Connect with us

Published

on

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama coach Nick Saban said there’s no structural damage to quarterback Bryce Young‘s right throwing shoulder and that he threw some in practice Wednesday, but Saban said a final decision on Young’s playing status for Saturday’s game against Texas A&M might not come until pregame warmups.

“Bryce has been practicing, and all week, he’s been saying that he could play,” Saban told ESPN on Thursday. “But that’s going to be a medical decision. We’ve still got some time, and I want to talk more to Bryce. He’s the only one who knows how he feels because it’s going to be a pain-tolerance thing.

“He’s a tough kid and great competitor. We’ll see where he is on game day.”

Saban said the plan from Alabama’s medical staff was for Young not to throw on Thursday and instead rest his shoulder.

“There was no reason for him to throw a lot this week, because if he does, it’s not going to get better. It’s just going to aggravate it,” Saban said. “Our doctors are saying that if you hold off as much as you can, then that’s the best chance that he’s got.”

Young, the 2021 Heisman Trophy winner, left the 49-26 victory over Arkansas last week in the second quarter after scrambling toward the sideline and landing awkwardly on his shoulder when he was tackled. Young returned to the field for the next series. But after throwing an incompletion on third down, he could be seen grimacing as he walked off the field with his right arm to his side. After a visit to the injury tent on the sideline, Young was taken to the locker room. He returned to the Alabama sideline in the third quarter wearing pads, but he didn’t return to the game.

“There’s nothing wrong with his rotator cuff or anything like that, nothing that’s going to keep him out long term,” Saban said. “We hope we get him back this week, but it’s still too early to make that call.”

Redshirt freshman Jalen Milroe finished the Arkansas game at quarterback for the Crimson Tide. He passed for 65 yards and a touchdown and also rushed for 91 yards and a touchdown. His 77-yard run to the 3-yard line with 14:30 to play set up Jase McClellan’s short touchdown run to give Alabama some breathing room after Arkansas had scored 23 unanswered points to cut the lead to 28-23.

Milroe and Young have both taken reps in practice this week. The difference, according to Saban, is that Young has been limited throwing the ball.

“Bryce has done everything else, gotten all the reads, done the team runs,” Saban said. “We just haven’t allowed him to throw it very much.”

If Young is unable to play and Milroe steps in as the starter, Saban doesn’t see the team dynamic changing much.

“Obviously, Bryce is the leader of the team, and the players respect him and trust him and believe in him,” Saban said. “But I don’t see our players not performing well when [Milroe] is in there. He does enough good things that they believe in him and trust him. If he’s in there, I don’t see it as a problem. Whether we can execute well enough is what matters because these guys [Texas A&M] are better on defense, I think, than anybody we’ve played so far.”

Young has passed for 1,202 yards, 14 touchdowns and three interceptions this season. He also has three rushing touchdowns. Young is 18-2 as Alabama’s starting quarterback. One of the games he lost was to Texas A&M last season when the Aggies won 41-38 in College Station.

Saban said he hasn’t addressed the players about the offseason spat between him and Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, who was furious after Saban said at a speaking engagement in May that Texas A&M “bought” the players in their No. 1-ranked 2022 signing class under the guise of NIL rules. Fisher fired back and called Saban a “narcissist” and suggested that everyone go “dig into how God did his deal,” referring to Saban’s recruiting practices.

“This game isn’t about any of that, and our players don’t give a s— about it,” Saban said. “This game is about the goals we want to accomplish as a team and our players creating value for themselves. That’s why this game is important, not because of anything that was said about anybody.”

Continue Reading

Sports

Buckeyes seize No. 1; LSU, Canes rise as Tide fall

Published

on

By

Buckeyes seize No. 1; LSU, Canes rise as Tide fall

Ohio State climbed to No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll on Tuesday, LSU and Miami moved into the top five, and Florida State jumped back into the rankings at the expense of Alabama, which plummeted to its lowest spot in 17 seasons.

The defending national champion Buckeyes received 55 of 66 first-place votes to move up two spots after their win over preseason No. 1 Texas. Ohio State is at the top of a regular-season poll for the first time since November 2015.

The Longhorns dropped to No. 7 as the media voters shuffled the rankings following a topsy-turvy Labor Day weekend. It was only the second time — and first since 1972 — that two top-five teams lost in Week 1 and the first time that four top-10 teams lost.

Only three teams in the Top 25 are in the same spot they were in the preseason poll.

Penn State got seven first-place votes and remained No. 2. LSU, which received three first first-place votes, was followed by Georgia and Miami to round out the top five.

Oregon got the other first-place vote and was followed by Texas, the Clemson Tigers, Notre Dame and South Carolina.

LSU jumped six spots after winning at Clemson and Miami got a five-rung promotion for its victory over Notre Dame.

The biggest movers in the poll were Florida State and Alabama after the Seminoles’ 31-17 victory in their head-to-head matchup.

The Seminoles, who were 15 spots outside the Top 25 in the preseason, are now No. 14. The Crimson Tide fell all the way from No. 8 to No. 21 — their lowest ranking since Bama was No. 24 in the 2008 preseason poll. That was the second of Nick Saban’s 17 teams in Tuscaloosa.

It’s been quite a turnabout for Florida State. The Seminoles were No. 10 in the 2024 preseason, lost their first two games, finished 2-10 and weren’t ranked again until now.

Utah, at No. 25, joins Florida State as the only newcomers to this week’s poll. The Utes are ranked for the first time since last October, when they were at the front end of a seven-game losing streak.

Utah had received the second-most points, behind BYU, among teams outside the preseason Top 25, but the Utes got more credit for beating UCLA on the road than the Cougars received for hammering FCS foe Portland State.

