Alabama injury updates on LaBryan Ray, Trey Sanders and Malachi Moore

Opening preseason practice Friday, Alabama’s football roster was fairly healthy after several starters missed spring with injuries.

The exception, Nick Saban said Sunday, was LaBryan Ray. The senior defensive lineman will be out for a few weeks with a “pretty significant groin injury,” Saban said in his first news conference of the preseason. Ray has missed time to injuries in each of the previous few seasons but his final season in Tuscaloosa begins with a setback Saban said occurred late in the summer.

“Hopefully we’ll get him back and he’ll be confident in his ability to play and we’ll just wait to see day-to-day how that goes,” Saban said.

Saban was also asked about a few players coming back from previous injuries. On Trey Sanders, Saban said the running back is “very close to 100%” and can see the burst returning to his running after being injured in a car wreck last fall.

“The issue always with a player who has a significant injury like he had is how’s he going to respond when he actually starts having to play football and gets hit and has to hit other people. That’s an unknown that we’ll just have to wait and see because we’ve only been in shorts and helmets so far so we’ve had very limited contact.”

Saban said he’s been impressed with Sanders’ attitude and the mental side of returning from that trauma.

Defensive back Malachi Moore has been practicing every day and was working out over the summer after missing the two playoff games and spring practice.

“But as we all know, those of us — including me — that have had some issues with their back, that sometimes these things reoccur with really — sometimes hard to figure what the reason for this is,” Saban said. “What did I do? How did it happen? Why is it hurting again? So you never know about that part of it but so far he’s done a really, really good job.”

Alabama will hold its third practice of the preseason Sunday after opening workouts Friday afternoon.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.