🏈 Notebook: Ragland coming to the forefront of defense

TUSCALOOSA —
Reggie Ragland, a former five-star inside recruit from Madison, is finally making an impact at Alabama.

The junior linebacker is second on the team in tackles with 19, has a sack, a pass breakup, a quarterback hurry and two fumble recoveries.

"I've grown up a lot in the last three to four weeks," Ragland said. "I've had to get mentally stronger. Everything is starting to slow down. First, it was really fast. Now it's a whole lot slower. I can see the play dial up now."

Ragland spent most of his first two years at Alabama as a special teams player, and he admitted it was tough watching games from the sidelines.

He bided his time and learned from the standouts in front of him.

Now, Ragland is working next to veteran Trey DePriest.

"I learned from C.J. (Mosley), and now I'm learning from Trey so I can do it next year," Ragland said. "I'm going to do the same thing he did."


Decatur Daily—Continue reading...
 
One of our conversations after week one was the middle of the field and how we were doing with defense as a whole.

We've also talked about different areas of the team and different players who've improved through the first third of 2014. Ragland is one of those guys.

You've heard the term "graded out" when discussing how well an individual player does in a game. One way defense is looked at is "touches" including tackles, assists, sacks, passes broken up (interceptions are included in that statistic), hurries...

Last week against Florida Ragland led the team in touches (Collins, DePriest, and Reed made up to the top four.)
 
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