How Alabama is molding tight ends to fit into Ryan Grubb’s offense..
The tight end position played a role in the Crimson Tide’s offense during Kalen DeBoer’s first season in Tuscaloosa, and this looks to not be changing anytime soon.
CJ Dippre, Robbie Ouzts and Josh Cuevas combined for 582 receiving yards and three touchdowns in 2024. Dippre and Ouzts’ departures remove 364 yards and two touchdowns of the production with them moving on to pursue the NFL after graduating.
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Alabama used multiple tight ends on offense for quite a bit last season, and this trend looks to continue in 2025. Cuevas told reporters last week the Crimson Tide are training each Alabama tight end to be able to play every down this spring under new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb.
“Right now, I think we’re trying to mold everybody into an all-down tight end for sure with this offense,” Cuevas said. “We’re trying to get everybody to do everything, especially with our room a little young. So, right now we’re kind of getting things a little bit rolling. Right now, we’re just trying to mold everybody into an all-down tight end and right now, whatever they’re good at, the coaches are going to put them in for.”
Cuevas also shared the Crimson Tide has been watching film of Noah Fant with the Seattle Seahawks from last season.
“We watch a lot of Noah Fant film,” Cuevas said. “Coach Grub, he gives me a whole bunch of clips and Coach Ellis, he gives me a whole bunch of his clips, just kind of watching how dynamic he is on the ball and off the ball and just kind of just trying to work to replicate his game a little bit more. So, there’s a lot of film on the Seahawks coming with coach Grubb, but it’s been great.”
Nate Oats rumors: Alabama coach reportedly not interested in open Big Ten job..
Nate Oats just led Alabama to the Elite Eight for the second-straight season. And even though the Crimson Tide saw their season come to an end at the hands of a buzzsaw Duke squad, don’t expect the talented head coach to leave Tuscaloosa anytime soon.
While rumors popped up over the weekend that Oats was potentially frustrated over Alabama’s NIL situation, with most of the money going to football, it doesn’t appear those rumors have any foundation.
Per college hoops insider Jeff Goodman, Oats has “no interest in the vacant Maryland job,” despite some recent rumors linking him with the Terrapins after coach Kevin Willard left for Villanova:
Alabama head coach Nate Oats has no interest in the vacant Maryland job, source told @thefieldof68.
There’s been some recent chatter about Oats and the Terps job.
No truth to it.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 31, 2025
That makes sense, as even if Oats was frustrated by Alabama’s NIL situation (which there’s no indication that’s true at all), Willard just left Maryland in part due to… NIL frustrations.
This seems to be one of those situations where a fake social media account potentially caused such a stir that a legitimate report had to be made by Goodman to put the issue to bed.
Oats has turned Alabama into a juggernaut in the SEC. Look for him to be back on the Crimson Tide bench next year looking for yet another deep run in March Madness.
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