After Alabama narrowly missed the College Football Playoff in coach Kalen DeBoer’s first season, athletic director Greg Byrne told fans in a letter on X on Wednesday that “now is a time for action” and “time for the Bama Nation to fight back.”

“Although we have been competitive from an NIL standpoint, our competition has us in their sights and are actively trying to surge ahead with NIL,” Byrne said in the letter. “You have heard examples of other teams using promises of million-dollar paydays to lure away our players or convince them not to come to Alabama. It is time for the Bama Nation to fight back.”

The Crimson Tide went 9-3 under DeBoer, a former Washington coach, who replaced Nick Saban when he retired on Jan. 10. Alabama fell 40-35 at Vanderbilt on Oct. 5, its first loss to the Commodores in 40 years, and a 24-3 defeat at Oklahoma on Nov. 23 knocked the Tide out of the SEC championship game.

Alabama was No. 11 in the final College Football Playoff selection committee rankings. The Crimson Tide were left out of the 12-team bracket, however, because No. 12 Arizona State and No. 16 Clemson were conference champions and received automatic berths.

“We have been careful during this transitional period to protect our position at the top of college athletics while being mindful to listen, engage and learn from our generous supporters, proud alumni and unrivaled fans to make sure that we protect our great traditions here at Alabama,” Byrne said. “But there’s a time for talk and a time for action. Now is a time for action.”

Alabama signed the No. 4 recruiting class in the FBS, trailing only Oregon and SEC rivals Texas and Georgia, according to ESPN Recruiting. The Tide flipped quarterback Keelon Russell from SMU and safety Ivan Taylor from Michigan.

Alabama has lost 14 scholarship players to the portal so far.

Defensive tackle Jehiem Oatis, the No. 1 defensive player in ESPN’s transfer rankings, left the program in early October and is transferring to Colorado.

The Crimson Tide also lost starting defensive back DeVonta Smith to Notre Dame.

Four wide receivers — Kobe Prentice (Baylor), Kendrick Law, Caleb Odom and Emmanuel Henderson Jr. — have left the program, and backup quarterback Dylan Lonergan is transferring to Boston College. Running back Justice Haynes has also entered the portal.

Byrne encouraged Alabama fans to give to “Yea Alabama,” the athletic department’s NIL entity, and noted the school was focused “on providing our fans with a legitimate product rather than booster inducements.”

“At Alabama, we’ve not measured ourselves against our competition,” Byrne said. “We are the standard, and that measurement is against the mirror and against a rich and proud history, but it’s impossible to ignore what is taking place in college athletics. Hungry fan bases are acting decisively to give their respective programs competitive advantages. We must respond. We are Alabama.”

The Crimson Tide play Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Dec. 31 (noon ET/ESPN, ESPN+).

ESPN’s Max Olson contributed to this report.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Fred Lorenzen, a NASCAR Hall of Famer and the 1965 Daytona 500 champion, died Wednesday. He was 89.

NASCAR released a statement that Lorenzen had died and had confirmed the death with his family. A cause of death wasn’t given, but Lorenzen had been in declining health for years.

In 1998, he was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers.

One of NASCAR’s first superstars, Lorenzen was known as the “Golden Boy” for his rugged, movie-star looks. He won 26 career Cup races and made starts in 12 seasons from 1956 to 1972.

“Fred Lorenzen was one of NASCAR’s first true superstars. A fan favorite, he helped NASCAR expand from its original roots. Fred was the picture-perfect NASCAR star, helping to bring the sport to the silver screen — which further grew NASCAR’s popularity during its early years,” NASCAR chairman Jim France said in a statement. “For many years, NASCAR’s ‘Golden Boy’ was also its gold standard, a fact that eventually led him to the sport’s pinnacle, a rightful place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.”

In 1964, Lorenzen entered 16 of the scheduled 62 races and won eight, including five consecutive starts. During that stretch, Lorenzen led 1,679 of the possible 1,953 laps, one of the more dominant stretches in NASCAR history.

