Christmas in March?

Christmas is in December, right?

For Alabama and offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic, Christmas came eight months early when Kadyn Proctor transferred back from Iowa to Alabama after spending his freshman season as the starting left tackle with the Crimson Tide.

Proctor announced his decision to transfer from Alabama to Iowa on January 20, and it immediately was a blow to Alabama's offensive line. However, thanks to already-established relationships in Tuscaloosa, especially with redshirt freshman Wilkin Formby, Proctor eventually made the decision to transfer back to Alabama from Iowa in March. When the transfer portal officially opened on April 15, Proctor came back to Tuscaloosa.

Alabama offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic told Ryan Fowler on The Game on Wednesday that it was like waking up as a kid on Christmas morning,

“You remember when you were like 5 or 6 years old and it was Day and you woke up and saw there was presents under the tree?” Kapilovic said. "That’s what it felt like."

Kapilovic also talked about Proctor coming back into the building,

“He came back here ready to work,” Kapilovic said. “He’s getting after it in the weight room and on the field. He’s been, I almost want to say, humbled a little bit by the experience or appreciative to be back here. There obviously was a strong brotherhood in that room of the guys he came in with that he wanted to be back here with, so that’s been great. He’s been good to work with and just install the offense with him, and he’s picked up things quickly. Really inserted himself as a player that he can be and is just kind of growing daily.”

While Proctor was away back in his home state, Elijah Pritchett was getting almost all of the reps at left tackle. Pritchett was recruited as a right tackle and is still expected to compete with Wilkin Formby and Myles McVay for the right tackle spot, where Formby and McVay split first-team reps during the spring.

Proctor is expected to be the starter for Alabama, but he'll have to earn his job back. Kapilovic revealed that Proctor is working with the "second" unit while also rotating in with the "first." Alabama's depth chart is fluid, however, with players experimenting all over during the summer.

“Everybody here’s very competitive, everybody wants to be the starter,” Kapilovic said. “From myself to our OC Coach Sheridan we talked to these guys and said, ‘We’re going to move y’all around quite a bit, and then when we get going into fall camp, the five best are going to be on the field. And if there’s more than five that warrant playing time, we’ll get you out there.”

Kapilovic also mentioned Alabama has five-man, six-man, and seven-man protection packages to help combat the high number of sacks given up by the Crimson Tide last season.

You can listen to Coach Chris Kapilovic's full interview with Ryan Fowler here.

The Game with Ryan Fowler airs weekdays from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Tide 100.9 and 1230 WTBC. You can also stream it on the Tide 100.9 app. 

Wyatt Fulton is the Brand Manager and DME for Tide 100.9, serving as an on-air host from 11:00 a.m. to noon CT every weekday and Sports Reporter covering Alabama Football and Alabama Men's Basketball. For more coverage, follow him at @FultonW_ on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.