Alabama football’s kickers don’t often practice their tackling.

“We practice tackles every now and then,” kicker Will Reichard said Thursday during a press conference. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s not a huge emphasis, just because we have so many good players running down on coverage for us that, you know honestly I’m not gonna really be put in that position very much, but we do practice it every now and then.”

Reichard is Alabama’s all-time scoring leader. He’s the most reliable kicker of the Nick Saban era, and has helped erase the Alabama kicker meme.

And last season, against Auburn in the Iron Bowl, Reichard found himself needing to make one of the seldom-practiced tackles.

Jarquez Hunter caught Reichard’s kickoff in the second quarter and rolled past his own 10 and 20-yard-lines with eyes on the end zone and his Tiger teammates doing a marvelous blocking job. Then, Alabama’s kicker grabbed him around the 28, hanging on to his legs and tripping up Hunter just enough to save a touchdown that would have cut the Tide’s lead to just one score

After the play, Reichard got excited, standing over Hunter as he got up and appearing to trash talk his opponent.

“That was a fun one,” Reichard said. “First tackle of my career. I got a little bit lucky. If he runs through that hole 10 times, I probably would only beat him one out of 10. It is fun. The reaction kind of blew up a little bit. It was in the moment. I play with some fire at times. My emotion kind of came out a little bit. Definitely a fun play.”

Alabama football continues preseason camp practices through Aug. 26. The Crimson Tide are scheduled to open the 2023 Sept. 2 against Middle Tennessee State at Bryant-Denny Stadium.