Alabama Crimson Tide players may have just revealed who’s winning the quarterback battle in Tuscaloosa without even trying
The Alabama Crimson Tide is about to reach the pinnacle of its quarterback competition. But if you read between the lines and look at what the players on the team are showing, Alabama may already have its starter.
The Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback battle has been the storyline of fall camp, and for the first time since the spring game, the team was back inside Bryant-Denny Stadium on Sunday for a scrimmage-like practice and mock game scenario. While more intel from that scrimmage is still forthcoming, Alabama’s players may have already tipped their hand on who will be the Crimson Tide’s starting quarterback in 2026.
A tweet from Katie Windham showed a group of Alabama players waiting in a long autograph line for a picture with quarterback Keeloon Russell. The notable part? They didn’t do the same with quarterback Austin Mack. Now, maybe there’s another picture floating around, or maybe the same thing happened with Mack and we just haven’t seen it. I don’t know. But given what we do know, the optics are telling.
All signs point to Keelan Russell
Every report out of fall camp has pointed in the same direction. Whether it’s players, coaches, or anyone else around the program, the buzz has centered on how good Russell has looked. This isn’t a new development, either. Back in April after the spring game, Alabama wide receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams said it felt like he was in a video game when No. 12 was back there. Tight end Marshall Pritchett echoed similar sentiments recently, calling Russell “dynamite in a bottle.”
On top of that, we haven’t even discussed what Russell did in the spring game itself. I understand that coach Kalen DeBoer played it down, noting that Russell did a good job but that Mack was dealing with an injury, and that the real evaluation would come in fall camp. That’s standard coachspeak, and you’d expect nothing less.
Reading the tea leaves from Tuscaloosa
This isn’t the NFL. You’re not going to see a lot of what’s going on in fall camp other than the videos released by the University of Alabama. They keep things under wraps in Tuscaloosa.
But it’s easy to glean from the intel that has come out, from the clips the university has posted, and from a group of Alabama players lining up for a photo with Russell, that he is at least the front-runner to be the Alabama Crimson Tide’s starting quarterback come Week 1 against East Carolina.
The question now is whether the scrimmage results confirm what the rest of camp has already suggested — and whether No. 12 will indeed be starting under center when it counts.
