Jalen Milroe knows what Auburn football freshman linebacker Demarcus Riddick said.
First, Riddick called Alabama a "big rival team," clarifying he's "never lost to" a rival team and predicting "I will not lose to Bama while I'm here." He then said Milroe is "fast" but "not faster than me," and that freshman wide receiver Ryan Williams "ain't no big-time player to me."
Did Milroe have a response?
"I don't even know who that is," Milroe said with a smirk. "But, I mean, let them talk. It's a part of it."
That's the Iron Bowl , the end-of-regular-season rivalry game between the Crimson Tide and the Tigers that decides the trajectory of college football in the state of Alabama for the next year.
It's a game that takes safety Malachi Moore back to elementary school: the friends he'd make before the annual jersey day makes party allegiances clear.
"They going to do stuff to put it out there and try and try to hype the game up," Moore said. "The game is already hype. It's the Iron Bowl. It ain't no bigger than this. We're going to see Saturday."
Alabama defensive lineman Jah-Marien Latham has never been a trash talk type of player. He describes himself as someone who lines up and does his job with no talking in between.
As for what he's heard from Auburn , it's something Latham is not returning.
"I feel like every week, somebody on the opposing team has something to say that blows up in the media," Latham said. "That's something that we can't worry about. Our job is to come out there, put in the work so that Saturday we can go out there and play. That's an external factor, something we don't need to feed into."
Tim Keenan's not surprised by Riddick's comments. Teams talk, he said. The Alabama defensive lineman even called Auburn "a good team," one the Crimson Tide is preparing for.
But Keenan did want to make one thing perfectly clear.
"I definitely think Ryan Williams is a big time player," Keenan said. "That's the best 17-year-old I have ever seen."
Alabama hosts Auburn at 2:30 p.m. CT at Bryant-Denny Stadium on ABC.
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: How is Alabama football responding to Auburn trash talk before Iron Bowl?
