What happened on Alabama football’s bad snap against Western Kentucky?

Toward the end of the first quarter of Saturday’s blowout win over Western Kentucky, Alabama football gave its fans a familiar feeling. And not a good one.

After a 2023 season rife with bad snaps, the first one of the 2024 season flew over Jalen Milroe’s head and resulted in a Hilltopper possession. Fortunately for the Crimson Tide, the mistake wasn’t repeated, and the rest of the 63-0 blowout passed without incident.

After the game, head coach Kalen DeBoer explained what had happened from his perspective, to cause the bad connection between Milroe and center Parker Brailsford.

“I think maybe Parker was trying to signal something and get the line locked in,” DeBoer said. “And that’s just a quarterback-center kind of being on the same page. And then all of a sudden it was time to snap the ball when, Jalen claps, so just things like that that we can continue to get better at.”

Milroe chalked the incident up to “first-game jitters.” Besides the one glaring mistake and a few high snaps that Milroe caught, Brailsford’s snaps looked crisp and accurate, something that couldn’t be said last season, when Seth McLaughlin had issues throughout the campaign.

The snaps came at notable times throughout the year, helping force Alabama into the fourth-and-31 situation it faced in the Iron Bowl. A low snap on the final play of the Rose Bowl contributed to the Tide not getting the touchdown it needed in overtime of the College Football Playoff semifinals.

Brailsford followed DeBoer to Alabama from Washington. After sitting out most of spring football due to personal issues, he took the starting role over during preseason camp, and played well during his Crimson Tide debut.

“It’s the first game of the season,” Milroe said. “Getting acclimated to the game. Mikes happen. Of course, it’s collaborative, it’s something that we can both look and reflect on how we can improve. But it’s just first-game jitters and we just want to build and improve.”

Alabama will be back in action next Saturday against South Florida.