This should feel familiar inside the walls inside the Alabama football complex. They’re halfway through the spring practice season as part of a semi-annual acclimation period.

Replacing seven of 10 assistant coaches is practically a hockey line change not unlike the one last spring. That time six new faces arrived in the aftermath of the 2nd-and-26 national championship. The tone is a little different coming off what happened with Clemson in California back in January.

Still, there’s always the talking point about how much is changing at Alabama when there’s almost wholesale changes in the offices at the complex.

It’s not a question so easily answered because there are levels to this.

From the macro perspective, it’s the same machine with Nick Saban on top of the pyramid.

“Only so much changes around here,” Alabama tight end Miller Forristall said. “The process is still the process.”

Over the years, there have been some philosophical shifts like dabbling in the hurry-up, no-huddle when Lane Kiffin entered the picture in 2014. Every new coordinator brings a flavor to the mix from Brian Daboll’s NFL influence in 2017 and Mike Locksley’s multiple college stops before leading the offense in 2018. Now it’s Steve Sarkisian’s turn.

Saban on several occasions said the personnel on the field will dictate more about style than who is holding the play sheet. And with so many weapons back, things should have a similar feel. It’s just the route to get there that will change somewhat inside meeting rooms and on practice fields, from what players said this spring.

On defense, Pete Golding becomes the official coordinator after effectively taking over last season. There’s been a little more continuity from the leadership on that side of the ball with each of the last three defensive coordinators being internal promotions or a former assistant in Jeremy Pruitt.

“We kind of do what we do,” Saban said. “I think the new coordinator brings new energy, new enthusiasm, new ideas. Sometimes we make tweaks and adaptations to what we do. But we're pretty successful on offense, especially last year. So why would we change it a lot?”

First, the reasons behind the changes must be explained.

There was certainly a strategy behind some of the moves, though not all were part of the plan. Two assistants -- Craig Kuligowski and Joe Pannunzio -- had contract years remaining when replacements were hired at defensive line and running backs, respectively. Others like receivers coach Josh Gattis and quarterbacks coach Dan Enos took offensive coordinator jobs at Michigan and Miami, respectively.

The theme in the pre-2018 hires was youth who had the recruiting credentials to pump some energy into the effort after seeing diminished results there the previous cycle.

The hires made in 2019 had a different feel. Saban said there were issues with the “limited amount of experience” of the previous staff in a few areas. It became clear some of those gaps were exposed in the 44-16 national title game loss to Clemson. Saban noted the recruiting success of the previous staff but wanted more.

“I think that the guys that we hired are good recruiters, but I do think in some cases we have more experience and I think knowledge and experience is always something that is really beneficial to teach players,” Saban said. “So, I’ve been pleased so far with the people that we have and the progress that we’ve been able to make and how the players have responded to the coaches.”

Adding a second defensive backs coach in Charles Kelly had a few functions. Saban said he’s always respected his work and he already knew some of the concepts and terminology working with Pruitt at both Florida State and Tennessee.

Saban also wanted a coach with roots in the state of Alabama like Kelly, an Ozark native who graduated from Auburn in 1990.

“I really felt like last year's staff we really didn't have that connection with some of those local folks like we've had in the past,” Saban said.

Safety Xavier McKinney said Kelly made an immediate impact on his game with the extreme attention to detail be brings to the room.

“Yesterday, we were watching film and he was just talking about me coming out of my breaks and not being wide because when your hands go wide your feet go wide,” McKinney said March 22. “That’s just kind of the little things he tells me about to get me better.”

There comes a getting-to-know-you period with these sweeping changes.

Offensive lineman Jedrick Wills chuckled when asked if they need nametags in meetings with new coaches early in spring. He has a new positional coach in Kyle Flood, the former Rutgers head coach who was most recently with the Atlanta Falcons.

“We’ll be in the meeting room,” Willis said “and he’ll see somebody on the film and it will be me and he’ll think it’s (Matt) Womack or Tommy (Brown),” Wills said. “So, he’s still learning, but I like him a lot.”

As far as changes to the offense itself, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said early in spring they “have implemented a good amount of things that Sark likes to run and he has run in the past.”

Tight end Miller Forristall can see influences from a number of different places with Sarkisian on the headset now. It could be something Alabama did in the past or from “a random team,” he said.

“I mean, you can only run power so many different ways,” Forristall said. “You can only run zone so many different ways. There’s only so many concepts that are on the field. It’s like ‘Hey, I like this now. I’ve grown as a play caller. I like this now.’ I think that changes year to year now.”

It's a matter of adjusting to the way each coach communicates. Wills said the fact Sarkisian had been at Alabama previously (2016 as an analyst and one game as OC) “made things a whole lot simpler.”

“They all have different styles,” Tagovailoa said. “Coach Locksley was one way. Coach Daboll was another way and with the offense we’re running now it’s different, too. It’s just getting used to what they’re doing and what they like and going with it.”

But will they come out with a completely reconstructed offense that looks different from the Locksley addition. Tagovailoa hinted at a few conceptual differences this week.

“Last year, we worked more on RPO, and we had that opportunity to perfect it,” he said Monday. “Now we’re trying to protect full-progression reads, so reading the entire field this year. I think implementing pure progression reads and RPOs is really going to be big for us this season.”

Over on defense, McKinney said the transition hasn’t been too jarring with new coaches art defensive line (Brian Baker), outside linebackers (Sal Sunseri) and defensive backs (Kelly).

“The signals can change up a little bit just with different coaches, because they might change them,” he said. “But other than that, it's the same thing. We do have to get used to the people calling it, but it's not too much of a difference."

Alabama is now in that transition between the first dry run in last Saturday’s opening scrimmage and the second one this weekend. Last week offered the first game-like situation where the new staff had to communicate with the field in real time and nobody reported any major wrinkles.

It’ll be another week before the public sees this version of Alabama football, though A-Day isn’t traditionally a statement with any bold strokes. Exactly 150 days separate the Crimson Tide from opening night in Atlanta when any tangible differences could be spotted.

Michael Casagrande is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.