Freshman tight end O.J. Howard working on blocking in Wednesday's practice. (Photo by Brett Hudson)

Freshman tight end O.J. Howard working on blocking in Wednesday’s practice. (Photo by Brett Hudson)

A cloudy day in Tuscaloosa made the temperatures mild for Wednesday’s practice, the final one open to the media before Saturday’s game with Arkansas. Here are a few notes and observations from practice, with video posted at the bottom.

– Center Ryan Kelly continues to show improvement as he comes back from his knee injury, looking close to 100 percent today. We should get more on his status from head coach Nick Saban in his press conference tonight.

– I mananged to catch a scout teamer throwing up into a trash can behind the offensive line drills. Strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran gave him a friendly teasing, to say the least.

– Outside linebacker Denzel Devall is still wearing some heavy taping and padding around his left knee. His jump off-the-line and speed overall have been coming back slowly ever since he returned to practice, however, so it would not be surprising if he started wearing less tape on the knee in the near future.