Boise State, which had been No. 25, received no votes following its 34-7 loss at South Florida. The Broncos had appeared in 14 straight polls.

The other team to drop out of the poll was No. 17 Kansas State, which followed up its season-opening loss to Iowa State with a last-minute home win over FCS team North Dakota.

Ohio State is the first team to take over the top spot in the first regular-season poll since Alabama in 2012. It was the biggest jump to No. 1 in the first regular-season poll since USC was promoted from No. 3 in 2008.

Texas’ fall was the biggest for a preseason No. 1 since Auburn dropped to No. 8 in the first regular-season poll of 1984.

LSU has its highest ranking after Week 1 since it was No. 3 in 2012, and Miami has its highest ranking after Week 1 since it was No. 5 in 2004.

South Carolina is in the top 10 in the regular season for the first time since it was No. 8 in December 2013.

CONFERENCE CALL

SEC: 10 (Nos. 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)

Big Ten: 6 (Nos. 1, 2, 6, 11, 15, 23)

ACC: 4 (Nos. 5, 8, 14, 17)

Big 12: 4 (Nos. 12, 16, 24, 25)

Independent: 1 (No. 9)

RANKED VS. RANKED

No. 15 Michigan at No. 18 Oklahoma: This weekend’s game will be the first meeting since Oklahoma beat the Wolverines in the Orange Bowl to win the 1975 national championship. Wolverines freshman QB Bryce Underwood gets put to the test in his second start.

Continue Reading

Sports

Hold that, Tiger: Kelly asks if Dabo saw 2nd half

Published

on

By

Hold that, Tiger: Kelly asks if Dabo saw 2nd half

While Dabo Swinney isn’t inflating LSU‘s grade for beating his team in Saturday’s season opener, Brian Kelly is ready to give the Clemson coach an incomplete for his evaluation.

Both coaches weighed in Tuesday on how LSU’s 17-10 win at Clemson should be viewed. After trailing 10-3 at halftime, LSU outscored Clemson 14-0 in the second half and finished with significant edges in both total yards (354-261) and first downs (25-13).

LSU rose six spots to No. 3 in the AP Top 25 poll Tuesday, while Clemson dropped four spots to No. 8.

“It was a helluva game, down to the last play,” Swinney said in his weekly news conference. “Right out of the gate. It’s like getting the final exam [on] Day 1 of class. They made a 65; we made a 58. Neither one of us were great.”

Kelly had not won a season opener at LSU before Saturday, and the victory was his first with the Tigers against an AP top-5 opponent.

“I thought we dominated them in the second half, so he’s really a really good grader for giving himself a 58, or he’s a really hard grader on us,” Kelly said in his news conference when told about Swinney’s comment.

“Or he didn’t see the second half, which, that might be the case. He might not have wanted to see the second half.”

Kelly added that LSU is moving on to this week’s game against Louisiana Tech.

“Clemson is a darn good football team,” Kelly said. “That’s a top-notch team, and they’re going to be a team in the hunt for [the] playoff picture. We hope we are, too. But it was only one game. So I don’t know if he’s a hard grader or an easy grader, but I like the way that we played in the second half.”

Clemson visits LSU to open the 2026 season.

Continue Reading

Sports

Venables: Michigan’s Underwood ‘a little different’

Published

on

By

Venables: Michigan's Underwood 'a little different'

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said Bryce Underwood “looks to be wise beyond his years” and compared Michigan‘s freshman quarterback to former Clemson national championship QB Trevor Lawrence on Tuesday ahead of the No. 18 Sooners’ Week 2 visit from the No. 15 Wolverines.

Underwood, ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit in the 2025 class, will make his second career start at Oklahoma on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

The coveted freshman earned Michigan’s starting job at the end of fall camp, beating out a collection of experienced passers on the depth chart including offseason portal additions Mikey Keene (Fresno State) and Jake Garcia (East Carolina). Underwood delivered a smooth college debut against New Mexico in Week 1, completing 21 of 31 passes for 251 yards and a touchdown in Michigan’s 34-17 win.

At Oklahoma, Underwood is set to face a much stiffer challenge against Venables, who resumed control of the Sooners’ defensive playcalling ahead of the 2024 season, and an experienced defense that held Illinois State to 151 yards of total offense in Week 1.

The former Clemson defensive coordinator compared Underwood to Lawrence, the five-star quarterback prospect who started as a freshman in 2018 and led the Tigers to a national championship win over Alabama.

“He’s a little different,” Venables said of Underwood. “It reminds me a lot of a Trevor Lawrence. Quick. Decisive. Accurate. Poised. Tough. Consistent. There’s a reason he was the No. 1 player in America. And he’s got a maturity and a work ethic and leadership agility to go along with that.”

As Oklahoma seeks to rebound from a 6-7 finish last fall, a new-look Sooners offense will get a test of its own Saturday.

Behind transfer QB John Mateer and first-year offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, Oklahoma gained 495 yards of offense in its 35-3, season-opening win over Illinois State. Mateer, who arrived in the offseason from Washington State alongside Arbuckle, passed Baker Mayfield for the most passing yards by an Oklahoma QB in a debut with 392 yards.

On Tuesday, Venables highlighted the Wolverines’ experience on defense, particularly in the front seven, as a defining challenge for the Sooners in an intriguing Week 2 matchup between two of college football’s most storied brands.

“[It’s] a defense that for the last several years has been one of the gold standards of college football when it comes to playing good defense,” Venables said. “It’s going to be a great physical matchup, and for us, a great litmus test to where we’re at.”

Continue Reading

Trending