Jumbo Package

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It’s officially game week, and we got a whole suite of press conferences from the coaches. First up, Ryan Grubb, who is as anti-coach-speak as you’ll see and is always good for a nugget or two of info.

The two important bits:

• Will Sanders has overtaken Mal Waldrep for the starting left guard, but right tackle is still up for grabs
• EJ Crowell is fully ready to go and expected to play in game 1.

If Crowell can hit the ground running from day 1, it’ll go a long ways toward turning around a lot of the opinions about Alabama.

The other noteworthy bit is that Grubb is expected to be the only one of Alabama coaches that is going to coach from the box

Next, Kane Wommack:

“I think you’re seeing some guys that are still trending in the right direction. I think Ivan Taylor comes to mind of a guy that has elevated his game to another level going into his second season here with us,” Wommack said.

Taylor is also expected to take on a much larger role within Alabama’s defense.

According to Wommack, Taylor’s work ethic has stood out throughout the offseason. Alabama uses GPS tracking to monitor player workloads, and Taylor has consistently been among the team’s leaders in overall player load during practices and offseason workouts.

“He’s going to have a much more significant role within our defense,” Wommack said. “I think his work ethic is phenomenal.”

Wommack’s much more long-winded and gave a lot of great answers, particularly about their approach to a lot things. But as far as nuggets about the roster, Ivan Taylor and Xavier Griffin were mentioned as young players who are going to be guys who get more playing time than you might expect from role players.

He also made one comment that stood out to me about how the team this year has really made it “their defense.” I’ve felt for years now that much of the Alabama program is still trying to live up to a pre-2020 identity, so I feel like the way Wommack said that could be a good sign that the veteran players are really owning something new, rather than trying to live up to the shadows of the past.

Finally, we got the head man himself:

“We have not selected captains yet, which is why they haven’t been announced. Going back to the leadership kind of from the beginning, there was less guys, I guess, that had experience in the program. And so, we did select a unity council. I did it later than I normally would have. They’ve done a great job — and later would have been the end of the spring. And so, they’ve done a great job kind of providing, being the liaison, the voice between me and the team, giving me the information, giving the team the information. And we just haven’t gotten to the point where we’re captains. We’ll kind of decide that here as we go through.”

There was plenty of angst from the fans last season when DeBoer selected the captains before the season, and this year it seems like it’s something of an ongoing competition. I think there’s definitely some good to that, and it leaves the door open for someone like Keelon Russell to really step up into that.

More importantly, Alex Asparuhov won the starting punting job over Adam Watford in what I would consider a monumental surprise. DeBoer gave no additional comment, other than just directly answering the question to say that Alex would be the punter. So I don’t know what to think there, but I’m shocked that Watford isn’t the guy.

Now, for all of the excitement about Alabama football being almost back, the big story in the college sports world right now is the LSU saga.

With the Tigers looking to add a few players to their roster who were on NFL rosters this summer and trying to do so with the backing of some courts, the rest of the college football world is pretty unhappy with it all. And it sounds like even the SEC is threatening action against LSU for going forward with this.

The legal feud between the SEC and LSU may soon escalate to historic levels.

High-ranking SEC university executives are exploring legal and internal avenues intended to address the school’s plans to add former professional athletes to its rosters, including extreme measures such as boycotting competition against the Tigers, sanctioning the school with probation or even expulsion, and/or filing a federal legal challenge.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the conversations spoke to Yahoo Sports under condition of anonymity. An SEC spokesperson declined comment. An LSU spokesperson also declined comment.

The conversations, primarily among SEC school general counsels and university presidents, are considered in the early stages. The talks are described as “not league driven, but membership led.” While these discussions are serious in nature, it is unclear as to what avenues the conference or its members will ultimately pursue.

…

Another high-ranking SEC school leader took it a step further: “There are plenty of other schools that would take [LSU’s] place.”

Yeah, folks are mad.

Now, funny enough, one of the guys that LSU was trying to bring back just got signed by the Kansas City Chiefs, so he’s now off the board. Now, if he gets cut midseason, who knows?

As usual, SEC Shorts was ready to go first thing yesterday with their own skit on the whole thing

Enjoy! This one was brutal to the Tigahs.

Roll Tide, and happy game week!

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