Alabama linebacker signee Demouy Kennedy played through injury most of his senior year at Theodore, just outside Mobile.

Bobcats’ coach Eric Collier said earlier this week the state’s top 2020 recruit had surgery last month to repair a torn labrum and his recovery is “going fine.”

“He is rehabbing now,” Collier told AL.com. “I’m not sure of the exact timetable, but I’m hoping he can get back before (Alabama’s) spring training.”

The 6-foot-3, 215-pound Kennedy signed with Alabama in December and is already enrolled in Tuscaloosa. He did not attend Wednesday’s Alabama Sports Writers Association Players of the Year banquet in Montgomery, where he was honored as the Class 7A Lineman of the Year.

“He’s an amazing young man,” Collier said of his former star. “He works his butt off. He is not here today because he was worried about missing his English class, and I respect that.

“The first thing he told me is that, ‘Coach, I just don’t want to get behind in English.’ That’s Demouy’s mentality. He is going to take care of his business whether it be football or in the classroom. I look for continued great things out of him.”

The ASWA also named Kennedy to its Super All-State Team, a list of the top 12 high school players for the 2019 season regardless of classification or position.

Despite his injuries, Kennedy tallied 73 tackles this fall. He also had six tackles for a loss, two sacks and a pair of interceptions. On offense, he rushed 18 times out of the Wildcat formation for 273 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Collier said Kennedy injured his shoulder during the first several weeks of fall camp but wanted to play his senior season and did after doctors told him it was fine to do so. Kennedy is No. 10 on AL.com’s updated The Southern 120, a list of the top senior prospects in the 10-state SEC footprint.

“He hurt his shoulder about the third week of fall practice,” Collier said. “It hurt him all year, but he played, and he played a lot of different roles for us. We do that with a lot of our guys, and he understood that.

“At the end of the day, we are going to do whatever it takes for Theodore to win. Sometimes in today’s society, a lot of kids don’t like that. But we’ve been blessed. Our kids have always bought into that. There were times when he played running back. There were times when he played defensive end, linebacker. There were times he played quarterback. He did whatever we asked of him.”

Collier said he believes the Alabama coaching staff will start Kennedy at inside linebacker.

“Where he ends up, I’m not sure,” Collier said. “I know the talk was they were going to start him inside. If that didn’t work out, they were going to move him outside and let him come off the edge. That is what he is really natural at.”

Collier often has compared Kennedy to another former Theodore and Alabama great linebacker, C.J. Mosley. Will he have the same type of impact for the Crimson Tide?

“I don’t know if he can go up and do that the first year, but I think two or three years down the road … absolutely,” he said. “He’s got that type of talent.”