He was the first driver in NASCAR to earn more than $100,000 in a single season, which he did in 1963.

Lorenzen battled dementia in his later years and pledged his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation.

His daughter, Amanda Lorenzen Gardstrom, told The Associated Press in 2016 she was convinced Lorenzen had CTE from years of brutal wrecks and hits from the 1960s, one of the most dangerous eras in racing history.

“He never stopped to heal,” she said.

The Elmhurst, Illinois, native was one of NASCAR’s first stars to hail from outside the sport’s Southern roots.

“The hardest part right now is that his racing memories are starting to go,” Gardstrom said in 2016. “That was the one thing that was really wonderful, to connect and see him light up when he talked about racing.”

Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson was part of a 54-member panel that picked Lorenzen for induction into the hall in 2015. Tony Stewart introduced Lorenzen at his hall induction.

“He was such a humble guy, that I don’t think he ever realized what an impact he had on the sport,” Gardstrom said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The two teams suing NASCAR over an antitrust complaint were granted a preliminary injunction Wednesday that allows them to compete as chartered teams in the 2025 season.

23XI Racing, the team owned by NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports refused in September to sign take-it-or-leave it revenue sharing offers made by NASCAR just 48 hours before the start of the playoffs.

A charter is essentially a franchise and guarantees prize money, a spot in the field each week, and other protections.

The teams had filed an antitrust suit alleging NASCAR is “monopolistic bullies” and had been denied in federal court in November a request to be recognized as “chartered” teams as the suit continues.

23XI and Front Row can now sign the charter agreements and still pursue the lawsuit. They also each were granted permission to purchase additional charters from Stewart Haas Racing, which closed its four-team shop at the end of the 2024 season, and NASCAR must approve the transfers to those teams.

” YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!” Hamlin wrote on social media.

It was needed win for 23XI. Tyler Reddick, who finished fourth in the 2024 Cup standings, had an opt-out clause in his contract that would have gone into effect Wednesday and made him a free agent if the team did not have a charter for next season.

Jordan had said he took the fight to court on behalf of all teams competing in the top motorsports series in the United States. NASCAR had argued that the two teams simply do not like the terms of the final charter agreement and asked for the lawsuit be dismissed.

Both Front Row and 23XI want to expand from two full-time cars to three, and have agreements with SHR to purchase one charter each. SHR is now Haas Factory and has a charter for one car in 2025.

Until Wednesday’s injunction, 23XI and Front Row would have been forced to compete next season as “open” teams that don’t have the same protections or financial gains that come from holding a charter.

The teams contend they must be chartered under some of their contractual agreements with current sponsors and drivers, and competing next year as open teams will cause significant losses.

Earlier this month, the suit was transferred to a different judge than the one who heard the first round of arguments and ruled against the two teams in their request for a temporary injunction to be recognized in 2025 as chartered teams as the case proceeds.

“Here, the public interest strongly favors entry of a limited preliminary injunction in favor of the Plaintiffs during the 2025 NASCAR race season, both to give fans of stock car racing the opportunity to watch (and root for and against) the full slate of teams and to allow Plaintiffs’ antitrust legal challenges to be considered,” Judge Kenneth D. Bell wrote.

Front Row is owned by businessman Bob Jenkins, while 23XI is owned by Jordan, Hamlin and longtime Jordan adviser Curtis Polk.

Jenkins had told The Associated Press in October that the two teams stood to miss out on $45 million in combined revenue if they competed as un-chartered teams. But he was willing to do so for Front Row because he believed the case against NASCAR was winnable.

NASCAR had been operating with 36 chartered teams and four open spots since the charter agreement began in 2016.

NASCAR can appeal the ruling.

“The availability of multiple sports in the United States says nothing about NASCAR’s control of a major one of them in the same way that the availability of professional basketball and football did not lead to a finding that the NCAA was not a monopolist,” the judge ruled.