Happy Monday, everyone. Alabama and Texas will face off in a CWS elimination game at 1pm today. Both were humbled over the weekend by Oklahoma and Georgia, respectively.
Zane Adams, a junior left-hander, will start for the Tide, according to 247Sports’ David Eckert. Adams is 8-4 on the year with a 3.96 ERA. In 88.2 innings, he has allowed 44 runs, 90 hits, and has struck out 98 while walking 27.
Adams actually faced Texas during the regular season and pitched well. In six innings, he gave up no runs
and five hits, adding seven strikeouts and just two walks. The Longhorns ended up winning that one 3-1, though.
Texas will counter with Ruger Riojas, who faced off against Adams in that Texas win back in April. Hope for the best.
Alabama alum Bud Cauley won the Canadian Open this weekend for his first PGA Tour victory. It’s been a long road for Bud, who suffered major injuries as the passenger in a 2018 accident that left the car he was traveling in upside down in a ditch.
If you wanted to know the weight of all those things, you needed to wait until after the play ended on Sunday evening, when Cauley, his wife and his two kids shared a tearful celebration on the 18th green. Cauley hadn’t let the emotion get to him all week at TPC Toronto, gently rebuffing questions from reporters wondering about the emotions that might join his first victory.
“I don’t really want to think about that now,” he’d said.
He finally did think about it as his par putt fell into the hole, securing a victory and so much more than that —and with no more golf left to play, the tears fell.
“[I’m thinking about] just how hard that was,” Cauley said. “Just so many people helped me get here and I’m just really thankful for all the help that I’ve gotten.”
It was revealing that Cauley’s first emotion in victory was not joy but gratitude. Revealing of Cauley’s makeup and of his journey.
“Once I got the opportunity to start playing again I just told myself that I was going to try to just do everything the right way and give myself the best chance,” he said. “I put my wife through so much during those dark times and it’s just nice to have a little success as kind of a thank you.”
What a feeling that must be for him, and his family.
Doris Lemngole had won her sixth national title on the track, but had it stripped an hour after crossing the finish line.
The Alabama star crossed the finish line first in the women’s 5,000 meters in 15:11.71, seemingly securing the sixth NCAA title of her career and adding another chapter to one of the most dominant distance-running résumés in collegiate history.
FloTrack first reported the change.
“It is what it is and you know I’m proud of myself proud of,” she said.
Instead, Lemngole was disqualified after the race for a lane violation, handing the national championship to New Mexico’s Marion Jepngetich.
According to the official results, Lemngole was disqualified under Rule 15.5-3g for taking too many steps over the inside line during the race. The NCAA results were later updated to show Jepngetich as the national champion in a personal-best 15:13.01. Iowa State freshman Mercyline Kirwa moved into second in 15:13.72, while Florida freshman Judy Chepkoech finished third in a personal-best 15:14.05.
We’re deep into the football offseason doldrums at this point, but here is what we have. Ryan Coleman-Williams and Justin Hill are the latest entries in Al dot com’s “50 players” series.
Coleman-Williams will be looking to make a far larger impact than he did during his sophomore season. He still put together a solid season in 2025, finishing with 689 yards on 49 catches, but expectations were higher entering the season.
For starters, Coleman-Williams appeared on the cover of EA Sports’ College Football 26 video game alongside a fellow wideout, Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith. His true freshman season, when a 17-year-old Coleman-Williams burst onto the national scene with a spectacular touchdown catch that helped UA beat Georgia, had Heisman Trophy buzz surrounding the Saraland product.
Instead of taking his place as one of the game’s top wideouts, Coleman-Williams instead caught a bad case of the drops. If he’s going to have a comeback season in 2026, those will have to stop.
One asset Pierre provides though is positional versatility. That means he could move over to the more traditional defensive end spot that Wommack calls the “bandit,” meaning someone else would have to play the “wolf” edge spot.
Enter Hill. The Ohio native got on the field more as the year went last season as a true freshman, largely contributing on special teams.
Ahead of his freshman season, Hill earned praise from Wommack.
“He’s got a maturity about him,” Wommack said. “Some of these freshmen, it amazes me. I think about, where was I in the headspace at 18 years old? In my freshman year of college at the University of Arkansas? I wasn’t even close to what some of these guys are in terms of athletically, obviously, but more so from a standpoint of their mentality.
Alabama lost a linebacker commit because his daddy’s seed had a little to much Vawl in it.
Kenneth Simon II, who committed to the Crimson Tide about a month ago, told Rivals on Saturday he had switched his commitment to Tennessee.
Simon is a four-star recruit who is considered the No. 11 linebacker and No. 138 player overall in the 2027 recruiting class, per the Rivals Industry ranking.
Simon is the son of Kevin Simon, who played linebacker for Tennessee from 2001-05. Over that time, he earned two All-SEC honors before he went on to become a seventh-round pick in the NFL draft.
We don’t need them seventh round genes anyway.
Brad Crawford has Alabama’s secondary among his best position groups for 2026.
One defining trait that separates Alabama’s secondary from most of college football: pure speed. The Crimson Tide isn’t just athletic on the back end — it is built to erase mistakes before they become explosive plays.
The foundation starts at cornerback, where Alabama has quietly assembled one of the SEC’s fastest collections of defensive backs with starters Dijon Lee and Zabien Brown. Whether it’s pressing receivers at the line or flipping their hips in recovery, the Crimson Tide’s corners are built to run with anyone in the country. That speed allows Alabama to play more aggressive coverage concepts without constantly fearing the deep ball.
At safety, the athletic profile is just as impressive. Alabama’s top returning starters, Keon Sabb and Bray Hubbard, have range that allows them to patrol the middle of the field like centerfielders in baseball. They can trigger downhill in run support, match tight ends in coverage and still recover over the top when quarterbacks try to test them vertically.
Last, Dallas Turner seems primed to take a step forward in Minnesota.
“I feel like if you make plays, it just builds your confidence,” Turner said. “You start getting a mentality that you can go out there and do good things, make plays, you know, go out there and have fun and play fast.
“I feel like the preparation comes first before any plays are being made, so, you know, the preparation that you have before you go out there and perform, I feel like, builds the confidence before you even go out there on the field and do what you can do.”
The Vikings are entering the final week of their offseason program before their summer break.
“It’s the more reps I get, you know, the more repetition it is, the more comfortable I feel,” Turner said, “with understanding not just my assignment, but the man next to me’s assignment, you know, just the defense as a whole that we run from the D-line to the back line.”
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
