ATLANTA -- Alabama started two freshmen at inside linebacker on Saturday night.

But to the naked eye, it wasn’t that noticeable.

Shane Lee and Christian Harris manned the Mike and Will linebacker spots, respectively, in the Crimson Tide’s season-opening win over Duke, and the duo impressed in their first outing.

“I think they did a good job,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said. “There was a couple things that we sort of made some errors on, but for the most part -- for the first game, for both of these guys, both being true freshmen -- I thought they made a lot of good plays.”

The Blue Devils threw some plays at the freshmen linebackers that the Tide didn’t prepare for during the practices leading up to the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, but Lee and Harris didn’t panic.

“They did a good job adapting with the run reads, and they did a pretty good job in coverage, for the most part,” Saban said. “I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of things that we're all going to learn from from this experience, but I was pretty pleased for the first time out.”

This week, Lee stepped in at Mike for Dylan Moses, a preseason All-American who suffered a severe knee injury earlier this week. Earlier on Saturday, Moses underwent successful surgery and is looking forward to tackling rehab. Harris assumed the starting weakside linebacker role in preseason camp after Joshua McMillon sustained a knee injury in the second scrimmage.

Alabama safety Xavier McKinney (left) and linebacker Shane Lee combine for a tackle.

There’s no replacing a player like Moses, but with Lee and Harris, there wasn’t a significant dropoff.

“I thought their linebackers, those young linebackers played exceptionally well,” Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said. “They're big, strong, really good players. I know Moses is one of the best linebackers I've seen, period. I think he's a great player. I hate it for him. I truly hate it that he's had that type of injury to miss a season. But their front played really well. We knew they would.”

Lee and Harris recorded six tackles apiece as Alabama’s defense held Duke to three points and 204 yards of total offense. After a fumble in the first quarter gave Duke the ball at the Tide’s 26, Lee stonewalled running back Deon Jackson short of the sticks, forcing a turnover on downs.

“Shane did a really good job today. I’m proud of him,” redshirt junior linebacker Terrell Lewis said. “That’s a young guy that stepped in, got in the thrown in the fire and he did a really good job.”

With experienced players like Moses and McMillon out indefinitely before the season started, UA needed its young players to perform well in their first college games. And they did just that.

“They did really well,” Lewis said. “They stepped up really big, communicated well and relayed the calls. And then they played really fast, too. I just told them, ‘If you see something, just play football. Don’t be a robot out there. Still just play football -- see ball, get ball.’”

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

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