TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Nick Saban wasn’t the only one both impressed by Alabama’s passing game and disappointed by the secondary’s performance in its first spring scrimmage Saturday.

A couple of the players that faced the offense echoed their head coach’s comments, praising Jalen Hurts and the young quarterbacks, while taking all of the blame for the inefficiencies.

“The quarterbacks, for real,” rising senior safety Hootie Jones said Monday when asked what stood out in Bryant-Denny Stadium. “The quarterbacks were very good to see, very competitive and putting their guys in great positions. I mean, honestly, the defense really got tore up by the quarterbacks.”

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Hurts completed more than 50 percent of his passes for four touchdowns and zero interceptions against a mixture of the first- and second-team defenses. Calvin Ridley caught eight passes and for three touchdowns, while T.J. Simmons and Robert Foster compiled seven and three catches, collectively.

Those results were less than ideal for the Crimson Tide defensive backs.

“The receivers played real good and the quarterbacks were putting them in good position, putting the ball on the money,” Jones said. “There wasn’t anything we could do, for real. We were already playing lazy and they were tearing us up. I don’t even know what else to say.”

Saban said it was “pretty obvious to me that we don’t have enough respect for the deep part of the field,” and Jones agreed with Saban that the defensive backfield was “playing very lazy out there and not respecting our keys that we’ve been told to respect at all times.”

“We didn’t think they were going to pass it that much, but when we did think they were going to pass it, we (thought) it was gonna be short passes,” Jones said. “And that was killing the defense. Honestly. I can’t sugar coat it.”

“We were anticipating a lot of stuff. We were anticipating run, reading run too much, and then just simple things that we could control. It wasn’t anything that the coaches had.”

The secondary will look to improve this week prior to Friday’s second of three scrimmages. But the good news is Hurts has seemingly shown signs of improvement through the air in the early portions of the spring, since the end of his true freshman season.

“He’s been working really hard during the offseason and showing even in this first spring, I feel like he had a very good spring scrimmage that we just had,” rising redshirt senior cornerback Anthony Averett said of Hurts. “I feel like he’s better from last year already, that’s definitely a plus for him.”

As much as Jones and company want to forget Saturday’s outing, they were encouraged by the progress their offensive teammates after their struggles in the passing game last season.

“It gave me great confidence,” Jones said. “The offense looked real good. The ones, twos, threes, all of them looked real good.”

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