We wondered if Coach DeBoer would take the seemingly-cavalier approach to that facet of the game as he apparently showed last season, where kicking and punting — even the coaching of them —appeared an afterthought.
We have our answer: No, the Tide is taking this one seriously. So seriously, in fact, that shoring up special teams has been the first unit solidified going into 2026. Let’s take a look at what we have:
Punter
Adam Watford (University of North Alabama)
Turns out the Tide didn’t even have to travel far to find its field position weapon in signing Adam Watford. Watford, an FCS all-American with the UNA Lions, hails from Dothan. He’s about as Alabama as they come, and he has the productive leg, and high-volume kicking on his CV, to warrant enthusiasm:
He punted 66 times in 2025, for an average of 46.6 yards. He put 18 punts inside the 20-yard line, and his season-long was 74 yards.
Watford set the FCS single-season record with 17 punts going longer than 50 yards last season. He earned the United Athletic Conference’s co-specialist of the year honor for his performance in 2025.
Kohl’s Kicking Camps evaluated Watford as a five-star punter coming out of Dothan.
“He is one of the top punters in the country,” Watford’s Kohl’s bio reads on the company’s website. “In 2021, He averaged over 40 yards with more than 4 seconds of hang time after 24 punts during the charting phases of camp. His ability to maximize his energy into the football is well above his age and it shows with a 5-star rating. We expect big things over the upcoming years from Watford because he has the talent to be a dominant punter at the next level.”
No one is discussing this, but it was critical that Alabama signed a punter with familiarity kicking in the super-sauna of the south, at sea level. Doud was a perfectly serviceable punter at the School of Mines, but most SEC programs are in the flat, humid farmland of the Deep South — the wind is non-existent (unless you want to count tornadoes), and the atmospheric pressure is much higher.
Doud was kicking a mile above sea level, with the pressure being a barrel-scraping 24.8 inHg (84 kPa) on average. Its highest pressure is on the low-side of average in the South (29.8 kPa). So we should be impressed that Watford averaged that kind of distance in conditions that would kill the hang time of someone accustomed to punting in the Rockies. Don’t forget the wet ball, which grows slippery just by dint of being in the South — we don’t have a climate; we have an outdoor aquarium.
The temperature does help balls, but the humidity kills them, and doubly so for accuracy, since you’re kicking a wet one.
Placekicker
Lorcan Quinn (Marshall)
Now this is the interesting one. Quinn didn’t originally hail from a small-time school, though he did spend a year at Marshall. He was not a disgruntled second-teamer at a Power 4 squad, nor a big-shit All-American playing for brokies and desperate to chase the bag. Quinn was not even from this country and didn’t know a thing about kicking an American football. Because, you see, Quinn is Irish. And he was the №1 placekicker in last year’s recruiting cycle.
After a great season at Marshall, Lorcan went portaling — and why wouldn’t he? Few teams were as hard-up for a big leg and consistency quite like the Crimson Tide were.
And goodness, does he have a leg:
Quinn played one season with the Thundering Herd in 2025 after being ranked as the №1 kicker in the 2025 cycle, per Kohl’s Kicking Academy. Quinn went 21-of-26 on field goals last fall, while hitting 4-of-6 attempts on field goals 50-yards or more. He earned First Team All-Sun Belt Conference honors following the 2025 season after not playing American football until last year.
Quinn was the first kicker in Herd program history to make 20 or more field goals in a season. His 21-of-26 makes put him tied for ninth in the nation and he was also ranked №3 in FBS when it comes to kickoff average (64.8 yards). Quinn had 61 touchbacks in his 71 kickoff attempts.
Those are phenomenal stats for a true freshman, and afford Alabama both a field position weapon and extend the Tide’s range to strike for points. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about needing to reach the redzone just to then sweat out a 42-yard attempt. Alabama has been hampered the previous two seasons by a running game that fizzled out in plus-territory compounded by placekicking that wasn’t quite fit for purpose.
Quinn changes that equation immediately. He is Alabama’s version of the Tokyo Toe…and he has an accent that is going to slay the ladies on Sorority Row.
If you find yourself ecstatic this morning, then you are in good company. These are two great signings by the Tide staff, and great closings by Morgan. And, true to their word, Alabama is following the Cignetti school of thought — production over potential. A good leg is a good leg, whether it’s from County Cork or College Station.
Row Tahd!