It could have been an awkward conversation.

“And so, Irv, we meet again! BwaaHaHa!”

It was nothing like that, though, when Jeff Banks arrived in Tuscaloosa last winter to join the Alabama football coaching staff as special teams coordinator and tight ends coach. And, of course, a recruiter.

Banks had come to Bama from five years at Texas A&M, where he most recently had served as acting head coach of the Aggies following the dismissal of Kevin Sumlin prior to the A&M bowl game. At Alabama, he would serve as special teams coach and tight ends coach. And he would be reunited with Crimson Tide junior Irv Smith, Jr.

The two had become acquainted when Smith was a high school junior at Brother Martin in New Orleans and Banks was recruiting him for Texas A&M.

Smith committed to the Aggies. Now, though, he is at Alabama, where he signed after de-committing from A&M in 2016.

And his coach is the man he de-committed from. But there were no hard feelings.

“It was tough love at first when I de-committed,” Smith said. But when they were reunited in Tuscaloosa, Banks was “very excited. We were back together and he would be coaching me. It was awesome.”

Smith had committed to Texas A&M in great part because of the relationship he had built with Banks.

“Coach Banks was at A&M and he was recruiting me very hard and he and I had a real close relationship,” Smith said. “But I ended up taking a visit to Alabama and fell in love with it. It kind of spoke for itself. But it’s awesome having Coach Banks here now because we had such a close relationship.”

This week Banks will be reacquainted with some of his former A&M players.

On Saturday, No. 1 Alabama (3-0, 1-0 in Southeastern Conference play) hosts Texas A&M (2-1) at 2:30 p.m. CDT in Bryant-Denny Stadium. CBS will televise the game.

Alabama uses its tight ends in a variety of ways with, usually, Hale Hentges playing the traditional ‘Y’ tight end alongside a tackle and the 6-4, 241-pound Smith at the ‘H’ spot just off the line of scrimmage where he can either block or become a receiver.

It is as receivers that tight ends are likely to garner the most attention. And Smith has been the tight end of choice for that chore.

Irv Smith, Jr., is a pass catcher

Through three games in which Alabama’s wide receivers have been spectacular – Jerry Jeudy 11 catches for 287 yards, DeVonta Smith 10 receptions for 204 yards, Henry Ruggs 8 for 96 – Irv Smith is right there with them.

Tight end Smith has caught 9 passes for 122 yards and 2 TDs. In last week’s 62-7 win over Ole Miss in Oxford, Smith had 3 receptions for 42 yards, including a 12-yard TD catch from Tua Tagovailoa.

He didn’t have any catches as a freshman in 2016, but last year was the leading receiver among tight ends with 14 catches for 128 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Everyone seems to want passes to go to the tight end, the man who can slip out into that open area just over the line of scrimmage.

As for the tight ends, “It’s exciting,” Smith said. “I feel that all the tight ends work very hard and want to improve on a lot of things and I feel like we’ve done that so far. With our group we have a lot of depth, and I feel like we have one of the most— if not the most — talented group in the country. I feel like Coach Locksley (Offensive Coordinator Mike Locksley) and the quarterbacks have done a great job trying to find us and get us available to make plays.”

He also acknowledged the ability of Tagovailoa “staying in the pocket. He gets pressure and keeps his eyes down the field and makes plays with his arm. It’s gotten everybody really a lot more open. If he’s scrambling and still looking down the field we can get away from our defender a little easier and make plays, and he can also make plays with his feet, so he’s doing a great job with that.”

Fellow tight end Hale Hentges was asked about Smith’s improvement from last year.

“In pretty much every aspect of his game he’s gotten a whole lot better, especially blocking” Hentges said. “Not that he wasn’t good before, but you can tell he’s really established his hand-in-the-ground blocking. Obviously, he’s been a really big deep-play threat since he first stepped on campus, but now he’s just making plays. He’s realizing what potential he has and what ability he has, and I’m really excited to see where his game goes. As we keep playing, he keeps getting better and better. He understands the games better, and hopefully, he can continue that because we’ll definitely need him.”