It’s hard to fathom the Alabama Crimson Tide hosting an open quarterback competition and it not being the biggest story point of A-Day, but that’s where the 2026 Crimson Tide finds itself after an unsettling end to the 2025 season that saw Bama come out on the short end of the physicality stick.
Austin Mack and Keelon Russell will continue to battle for the open quarterback job, but the real football aficionados were more concerned with offensive and defensive lines that needed to take big steps forward after a 2025 season fraught with breakdowns and band-aid solutions to serious problems.
The verdict there: The defensive line put on a show at times Saturday, but while the offensive line appeared to lurch a few steps forward, this is still not a vintage Tide OL and likely won’t be barring some kind of developmental miracle over the summer.
There was no score kept at A-Day, but at least A-Day was A-Day again and not a glorified practice with scattered scrimmage aspects. This was a full-blown scrimmage with live fire everywhere but that which might have been aimed at the quarterbacks’ heads, and in a format like this, it yielded some surprisingly relevant information about all three phases of the team. Only the punters failed to get any work – offenses were given all four downs to make first downs, regardless of field position – unless the punters were doubling as holders for field goal attempts.
Rather than post our customary Five-Point Breakdown, here’s an un-numbered list of things we saw, good and bad, and where Alabama likely goes next:
- Good: Both quarterbacks look capable, and Keelon Russell looked far more than that. Austin Mack received less work due to an injury he sustained at some point in an earlier practice, but he had a nice dart of a touchdown pass to Rico Scott and a very nice long pass to Ryan Coleman-Williams that set Alabama up inside the 5-yard line. He also badly underthrew a pass to Derek Meadows that was picked off by Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. Keelon Russell’s day was just better all around. Russell was also intercepted once, but he threw 4 touchdown passes, managed the pass rush better and showed potential with his feet that Mack simply doesn’t have. True freshmen Jett Thomalla and Tayden-Evan Kaawa got very limited work but both showed promise. However, as we said going in, this is a Mack-Russell battle for the starting job and if the opener were tomorrow, Russell would probably be the guy.
- Good: Running game showed signs of life, particularly with true freshman Trae’shawn Brown. This unit has a long way to go, and a lot of it is dependent on the offensive line coming around, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out true freshman Trae’shawn Brown, the “other” freshman running back signed along with Ezavier Crowell. Crowell was out with a leg injury, so Brown got a lot of opportunities and he made them count. It wasn’t just that Brown appeared to have a quicker first step than the other backs, as well as a higher top-end gear. He also was elusive, made several tacklers miss – especially bigger linemen trying to corral him on pass plays – and even did a lot of the little things well, like making a couple of nice blitz pick-ups. Kevin Riley started with the 1s and Daniel Hill and Akylin Dear were bracketed with the 2s. But if Brown keeps this up, he won’t be kept off the field in the fall.
- Bad: OL showed flickers of improvement, but Bama needs an inferno of development. Alabama is still experimenting with different lineups, G William Sanders remains sidelined, and new OL coach Adrian Klemm won’t fix everything overnight, but we still need to see a steeper improvement curve from now to August than we did from the end of the 2025-2026 season to A-Day. The starters at A-Day were LT Jackson Lloyd, LG Mal Waldrep Jr., C Racin Delgatty, RG Michael Carroll and RT Jayvin James. Alabama ran the ball almost exclusively over the left side early before mixing things up more as the day went along. If Will Sanders had been available, we would have expected him to start ahead of Waldrep at center. We thought Lloyd looked more in line with what Alabama wants in a left tackle in this offense, but he obviously lacked the pure power Kadyn Proctor played with in the running game. The best way to describe the current atmosphere here is “work in progress,” but if Alabama doesn’t get some items cleaned up fairly soon in fall camp, Keelon Russell might have to start at quarterback just to get his scrambling ability into the game. The second line was equally erratic against the second defense. The silver lining here is that there isn’t a specific position that appears significantly behind the others, but it’s tempered by knowing that there’s nothing to hang a hat on at this point, either.
- Good: DL put up solid performance and depth wasn’t an issue. The flip side to having an offensive line struggling a bit is that the defensive line had a nice day overall, a big deal considering Alabama lost starting tackles Tim Keenan III and James Smith from a year ago and didn’t have London Simmons available today. Oregon transfer Terrence Green was disruptive and batted down a pass, while down-the-depth-chart players like Leslie Black and Caleb Smith had a few nice plays. But the star of the show was probably Steve Mboumoua, who displayed very raw but also very promising skills in 2025 and appears to have built nicely on that platform. Mboumoua was bracketed with the 1s and played more as the scrimmage went along. Bama is going to be deep at interior tackle, a nice problem to have, but it needs to find a way to get Mboumoua onto the field, especially in situations where he can attack or rush the passer without having a lot of extraneous assignments to worry about.
- Bad: WR Noah Rogers was injured, perhaps significantly, at a thin position. We weren’t comfortable with the number of receivers Alabama took in the transfer portal (that would be one – Rogers – in terms of guys ready to help immediately), and he suffered either a foot or leg injury early in the scrimmage. The good to this, if there is any, is that the second level of Tide receivers – holdovers Rico Scott and Derek Meadows, and true freshman Derek Meadows – all had strong performances. This was especially good to see from Scott, who brings value as a blocker in the running game, but who has struggled with getting open and simply catching the ball now for two years. Scott was on the receiving end of a missile from Austin Mack in the back of the end zone, and also broke a tackle from Yhonzae Pierre and turned a simple route into a big gainer. Meadows, who brings the added benefit of a lot of height, had a superb day all around. If Rogers is out for any extended length of time, Alabama will probably have to get M.J. Chirgwin or Tyler Henderson involved in the main rotation. Both had catches in this game.
- Good: As expected, linebackers asserted themselves well despite lacking experience. We’ve been high on Alabama’s young linebackers for awhile, to the point that we believe the decision to bring only one in via the transfer portal (Caleb Woodson) was the right call. Today, both inside and outside linebackers made several noteworthy plays, although the overall tackling needs to be taken up a notch. We thought OLB Justin Hill looked the best of the younger players, which is crucial given the departure of Keon Keeley through the transfer portal. Inside backers Q.B. Reese, Abduall Sanders Jr., Darrell Johnson and Luke Metz all had plays that stood out. We’ll repeat what we said in the spring roster preview: It’s not always going to be perfect, but at some point you have to let the young ones prove themselves.
- Good/Bad: PK Lorcan Quinn made a statement, but we need to see more consistency elsewhere in special teams. Quinn hit a pair of 47-yard field goals with room to spare, as well as a handful of shorter kicks. The ball booms off his foot – audibly, at that – and his longer, lankier frame portends greater power. Conor Talty hit a short field goal and was fine on kickoffs, but missed a longer kick. It wasn’t completely his fault – the snap appeared to be low and HLD Alex Asparuhov appeared to take a second to dig it out – which is sort of the the issue here: consistency across the special teams board. Returns weren’t live and there were no coverage teams, so we won’t know what’s happening here until fall camp starts, but it’s fair to say after watching Quinn that one of Alabama’s most expected transfer portal additions could have a fast track to playing a significant role in the 2026 team’s fates.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN