In line to make his pro debut with the Houston Texans on Thursday night, Will Anderson Jr. feels well-prepared for his first NFL season, thanks to Nick Saban and DeVonta Smith.

The third player picked in the NFL Draft on April 27, Alabama’s only two-time unanimous All-American credited Smith and Saban during an appearance on the “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast on Thursday.

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Anderson and Smith were teammates for only one season at Alabama. But in that 2020 campaign, Smith won the Heisman Trophy and helped the Crimson Tide win the CFP national championship with an undefeated season.

“I seen the way he went about every day,” Anderson said about Smith, who’s preparing for his third season as a Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver. “He was the same consistent guy. We would have 6:30 a.m. lift, and he’ll be the first one in the training room on the first table, getting treatment or whatever like that.

“And it just opened my eyes a lot, and I tell people all the time that I took a lot from him and I put it into me, everything that he used to do. His work ethic was relentless. When guys get into later years, they may not want to do every rep. He’s still doing every rep at practice.”

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As Alabama’s coach, Saban worked the Tide players hard at practice, Anderson said, but it got them ready for the rigors of the NFL.

“Even though it’s a lot on our bodies and everything like that,” Anderson said. “It helps us when we get to the league because we do so much wear and tear. It was like reps after reps after reps after reps, and then when you get to the NFL, you’d be like, ‘Oh, this is it? Like you only got three reps here?’ At college where we was at, we was doing 10-play drives, eight-play drives back to back to back to back, like, non-stop reps. …

“So I just feel like he tries to set you up for the future. If he knows you’re great and he knows you’re going to go through his system, he’s going to do whatever he can, so when you do get to that next level, you’ve already seen it, you already prepared. You can just go out there and go to work.”

An outside linebacker at Alabama, where he recorded 34.5 sacks in three seasons, Anderson is lining up at defensive end in the Texans’ defense.

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Houston plays the New England Patriots at 6 p.m. CDT Thursday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, in the opening game of the first full week of the NFL’s 2023 preseason schedule. NFL Network will televise the game.

“I feel like this is the funnest I’ve had playing ball in a long time,” Anderson said. “It’s been so fun, like, no school, no tutoring, nothing like that. You eat and sleep football, so it’s been fun.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.