Alabama
Tennessee football will be chasing different teams for SEC supremacy | Adams
After the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma for the 2024 football season, I split the conference in half for evaluation purposes.
My top half: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Texas A&M.
These teams comprised my bottom half: Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.
Track records and NIL support factored into my rankings. The latter is obviously a challenge, because NIL money isn’t well documented. So, my rankings were an educated guess at best.
I singled out Texas, Texas A&M, and LSU because of their obvious NIL resources. All three are loaded. Tennessee probably has as much NIL power as any other SEC program.
The Vols will play Texas, Texas A&M, and LSU this season. So, they will face a greater challenge than in 2024 and 2025 when the SEC’s interim schedules were in place.
But projecting future success and failure in the NIL era of SEC football is hardly an exact science. And I’m already questioning my preliminary rankings. Four schools stick out: Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Missouri, and Vanderbilt
Oklahoma went 6-7 (2-6 in the SEC) in 2024 but made the College Football Playoff last season, only to lose in the first round to Alabama. That’s not what I expected from one of college football’s most prestigious programs.
Perhaps, the Sooners don’t have as much NIL money as the SEC’s most affluent members. Now, I’m wondering if they even can keep up with in-state rival Oklahoma State, which has been on a spending spree in multiple sports, including football.
Ole Miss has been a surprise in a good way. Former coach Lane Kiffin became the “Portal King” because of his relentless recruiting of highly touted transfers. But he couldn’t accomplish as much just on his track record or name recognition. He needed money.
And the Rebels provided it, which helps explain how they went 34-7 from 2023 through 2025.
Missouri has fared better than expected. The Tigers are 29-10 for the past three seasons. I thought there was a better chance of coach Eli Drinkwitz getting fired than winning 29 of 39 games in three seasons of NIL football.
Vanderbilt’s success has been stunning, though you must wonder whether it’s sustainable. The Commodores’ 10-3 record in 2025 was mainly a testament to the play of quarterback Diego Pavia, who was the Heisman Trophy runner-up to Fernando Mendoza.
Florida and Auburn are wildcards.
The Gators were slow coming out of the NIL gate. They also have a recent history of hiring more bad coaches than good ones.
Maybe, they got it right with Jon Sumrall. And perhaps, Auburn did the same with Alex Golesh. But the Tigers were wrong about their previous two hires, Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze.
Texas, LSU and Texas also have missed on coaches. But they have the money to buy their way out of a bad deal.
The Aggies paid Jimbo Fisher a $77 million buyout in November 2023. LSU had to pay Brian Kelly $54 million after firing him in October 2025.
Such spending tells me Tennessee will have more difficulty long-term keeping up with Texas, Texas A&M and LSU than they will with traditional SEC powers like Georgia and Alabama.
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com.
The 2026 Major League Baseball Draft begins Saturday, and Alabama Crimson Tide shortstop Justin Lebron has consistently been touted as one of the first 10-20 overall picks among analysts’ various mock drafts.
On Friday, CBS Sports released its final mock ahead of this weekend’s festivities in Philadelphia. Analyst Mike Axisa sees Lebron going to the Texas Rangers with the 16th overall selection.
Among college players, Lebron lands between Arkansas catcher Ryder Helfrick at No. 14 and one spot above Texas A&M second baseman Chris Hacopian in CBS Sports’ final analysis.
Axisa said of the possible Rangers-Lebron fit:
“The Rangers have a thing for ‘famous’ prospects in the draft (think Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker), and Lebron is one of the most famous prospects available this summer. About 18 months ago, he was the favorite to go No. 1 overall, but some uneven performances (and Cholowsky’s breakout) cooled that talk. Lebron has some of the loudest tools in the draft class. We’re talking speed, power, athleticism, the works. Approach and plate discipline concerns have held him back, though.”
ESPN sees Alabama’s Justin Lebron among top 12 MLB draft picks
In the final MLB mock draft by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel on Friday, Lebron goes 12th overall to the Los Angeles Angels. LSU outfielder Derek Curiel is taken one pick above Lebron by the Washington Nationals in McDaniel’s draft forecast.
“With a new interim head of baseball operations in John Mozeliak, who is mostly hands-off with the draft, the belief is that the scouts will get to make this pick. That doesn’t mean all prep upside because that’s not really what the board is giving them, but I could see the Angels selecting a college hitter with less polish and more upside, such as Lebron, who is a nice value here.” –Kiley McDaniel, ESPN.com.
Could Justin Lebron be a top-10 pick in 2026 MLB draft?
For The Win, part of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group, unveiled its 2026 mock draft on Friday. Wajih AlBaroudi has Lebron going as high as No. 8 overall to the Athletics and said:
“Lebron is a dynamic athlete whose only glaring flaw is his patience at the plate. If he can clean that up, he’ll be a fixture atop the A’s lineup.”
Keith Law’s final mock draft for The Athletic (subscription required for full access) has Lebron taken with the 15th overall pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Justin Lebron career stats at Alabama
Lebron batted .313 with a .414 on base percentage, 45 home runs, 39 doubles and 158 RBIs in three seasons for the Crimson Tide. He stole 69 bases in his collegiate career. This past season, Lebron hit .277 with 16 homers and 13 doubles as Alabama won 42 games and reached the College World Series for the first time since 1999.
Where to watch the 2026 MLB draft: time, TV channel, streaming
The 2026 Major League Baseball Draft begins Saturday in Philadelphia. Per Major League Baseball, rounds 1-4 start at noon CT. The first 10 picks will be televised on NBC and will stream on Peacock. Picks 11-40 can be seen on MLB Network beginning at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
Rounds 5-20 begin Sunday at 10:30 a.m. CT and can be seen on MLB.com.
Follow us at @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook, for ongoing coverage of Alabama Crimson Tide news, notes and opinions.
Alabama
University of Alabama police officer's family leans on law enforcement community after his death
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) – Pauline Love, the new head coach of the Alabama women’s basketball team, says her late college coach, Joye Lee-McNelis, is the reason she got into coaching.
Love played for Lee-McNelis at Southern Miss, describing her as a second mother. Lee-McNelis passed away last summer after a long battle with breast cancer.
A relationship that changed her path
Love said she once told Lee-McNelis she would never go into coaching, a conversation the two laughed about often.
“I used to tell her all the time, I would never do this. I would never put up with somebody like me or I would never work for somebody like her. I was like coach, you’re crazy. We used to laugh about it all the time and she was like you’ll see one day, you’ll see,” Love said.
Love had planned to work in the tech industry. Instead, she has spent 15 years in coaching.
“She pretty much paved the way for me. There’s no way I’d be sitting here if it wasn’t for her,” Love said.
High expectations at Alabama
Love returns to Tuscaloosa after previously serving as an assistant at Alabama. She was introduced as head coach in April, and was brought to tears when she mentioned Lee-McNelis during that introduction.
Her goals for the program are clear.
“I’m going to have a passion about it. I want to bring a Final Four to the University of Alabama and make Tuscaloosa proud,” Love said.
This year’s roster includes Spring Garden’s Ace Austin, back for her sophomore season.
Love said she wants her players to know that difficult times are part of the process.
“I can say for them, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. Just learn how to figure out and fight through hard things. You gotta do something hard and fight through it and I promise you it’s rewarding at the end of it,” Love said.
Love said she also wants to be a source of support for her players off the court, the same way Lee-McNelis was for her.
“I know we always get caught up in the money part of it, but I got a group of girls that doesn’t care about that. They want to care about making the fans happy and giving them something good to watch,” Love said.
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