Happy Monday, everyone. You have reached the month of August, which means that fall camp opens on Wednesday and only 33 days stand between now and the season opener. We will start with Nick Kelly’s take on the QB race.
Could we see Mack and Russell early against East Carolina before a decision leading into the Week 2 game against Kentucky? Could Mack start the season and then Russell takes over after a few games? No possibilities can be ruled out right now considering how close this competition seems to be entering camp.
Russell winning the job to start the season will be no small task, though. To be QB1 against East Carolina, Russell will have to beat out the quarterback whom DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb have essentially been developing for three seasons. The quarterback whom this staff hand-picked to bring from Washington. Russell was a DeBoer recruit, but this staff has invested years of development in Mack.
There’s no reason to believe Mack won’t have every chance to win the job and prove he can be the guy.
DeBoer has said previously that he prefers to have a starter named a couple of weeks before the season. It will be interesting to see if he lets it continue into week one, as Saban did on multiple occasions.
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Speaking of QBs, Alabama will face three of the top ten most elusive in the nation according to Cody Nagel at CBS.
If you haven’t heard the name Kamario Taylor yet, you probably will soon. Mississippi State slowly worked the true freshman into the offense last season before handing him the starting job for the final two games, giving the Bulldogs a glimpse of one of the most elusive quarterbacks in the country entering 2026.
Taylor narrowly meets the criteria for this exercise with just 106 career dropbacks, but his debut season was too impressive to ignore ahead of his first year as a full-time starter. He leads this group in tackles avoided per rush (0.38), showing an ability to consistently create yards when defenses got him in space.
The athleticism is no surprise. Taylor was named to 247Sports’ 2025 Freaks List as one of the most accomplished rushing quarterbacks in his class, ranking No. 8 at the position. But his scrambling ability wasn’t just a product of his natural talent, it was often a necessity.
Taylor faced pressure on 46.2% of his dropbacks last season, the second-highest rate among FBS quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks, and scrambled on 18.9% of those plays. When he escaped, he turned those opportunities into explosive gains, averaging 11.9 yards per scramble. Despite constantly operating under duress in his limited action, he still posted an 83.7% sack avoidance rate, ranking among the top half of this group.
I’ve said it before, but that game gives me the heebie-jeebees. It’s an early kick sandwiched between South Carolina and Georgia, in front of the cowbell wielding critters in Starkville, with a QB who loves to run around all over the place. A mistake or two from an inexperienced Alabama QB in that environment could make things hairy.
Colin Gay wrote a great piece on Bray Hubbard, and how his Mom’s cancer battle affected his outlook on life.
For 8½ years, Courtney fought. At age 31, early in her diagnosis of breast cancer, she would drive 90 minutes to New Orleans to catch the first flight to Houston every Wednesday. She would get her treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center before flying back to New Orleans and driving back to Ocean Springs to be there for her kids’ nights and games.
She did this for a year.The cancer later returned to her bones before metastasizing and spreading to her organs. She died in January 2018 at age 40. Her twin children Brock and Maura Kaye were 15. Bray was 12.
“She was just a fighter,” Bray said.
Bray knows about adversity. But it’s not in the context of what he’s asked about on a daily basis, whether it was a loss to Florida State or a loss to Indiana in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl.
That’s not adversity in the Hubbard house.
“Adversity is when you lose your mother, your mother dies when you’re a child,” said Mark, who was married to Courtney for 20 years. “That’s adversity. That’s the mentality we have.”
This is a cool story about a senior at Alabama who has been trying to make the football team since arriving on campus.
“I never had anyone there beside me giving me that extra push that I needed so I always felt like I had to take things on alone. The further I progressed in my life and I met them and everything, they changed my life for the better,” Wren said.
Now he’s working every day and documenting his journey on his social media pages.
“I got into the content aspect to help me take more accountability for it,” Wren said.
Alabama fans have taken notice; his comments filled with messages of support.
