With the signing of Keelon Russell, Greg McElroy believes Alabama football could be in for a competitive quarterback duel.
Russell attended Duncanville High School in Texas and is a consensus four-star prospect. He is the Crimson Tide’s sole 2025 quarterback commitment.
McElroy, who won the National Championship as Alabama’s starting quarterback in 2010, believes it will be fascinating to see how things play out in Tuscaloosa over the next year or two.
“I think what’s kind of interesting is you look at the depth chart for Alabama moving forward, Now, Jalen Milroe, let’s just say he has a great year, decides to go to the NFL,” McElroy said in a recent episode of “Always College Football.” “Next year’s quarterback competition will be intense between Ty Simpson, Dylan Lonergan, Austin Mack, who transferred from Washington, and now Keelon Russell, who was hand-picked by this coaching staff. “It will be fascinating to watch.”
Russell intends to sign with Alabama in December and enroll in January.
READ MORE……
Ohio’s top prospect is planning a midweek trip to Alabama, his second visit this year.
Tuscaloosa is experiencing a period of high activity. High school camps have been scheduled between each of the first two official visitors weekends thus far, and several offers have resulted from those exercises. Top-ranked talents have returned to Alabama as well.
Camps will only be place on Monday and Saturday this week, but that hasn’t stopped prospects from visiting campus to spend extra time with the new faculty.
Alabama basketball, with greater title prospects than Tide football, projects as one of the best teams in 20 years.
With Dan Hurley’s stint with the Los Angeles Lakers over, two-time reigning national champion UConn remains the betting favorite to win the national championship in college basketball for the 2024-25 season. UConn has the nation’s shortest Caesars odds at +900, followed by two teams at +1100: Kansas and Alabama.
Such lofty expectations are possibly uncharted ground for Tide basketball in any offseason since the program’s inception. Alabama is a virtual cinch to be a top-five team in preseason polls this October, a first since the AP began its preseason poll in 1961.
It is also unusual in Tuscaloosa for the men’s basketball team to have stronger national championship chances than the football team. In Kalen DeBoer’s first season as coach, the Tide has +1600 odds on Caesars to win a national championship, tied with Ole Miss for fifth-shortest in the country.
Alabama’s journey to the top of basketball is fueled by a squad that returns three of its top five scorers from last season’s Final Four team, as well as four veteran players acquired through the transfer portal to augment the nation’s No. 2 high school recruiting class. Former professional baseball pitcher Michael Schwimer, who heads the sports analytics firm Big League Advantage, has advised coach Nate Oats and his team on personnel selections over the last three years, particularly through the portal.
DENNIS DODD: Meet the’secret weapon’ of Alabama’s Final Four run: Michael Schwimer, an analytics genius, performs various positions for Tide.
During an appearance on Tide 100.9 last week, Schwimer praised Alabama’s success in expanding its roster this offseason. In addition to signing center Clifford Omoruyi and guards Aden Holloway, Chris Youngblood, and Houston Mallette through the portal, Alabama benefited from Mark Sears and Jarin Stevenson’s decision to withdraw from the NBA draft after Grant Nelson and Latrell Wrightsell returned for fifth seasons.
“Did we run the table, or did we run the table?” Schwimer informed host Ryan Fowler last Monday. “We got our center, Sears, and Jarin back.” A lot of question marks popped up, Tide.”
The end effect is that Alabama is largely regarded as a top-three team in the country, with some projecting the Tide as the preseason No. 1. For Schwimer, who also works with Duke and will soon include a Big Ten school, his data projections support Alabama as not only the best team this season, but also one of the best teams in college basketball during the last two decades.
“It took us three years, but man, this team that we’ve built — last year, to be honest, we got there, but we were a little early. We made it to the Final Four, and it was incredible — we definitely exceeded expectations with that squad,” Schwimer told Tide 100.9. “This year, this is the top team in the country. According to our models — and keep in mind that the game is not played on paper, so anything can happen with injuries — we’re looking at the third best squad in basketball over the last 20 years. That is the roster he has been able to assemble. “I’m really excited about it.”
This takes into account Schwimer’s anticipated points per possession figures on both offense and defense. In fact, Schwimer’s statistics implies Alabama’s second wave of players — the five players on the court following the starters — has the potential to form a top-five SEC club.
“I think the second unit we had, from a points per possession on offense and points per possession unit on defense projection, I think it’s a fourth- or fifth-best team in the SEC,” he stated. “So we have the best team and the fourth or fifth best team, and they both play on the same team. I cannot emphasize how deep this roster is.”
Schwimer feels the program’s roster is the deepest it has ever seen, with 12 guys capable of playing “big, big, big minutes.”
“This team — it’s really astonishing what Oats has been able to do,” he stated to Fowler. “And, frankly, the level of competitiveness. Every player is coming in to compete for minutes. He will also play in a deep rotation. This will be a team that — as the saying goes in football, “Blitz Bama Blitz.” This will be the basketball equivalent of that. They’re going to run teams out of the gym with how quickly they play. If you’re used to Alabama and how fast it’s been in the past, this squad will break records because of its depth.
Leave a Reply