Alabama football will hold its annual A-Day event on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Crimson Tide is hosting an open practice, with free admission, though it won’t be televised this year.

Gates open at 11 a.m. CT and the practice is scheduled to begin at noon. As Alabama closes out spring practice, here are three questions to be answered in Saturday’s open session.

What will the practice look like?

Following the lead of programs around the country, Alabama won’t be having a traditional spring game this year. The Crimson Tide won’t even be following last year’s format, which was more of a modified scrimmage than anything like what Nick Saban held each season.

Instead, Kalen DeBoer and company will be holding an open practice. However, with fans in attendance, how much will the Crimson Tide actually show on Saturday?

However closely the practice resembles Alabama’s regular practices, fans should still be able to see a fairly large variety of activities from the players. UA will likely go through a combination of group and individual drills, but how much actual football, with offense going against defense, will be part of the event will be interesting to see.

What will we see from the quarterbacks?

As always when the position is up for grabs, the quarterback battle has been the story of Alabama’s offseason so far. Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and Keelon Russell all remain in contention for the starting role, according to DeBoer.

As the three continue battling to replace Jalen Milroe, it will be interesting to see if the open practice offers a clue as to how they stand. During a media viewing session early in the spring, it appeared that Simpson was first in the order of operations, followed by Mack, then Russell, but that wasn’t necessarily indicative of the actual depth chart.

DeBoer said after the Tide’s second scrimmage that Simpson and Mack were getting the majority of first-team reps, largely due to their experience in the system compared to Russell, a true freshman. How much DeBoer and company put the current pecking order on display on A-Day will be intriguing.

Will fans respond well to the changes?

Alabama fans have historically shown out well for A-Day. The high-water mark came in 2007, when over 92,000 people watched Nickn’s first spring game at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Even in 2024, attendance remained good. DeBoer’s first year as head coach for the even saw an announced crowd of 72,358 fans in Tuscaloosa.

However, with so many changes to the format this year, it will be interesting to see how fans respond. Will the absence of an actual spring game cause attendance to plummet on Saturday?