t have to go four downs and we need the first down to get it closer. So, having the trust with Will being able to kick the ball and knowing how accurate he is, it helps us.”

Contact Charlie Potter by 247Sports' personal messaging or on Twitter (@Charlie_Potter).

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