Alabama Football Spring Practice Day 1

Alabama quarterback Blake Barnett (6) works through drills during Alabama's first spring football practice, Friday, Mar. 13, 2015, at the Thomas-Drew Practice Fields in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com ORG XMIT: ALBIN401

(VASHA HUNT)

The large white board hung next to Blake Barnett's bed.

Goals were listed from top to bottom. Barnett's weight, workout numbers and 40-yard dash times were across the top. Barnett's dad, Lance, would write different motivational quotes each week at the bottom. The schools were listed down the right side, a collection of 20 universities that Barnett compiled heading into his junior season at Corona Santiago High School in Corona, California.

These were the schools Barnett was most interested in one day playing college football for, a list that included Alabama as well as other prominent programs such as Oregon, Texas and Florida State.

At that point, few, if any, had ever heard of Barnett. Barnett had yet to emerge as a starter at a school with a marginal football history. He was not even listed on recruiting sites like Rivals or ESPN, let alone as the five-star prospect most rated him as by the end of his senior season at Santiago last year.

Everything changed on August 30, 2013.

It was Santiago's first game of that season, a matchup with Hart High School and future Arizona State four-star quarterback signee Brady White that was broadcast around the country on Fox Sports West.

This was Barnett's first start as a high school quarterback. The phone calls from college coaches, analysts and reporters began coming in shortly afterward.

The game was a shootout, a back and forth duel during which White and Barnett continued to trade touchdowns before White and Hart prevailed, 56-49.

White threw for 471 yards and three touchdowns. Barnett passed for 289 yards and five touchdowns while also running for 92 yards and a touchdown on four carries.

That was the first significant proof of a belief that will be tested in the coming years at Alabama.

"Blake loves competition. He thrives on it," Lance Barnett said during a phone interview. "That's probably what I've noticed the last two years from his junior year to where he is now -- as the stage got bigger, he never folded. He actually got better. ... The kid just thrives on competition. He just rises up."

Lance responded, "What do you mean you made up your mind?"

Blake said, "I've decided what school I want to go to."

After Lance said, "Well, Blake, we're supposed to go to Oregon tomorrow," Blake told his dad, "There's no point. I'm choosing Alabama."

"If Oregon would have been his first offer, he would have committed and it would have been done," Lance says now. "Before his first snap of high school football, if he could have picked any school, it would have been Oregon first and probably Alabama second. ... But I think where Blake wants to be in 4-5 years, in my honest opinion, that's why he picked Alabama.

"[Coach Nick Saban] was really good about talking about development as a person, as a student and as an athlete, and those are all of Blake's goals."

The skill set

Oregon compared the 6-foot-5, 210-pound Barnett to last year's Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, a dual-threat quarterback who threw for 4,454 yards and 42 touchdowns with just four interceptions while leading the Ducks to a berth in the national championship game.

Mariota also ran for 770 yards and 15 touchdowns.

"In their opinion, he was a Marcus clone," Lance said. "They were impressed with his work ethic. They visited several practices. And based on how he was reading defenses, they said, 'We don't see a lot of that at the high school level.'"

Those characteristics -- combined with Barnett spending extra time with Tide coaches in order to expedite the acclimation process with Alabama's playbook and system -- could put Barnett in the mix to replace the departed Blake Sims as the Tide's starting quarterback.

Barnett will be part of a competition that also includes senior Jake Coker, redshirt junior Alec Morris, redshirt sophomore Cooper Bateman and redshirt freshman David Cornwell.

"I wouldn't rule [Barnett starting] out at all," Saban said in February. "If he's the best player, why would we not play him? That's like saying a guy is from California so we should not play him because he's from California. We wouldn't have recruited him. If the guy's the best player, we're going to play him."

Barnett has been training with quarterbacks coach Dennis Gile since his sophomore year at Santiago.

Gile trains San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, potential first-round pick Brett Hundley and other quarterbacks such as Texas A&M's Kyle Allen, who threw 13 touchdowns while starting the Aggies' final five games.

"Blake's ready to compete," Gile said. "It's hard to say if anyone's just ready to step in to the SEC as an 18-year old and just absolutely destroy it. You've seen Kyle [Allen], who I thought had one of the most impressive games ever as a true freshman in college against Auburn, but then had some challenges here and there against Missouri and another school, and then just absolutely destroyed West Virginia.

"Do I think Blake can go out and do well? I have no doubt about it. I have all the confidence in the world in him. But do I think he's going to struggle at times? There's no doubt about it. I don't think there's ever anyone as an 18-year old that's just going to go in and destroy every game in the SEC."

Going forward

While Santiago finished just 6-5 last season, Barnett threw for 3,404 yards and 23 touchdowns with only 11 interceptions while running for 479 yards and seven touchdowns.

Barnett outperformed 17 other top quarterback prospects last July on his way to being named Elite 11 MVP.

"Alabama's an unbelievable program, but I haven't seen any quarterback go through there that I can remember that has maybe the athleticism that Blake has," Gile said. "So to me, it's just going to be what kind of offense are they going to run with him, what types of positions are they going to put him in and how does he handle it?"

An early enrollee, Barnett arrived at Alabama in January and is taking part in spring practice.

"My main goal is to compete for a spot. But right now, that's big picture things," Barnett said in February. "The small picture I'm focusing on right now is to get the playbook down and take it step by step. I think that's awhile away from here. I don't want to say anything, make any statements right now."

Former Alabama and current Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Nico Johnson visited Alabama during the winter and talked to Barnett, who told him that he had been meeting with Kiffin every day to watch film and go over Alabama's playbook and concepts.

Most recently, Barnett was meeting with graduate assistant Alex Mortensen, a former college quarterback, 3-4 days per week leading into spring practice, Lance Barnett said.

Barnett went through his first practice with Alabama last Friday.

"Today's really the first day we've seen him play quarterback," Saban said after the practice. "We saw him in the offseason program. He's done a great job. He's got great leadership qualities. He's a great person. I'm sure as all the freshmen -- we have eight new ones out there, seven freshmen and a transfer -- they've all got a lot to learn. ...

"He certainly is a guy that comes here with high accolades, but I think that's one of the most dangerous things that can happen to these guys right now. There's such an expectation created for what they're going to do when they get here that everybody loses focus on the process of what it takes to be a complete player, to be a good player, and the time that it takes to develop.

"We've got a lot of patience in trying to develop our players. How fast he develops can be kind of how fast he can get the uptake and go out there and execute and do the job that I know he wants to do and we'd like for him to do."

The white board made the trip to Tuscaloosa, delivered by Lance during a recent trip to Alabama's campus and tucked away somewhere in a room that Barnett shares with another freshman player.

"He doesn't have much room in his dorm because he's got his shoe rack," Lance said. "But he said he'll hang it up somewhere, and hopefully he'll utilize it the way he did once before. We'll see. I know every time I get the opportunity to go back there I'll write something on it."