It was an insignificant play, resulting in a gain of three yards. But what preceded it in the moments before it elapsed is the part that registered as noteworthy. After all, there was Mac Jones lining up under center, accepting the snap from Brandon Kennedy early in the first quarter of Alabama's A-Day spring game.

It was a rare event on this afternoon and something that has become increasingly uncommon in the sport's amateur ranks, as some old-school football guys have rued.

One of them is Wade Wilson, the former quarterbacks coach for the Dallas Cowboys. Wilson now spends his days in semi-retirement, teaching at instructional camps. What he's found is that the basic fundamentals once taken for granted are now being neglected altogether.

"You get young guys coming up from high school who are coming to college who have never taken a center snap," he said. "That's probably a big adjustment. Footwork is definitely a big adjustment. And a lot of teams don't have any communication, except for hand signals, so [the quarterbacks] don't even know how to command a huddle because they have never been in a huddle....At the college level and high school level, it's all shotgun and spread offense. I know it's not all that way at Alabama."

Yet it was trending in that direction for the Crimson Tide, as Nick Saban turned to X's-and-O's gurus like Lane Kiffin and Brian Daboll to shepherd the offense. Kiffin was a maestro as a play-caller but showed deficiencies when it came to developing the talent at his disposal. After years with the New England Patriots, Daboll cultivated a level of expertise in creating specialized game plans to attack a specific opponent, but he was a former college safety who began his career as a defensive assistant.

When Daboll was hired last year, one of his former players with the New York Jets, Chad Pennington, asked if the Crimson Tide had hired another coach to oversee the quarterbacks, too.

The answer then was no. At Alabama, Saban had never assigned one of his assistants to exclusively supervise that position. From 2007 through the end of last season, the coordinator had always been tasked with that responsibility.

Upon learning that, Pennington responded, "They may be doing that in the future."

His prophecy proved correct.

This offseason, Dan Enos came aboard to tutor the quarterbacks after receivers coach Mike Locksley, a former college defensive back, was promoted to the coordinator role when Daboll made a quick U-turn back to the NFL.

The appointment of Enos, once a two-year starter as Michigan State's quarterback, came in the wake of Jalen Hurts' gradual regression as a passer. This past season, Hurts had completed only 32 percent of his throws that traveled 20 or more yards through the air. He also had developed a blind spot on the left side of the field, where he unleashed only 19 passes that went more than ten yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Rock bottom for Hurts came when he was supplanted by Tua Tagovailoa in the national championship game against Georgia after he produced three completions in the first half.

Hurts' backslide in conjunction with the meteoric rise of Tagovailoa set the stage for Enos to be hired.

Tagovailoa, after all, exhibits more of the traits of a traditional dropback passer -- the kind of Pro-Style quarterback Enos has nurtured in the past, whether it be Cooper Rush at Central Michigan or Brandon Allen at Arkansas.

"He's really going to drill them," said Allen's brother, Austin, who played under Enos the last two seasons with the Razorbacks. "He's going to make them a better quarterback with the drops, feet, eyes, know where to go with the football and things like that."

Perhaps more importantly, he's going to give Tagovailoa, Hurts, and Mac Jones his undivided attention. Former Alabama quarterback Blake Sims remembered that Kiffin couldn't always do that with him. Between possessions, Kiffin would dispense some advice to Sims. But then he would go down the line -- from the running backs to the offensive line to the wide receivers -- to give some more directives.

"He talked to other positions," Sims said.

That won't be the case in the current arrangement at Alabama. As Locksley has taken a more holistic view of the offense while hopscotching from one meeting to the other, Enos has set up shop in the room that is home to the most important players on the field.

"I think the quarterbacks are getting a lot more immediate attention, self-gratification," Saban said. "I think the best way to teach is, if somebody makes a mistake or if somebody makes a good play, either one, to get immediate feedback is probably the best way to learn. And I think, and I've talked about this before, with the advent of tempo offense, fastball, players don't get coached as much between plays because they have to go get lined up to play the next play, get the signal, so they don't get that feedback immediately. I thought when the offensive coordinator was over on the side running the practice, putting up signs, running plays, he's not even in a position to give the quarterback feedback."

It's here where the emphasis on fundamentals and technique get lost -- when the implementation of scheme supersedes the honing of skills required to execute it.

It's a world foreign to Wilson, the NFL lifer.

By devoting a coach exclusively to quarterback development, Saban has replicated the model Wilson saw in the pros.

"And," Wilson said, "that's huge."

Even though it is not necessarily noticeable to the naked eye -- like a snap under center in a spring game that could be a telltale sign of things to come with Enos in the fold.

Rainer Sabin is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin