Happy Monday, everyone. Congratulations to all who are reading this, as you have made it through the long offseason and will see college football on your televisions this weekend. Sure, the biggest game on the schedule is North Carolina vs TCU in Ireland, but those who are starved can’t afford to be picky.
You already know the biggest news of the weekend: Keelon Russell has won the QB job.
A former national Gatorade Player of the Year at Texas power Duncanville High School in the 2025 cycle, Russell won consecutive state titles at the prep level and tallied more than 90 total touchdowns over his final two seasons.
Russell’s not the only new starter on Alabama’s offense. Four holes have been filled up front, and DeBoer expects toughness to return to the Crimson Tide’s running game this fall while this unit tries to establish its identity.
What the Crimson Tide needs is a confident distributor capable of turning broken plays into chunk gains and keeping defenses honest on money downs. This is part of what makes this quarterback decision so intriguing in Tuscaloosa — Russell offers exactly that.
Indeed, Alabama is one of the ten least experienced Power Four teams in the nation according to Sam Khan and David Ubben at The Athletic.
Naturally, there’s going to be a small bias on this list against teams that can recruit at an elite level and heavily invest in incoming freshmen — and their ability to retain them. Three of the bottom 13 teams — Alabama, Georgia and USC — all signed top-10 classes, with the Trojans at No. 1. Michigan ranked in the top 15. Clemson famously takes few transfers and added a freshman class of 23 players. North Carolina, in Bill Belichick’s second season, also added 40 freshmen to its roster, as well as some transfers who weren’t as experienced.
Russell and the rest of the young offense will be thrown into the fire week two at Kentucky.
Alabama at Kentucky, Sept. 12
Alabama’s first SEC game on the road against a completely reshaped Kentucky team with a new head coach in former Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein? The Crimson Tide’s conference debut is feasible as Alabama seemingly eases into 2026 with home games against East Carolina and a declining Florida State. But a new-look Kentucky on the road without much more than guessing outside the Wildcats’ Week 1 game against Youngstown State could lead to some unforeseen struggles for Alabama.
Might Russell have Noah Rogers at his disposal sooner than previously thought?
Alabama WR Noah Rogers (knee) is included in Sunday's practice photos. He suffered an injury on A-Day and was expected to miss the start of the 2026 football season.
📷 via UA Athletics. pic.twitter.com/NtJ2aVLGTV
The offense seems to have plenty of weapons. Hopefully the offensive line can be functional.
“The Film Guy” Brooks Austin is quite impressed with Russell.
Check out this play.
“Good shit happens” https://t.co/0CyuzP5FYVpic.twitter.com/ckkaaWvZz8
— Brooks Austin (@BrooksAustinBA) August 22, 2026Pretty much abyone can throw it 50 yards, on a rope, off his back foot, and perfectly placed. Right?
How desperate is LSU to return to some semblance of relevance? Desperate enough to burn down the sport.
“Man, isn’t this s— crazy?” Monken said when asked about Wright’s situation Saturday. “I don’t even know what to say.
“I wondered why Lane Kiffin reached out to me a week ago; now I know. I didn’t call him back. I guess I should have.”
Wright played for Kiffin, the first-year LSU coach, at Ole Miss in 2024 and 2025. Last season, he had 39 receptions for 635 yards and five touchdowns for the Rebels.
Wright, who graduated from high school in 2022 and whose college eligibility ended last season, had filed a lawsuit because he was not included in the NCAA’s new rule — less than 2 months old — that grants most Division I athletes five years of eligibility over five years but doesn’t take effect until next season.
Lane has taken the mask off and gone full sleaze mode.
Can the SEC do anything about it? Probably not.
If one of the Ole Miss players transferred to LSU by using the temporary restraining order, will the SEC enforce its intra-conference bylaw? The move may serve as a test of a conference-only governance and enforcement model that SEC administrators have long discussed and are seriously exploring (without congressional legislation, they want to create their own rules and enforce them in a governance breakaway from the NCAA as a way to avoid legal challenges).
However, attorneys believe the SEC enforcing its bylaws would end back in the same Louisiana court in front of the same Louisiana judge with the same (Louisiana) result. After all, says one attorney, language in the temporary restraining order covers any SEC rule, too, as those league bylaws are just a derivation of the NCAA’s policies.
In a recent meeting, SEC administrators and football coaches openly discussed the future of the league’s intra-conference transfer policy, reaffirming support for the enforcement of the rule.
LSU has decided to be the Texas Tech of this league.
Last, imagine losing 101 games in a row.
To understand Saturday night, you have to go back to October 2015. The Eagles finished that season 2-8, but their two wins came in back-to-back weeks: they beat St. John Paul II 62-21 on October 8 and Ardmore 34-16 on October 16.
They closed out the year with back-to-back losses, and for the next decade, that’s all the team experienced. Between 2016 and 2025, the Eagles went 0-10 eight times, 0-11 once, and then had one season where they went 0-9.
Last season, they came close to snapping that streak before it reached 100 games but ultimately lost to East Lawrence on Sept. 26 by a score of 28-24.
All of that was forgotten on Saturday night, though.
Former Auburn WR Sammy Coates is the head coach. He should be able to get them to perpetual mediocrity.
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
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