“It means the world to me to have that support because growing up, I didn’t really feel that support,” Wren said.
It’s all keeping him focused on his dream of one day running out onto the field at Bryant-Denny.
“I would definitely cry if I made the team. It would just be a lifelong dream come true,” Wren said.
Imagine being the guy who wrote this.
“Freezing cold” isn’t strong enough for that one.
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Speaking of Saban, CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, Prattville native and proud Alabama alum, got an exclusive with him for Garden and Gun magazine. This excerpt says so much about how he built the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport.
I don’t care what the task was, there was always a reckoning in terms of how you performed. My dad [had a] saying, “If you don’t have the time to do it right the first time, how you gonna find the time to do it over?” The last thing, which was probably most important, was, it was never about beating the other guy. It was about, “Did you do as well as you could do?”
There’s this thing called relief syndrome, where when we accomplish something of significance, society promotes the fact that you should be able to rest on your laurels. That’s something I never learned how to do growing up. I mean we won, like, twenty-six games in a row when I was in peewee, and it was never good enough. Then we lost one game in high school, then we won about thirty more games, and it was never good enough. We won a state championship. That was really never good enough. I finally asked my mom, “Why is it never good enough?” And she said, “Well, it’s not really about beating the other guy. It’s about, did you do as well as you’re capable of doing?” That’s one of the things that helped me deal with success, because, if we won a game, it wasn’t like, okay, that’s the end of it. It was just the beginning of a new horizon.
Something tells me he still thinks he hasn’t done all he’s capable of doing.
If you want Heather Dinich’s take on Alabama’s playoff chances, here they are. She has the Tide 17th headed into camp.
What the committee will like: Another regular-season win against the eventual SEC champ. If Alabama doesn’t win the conference again, the next-best thing is the scenario that unfolded last year. The committee forgave a bad loss to Florida State and one of the worst championship game performances by a team in the history of the CFP and awarded a three-loss team a spot in the field mostly because of the Tide’s regular-season road win against Georgia.
What the committee won’t like: A lack of statement wins. Alabama overcame three losses last year. It overcame a bad loss to a 5-7 Florida State team. But it also had four straight wins against ranked opponents at the time (Georgia, Vandy, Mizzou and Tennessee). Bama might not face a ranked opponent until Oct. 10 against Georgia, and there’s no guarantee that the majority of teams in the back half of the schedule will finish in the CFP top 25. Texas A&M and LSU should, but Tennessee, Vandy and Auburn are more uncertain. If Alabama has a similar season to last year — without as many statement wins — the committee probably won’t be as forgiving.
SB Nation’s Mark Schofield is slightly more bullish but still has Alabama out of the playoffs at 14.
Wide receiver Ryan Williams is now Ryan Coleman-Williams, the only returning starter on the offensive side of the ball that lost several key players to the NFL, including quarterback Ty Simpson. Fourth-year junior Austin Mack, and redshirt freshman Keelon Russell, are fighting for that spot, with Russell perhaps holding the edge. Head coach Kaelen DeBoer will need the new faces along the offensive line, including transfers Racin Delgatty at center and Jayvin James at right tackle, to gel quickly.
While the Alabama defense was roughed up at times in 2025, including in the Rose Bowl against Indiana, there is talent. EDGE Yhonzae Pierre could be an early-round pick in 2027, as could defensive back Zabien Brown. Incoming transfers Terrance Green (Oregon) and Devan Thompkins (USC) will help shore up the defensive line.
Check out the arm on 2028 Alabama QB commit Charles Scott Jr.
Last, in case you missed it, a Colorado judge awarded an emergency injunction to all four-year players who ran out of eligibility during the 2025-26 school year. Initially, it appeared that those players would be able to enroll anywhere they wanted without counting against the salary cap or roster limits. The judge in the case walked that back.
Kam Dewberry and Noah Williamson are the only Alabama players that this would realistically affect, and there is little reason to believe that either will be back.
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That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
