Happy Monday, everyone. With the thumping of Auburn on Saturday, the men’s basketball team clinched the 2-seed in the SEC Tournament, and will play on Friday. Emilee Smarr has ticket information for anyone who would like to go to Nashville for the festivities. The women lost to Texas in the SEC quarterfinals and are a projected 6-seed in the dance.
On the diamonds, the baseball team earned a sweep of North Florida while softball swept Ole Miss to remain unbeaten.
The Gym Tide scored a road victory
at Illinois, led once again by spectacular freshman Azaraya Ra-Akbar.
The No. 3 Alabama gymnastics team (9-4) defeated Illinois (4-12), 197.125-196.175, Sunday afternoon in Huff Hall. The Crimson Tide’s uneven bars rotation highlighted the day, as the squad recorded a program-record 49.700 score, spearheaded by a perfect 10.000 from freshman Azaraya Ra-Akbar.
Ra-Akbar’s perfect routine, and the Tide’s first since the 2024 season, gave her five event titles this season on the uneven bars and marked the first 10.000 on bars by a UA gymnast since program alum Makarri Doggette in 2023. Entering Sunday, the Tide’s 49.700 rotation score ranks second nationally and leads the Southeastern Conference.
Football spring practice started yesterday, and the offensive line is a focus.
Alabama is going through a particularly transitional offseason up front. Michael Carroll is the Crimson Tide’s only returning offensive line starter after Kam Dewberry, Jaeden Roberts and Geno VanDeMark ran out of eligibility, Parker Brailsford and Kadyn Proctor headed to the NFL early and Wilkin Formby transferred to Texas A&M.
Carroll is a strong start to the group, having taken over the starting job midway through the 2025 season and shown clear improvement throughout his true freshman campaign. However, if Alabama is to reach the upper echelon of college football again, it has to find a starting five that can be better than last year’s group.
Racin Delgatty transferred in from Cal Poly and could take over at center, and Jayvin James arrives as a tackle with SEC starting experience at Mississippi State. UA will also likely be reliant on some unproven pieces.
This is an interesting nugget on weight changes.
Last year, USC listed Thompkins at 290 pounds. Alabama has him up to 298 pounds, a weight gain that could see him primarily used as a defensive tackle.
Given the losses at the position that the Crimson Tide saw this offseason, having Thompkins further inside made sense. But with his weight at Southern Cal, he also made sense at the defensive end position that Kane Wommack calls the “bandit.”
In theory, that’s still possible, especially if bandit depth becomes a major concern at some point. However, the weight gain likely solidifies that the Crimson Tide will be keeping Thompkins inside.
Most folks thought Thompkins would slot in at Bandit. If not, South Carolina transfer Desmond Umeozulu may well be your man.
Tampering is a hot topic in the sport.
The Ferrelli situation was not one of a kind in this portal cycle. Multiple GMs told ESPN they had players who had already re-signed get contacted by Power 4 schools inquiring about the cost of their buyout. The agents generally viewed breaking contracts as too problematic to pursue and guaranteed to burn relationships with schools. Some said they would even drop the player as a client if put in that position.
One ACC GM felt the Ferrelli move was nowhere near as troubling as Miami swiping star quarterback Darian Mensah from Duke at the portal deadline. The Hurricanes’ last-minute push to flip Mensah away from the ACC champs resulted in Duke suing the quarterback and settling for an undisclosed sum to release him from his two-year contract.
“It’s like they robbed a bank in broad daylight, walked out with no mask and no alarms went off,” the ACC GM said with a chuckle.
One month after Swinney’s news conference, NCAA vice president of enforcement Jon Duncan sent a memo to member schools warning that his group has been charged with pursuing “significant penalties” for tampering violations — including any contact between agents and coaches about players who are not in the portal. He vowed work is underway to modernize and streamline the investigative process for more expedited resolutions.
“Simply put, communicating with an agent for a student-athlete who is not in the transfer portal is a tampering violation,” Duncan wrote.
Now we’ll see if there is anything they can do about it.
The Dolphins are eating a record amount of salary cap space in order to get rid of Tua.
The Dolphins will release quarterback Tua Tagovailoa after the start of the new league year in a move that will leave Miami with an NFL-record $99.2 million in dead money against the salary cap.
The Dolphins announced their intention to release Tagovailoa in a statement Monday. A source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that Tagovailoa’s release will be designated post-June 1, allowing the Dolphins to split the dead money over two years.
“As we move forward, we will be focused on infusing competition across the roster and establishing a strong foundation for this team as we work towards building a sustained winner,” Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan said in the team’s statement.
The post-June 1 designation will leave the Dolphins with a $67.4 million dead hit against the salary cap in 2026, followed by $31.8 million in 2027. The move ends Tagovailoa’s six seasons in Miami only one year into the franchise-record extension he signed in 2024.
I just hope he avoids any more head injuries.
Last, a troll account successfully duped many on the tweeter this weekend.
Claim: Richardson slammed his former coach, Saban, for his commentary on NIL. We will link the quote below.
“Honestly, I don’t get why he’s even commenting on it, they gave me and my family $75,000 just to commit, plus $10,000 a month to stay at Alabama,” an X account tweeted while claiming to quote Richardson.
Source of rumor: The account making the claim on X is called “No3 Sports.” It has around 17k followers and has been active for almost 10 years. On the surface, it appears to be a fairly reputable source.
Verdict: False. No3 Sports is a parody account. As reputable as it seems on the surface, the page says right in its bio that it reports parody news for college sports. This one about Richardson and Saban just happened to hit mainstream news and confuse the masses.
Even two-time Super Bowl champ LeSean McCoy reacted to the tweet, believing it was real.
People are dumb.
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
