Happy Friday, everyone. Yesterday’s big news was the announcement of a new nine-game SEC schedule starting in 2026. If you’d like to know what triggered it, Greg Sankey has some insight for you.
Pretty much what everyone has assumed. The SEC brass felt reassured by the committee’s new guidance on strength of record, and the ninth game addition also serves as a compromise offer to the Big Ten in hopes of getting them to drop their outlandish autobids demand. John Talty expounds a bit on that below.
But where it trends into putting the Big Ten in the loser category is the conference just lost its best piece of leverage in the CFP expansion debate. The Big Ten has made clear it didn’t have any interest in endorsing a 5 conference champions + 11 at-large teams model if the SEC and ACC still were playing eight conference games. It has also been a big reason why the conference has preferred the automatic qualifier model so the selection committee doesn’t have to weigh unequal conference schedules when deciding at-large teams.
With the SEC now moving to equal footing, it could crank up the pressure on the Big Ten to join the rest of the power conferences on the 5 + 11 model. The Big Ten has steadfastly pushed back against that — it has even recently explored 24 and 28-team playoff models — but if Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti can’t sway Sankey back to his side on AQ Island, the Big Ten will either have to join the club or stand alone as the one conference preventing a move to an expanded playoff.
It’s almost like only one of the two commissioners is confident in the depth of his league, isn’t it?
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Kalen DeBoer spoke to media after practice yesterday and had plenty to say. On the running backs, he’s looking for someone to take the job vacated by Jam Miller.
“Just looking for someone to separate themselves,” DeBoer said Thursday about his backups. “That’s really the situation.”
Miller is out for at least the Florida State game, DeBoer said. Miller is considered week-to-week after he sustained the injury in the second scrimmage this past weekend.
“I feel like Jam was certainly at a higher level and we need these guys,” DeBoer said. “I know they’re hungry and they want to do it, now they’ve just got to show us. It’s not just one area. It’s all phases. It’s running the ball. It’s pass protection. It’s just all those things combined.”
There will be a rotation, but someone needs to step up and lead things. Hopefully that position won’t be a problem in eight days.
He also spoke about the difficulty in scouting a FSU team that has overhauled its coaching staff and roster since December.
“Yeah, you walk in from my shoes, you walk into the offense and defense and special teams, especially offense and defense and you see a lot of different film being shown for different reasons,” DeBoer said on Thursday. “Personnel, scheme, what they were last year and then the same thing on offense. More probably scheme in what they were a year ago, as far as their talent returning.
“So there is a lot, but you’ve got to make sure you’re not chasing ghosts and you’re trying to keep things simple for us and we can do what we do. We have enough stuff that we see from each side of the ball that we see a lot of variations of our offense. We see a lot of variations from our defense.
“There are certainly some things that we expect that are different than what we do on offense or defense. Whether it’s a style of quarterback that they have or what they do defensively as a system. There certainly are some differences. So we’ve got to be ready for anything and everything.”
While this presents a challenge, you’d expect an Alabama defense that returned almost everyone to have a big advantage over a new offense run by a new QB with several other new starters. The biggest concern will be Ty making his first college start in a hostile environment.
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Kalen sounds awfully confident in Ty, though.
“He’s invested a lot of time into this program,” DeBoer said after practice Thursday, Aug. 21. “It means a lot to him. Now, when he’s been the quarterback, named the quarterback, he’s taken it to another level and put himself out there front and center. And it’s not something that’s just, ‘OK, I got to do this.’ He wants to do this. He feels natural in this position. I’m certainly proud of him. The team voting him a captain certainly represents how they feel about him too.”
I love this language from DeBoer. It almost sounds like his predecessor in terms of speaking to his team through the media.
“The D-line I think has done some good things,” DeBoer said Thursday. “I want to see them prove it on the football field.”
The group will have its first chance in a little over a week. The Crimson Tide will open the season against Florida State on Aug. 30 in Tallahassee, Florida.
Team captain Tim Keenan III returns as a starter at defensive tackle. Defensive end LT Overton is back as well. But a new starter will be needed in place of Tim Smith. Plus, Alabama will need to and want to rotate plenty of guys up front.
Kalen and his staff have plenty to prove to the fanbase this season, and accountability is paramount. You can watch the entire presser below.
That’s about it for today. Have a great weekend.
Roll Tide.
