The 3 position battles other than QB that are most crucial to Alabama’s success
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There’s simply no denying that the battle to be Alabama‘s starting quarterback in 2026 will have a gigantic effect on where the Crimson Tide land come late November, and because of that it’ll heavily impact the entire SEC and, let’s face it, the entire national college football landscape.
Hold on a minute though.
Austin Mack and Keelon Russell might very well hold the keys to a whole lot as they duel this summer and maybe right up to the Week 1 kickoff against East Carolina on Sept. 5. Who wins the job and how he backs up that trust on the field will provide the foundation (or not) for Alabama to chase an SEC championship and a repeat trip to the College Football Playoff.
But even if Mack or Russell, or a combination of both, give Bama what it’s searching for in replacing Ty Simpson, it won’t solve everything. They might not get nearly the attention as the high-profile quarterback tug-of-war, but there are plenty of other key position battles around the field to keep Kalen DeBoer busy this offseason, and the results of those battles will also heavily impact the finished product this fall in Tuscaloosa.
In the spirit, intensity and importance of those position battles that don’t involve Mack and Russell, we’ll pinpoint the 3 that are most crucial to Alabama’s success — or failure — in 2026:
1. Will somebody step forward as the lead running back?
If somebody doesn’t then, well, we saw what happened last season. A broken running game was a heavy burden even for a solid Alabama team that got to the SEC Championship Game and snuck into the Playoff. Inevitably, it all came apart in the quarterfinal loss to eventual national champion Indiana. There was absolutely 0 running game to keep IU’s ferocious defense honest, and the Crimson Tide limped out of the Rose Bowl with a 38-3 loss and with some questioning the program’s toughness.
The running game’s pursuit of a revival in 2026 will be fascinating, and maybe a little scary, to watch for Tide fans, because along with uncertainty about who, if anybody, will grab the lion’s share of the workload is more uncertainty up front. Without better run blocking, without a familiar sign of that Bama brute in the trenches that just wasn’t there in 2025, can whoever snags the starting running back job really be expected to thrive in 2026?
Right now, Alabama’s projected starting offensive line of left tackle Jackson Lloyd, left guard William Sanders, center Racin Delgatty, right guard Michael Carroll and right tackle Jayvin James have the fewest combined number of snaps played compared with the other 15 O-lines in the SEC. Even if those 5 players aren’t the exact unit that trots out for the opening series against East Carolina, new offensive line coach Adrian Klemm has talent but not a lot of experience, and that undeniable fact can surely trickle back to a running back room that’s also heavy on talent but largely unproven.
Jam Miller was supposed to be The Guy last season, and he deserves kudos for battling injuries all season to inch his way over 500 yards rushing. But it wasn’t nearly good enough to provide adequate balance for Ty Simpson, and Bama could only get so far without the usual punch that the Tide running game has packed over the years. Here’s where the rubber hits the proverbial road — Alabama has 3 returning running backs who are thought to be battling for that lead role this season in Daniel Hill, Kevin Riley and AK Dear, and all 3 showed positive flashes last fall.
But none of them cracked 300 yards rushing in 2025, with Hill getting the closest at 284. Riley followed with 224 yards, and Dear managed 140. The other concern? Hill and Riley both averaged a mere 3.8 yards per carry, while Dear’s 7.4 average was propped up by a 56-yard burst against a Louisiana-Monroe team that finished 3-9. Dear only had 19 carries all season, so his portfolio is a very small sample size, Riley carried it just 59 times while Hill had the most carries of the returning running backs with all of 75.
The prevailing thought, at this moment anyway, is that Hill has the inside track on the No. 1 spot on the depth chart. But there is a whole summer and fall camp to negotiate for Hill before that No. 1 spot can be solidified, and Riley and Dear will surely be coming for Hill in a wide-open race that also includes a couple true freshman variables. One is in-state product EJ Crowell, the 5-star gem from Jackson who set the world on fire to close his high school career despite skipping his junior season and reclassifying as a senior for the 2025 season.
Crowell was named 2025 Mr. Football in the state of Alabama, and though he was slowed this spring by a soft tissue injury in his right calf, Kalen DeBoer reportedly expects Crowell to be “ready to roll” with plenty of time to spare before this fall. So, maybe Crowell or fellow true freshman Trae’shawn Brown, a 3-star talent from Texas, can make an immediate impact or the biggest impact of all. Appalachian State transfer Khalifa Keith, who spent the 2023 and 2024 seasons at Tennessee, is also in the mix.
Now, can Bama win games with a running back-by-committee approach, without a dominant back? It did last season, until it got exposed against Indiana. But better not to tempt fate 2 years in a row.
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2. Who’s going to fill that second inside linebacker spot?
It’ll be quite the chore for the Tide to replace the production provided by Deontae Lawson, Justin Jefferson and Nikhai Hill-Green, who combined for an astonishing 213 tackles last season as 3 of Bama’s top 4 tacklers. Not surprisingly, all 3 have landed in the NFL, and that means defensive coordinator Kane Wommack has one huge offseason overhaul to perform at the inside linebacker position.
Those 2 starting inside linebacker spots will be filled in 2026 by a combination of talented but inexperienced players and 1 high-profile Virginia Tech transfer in Caleb Woodson. Barring injury, Woodson will undoubtedly fill one of those spots, and he’s got “monster season” potential written all over him in the SEC after combining for 129 tackles the past 2 seasons in Blacksburg. Woodson checks off one big box for Wommack.
But who’s going to step forward to claim the other inside linebacker position? Birmingham product QB Reese has a great chance to seize that starting role after growing into a special teams ace since he debuted in 2024.
After Reese, the list of candidates includes Cayden Jones, Luke Metz, Duke Johnson II and Abduall Sanders. Metz, Johnson and Sanders are a year younger than Reese, while Jones has been in the program for 2 years, like Reese. Kalen DeBoer called the inside linebacker battle highly competitive during the heat of spring workouts, and that competitiveness is only going to build through the summer and probably into fall camp.
3. What about the kicker — is it Conor Talty or Lorcan Quinn?
Just because this one is last doesn’t mean it’s the least important. With whoever wins the Alabama QB job being in his first season as a collegiate starter, field goal attempts might be in abundance this fall for whoever wins the Alabama kicker job. Will it be the incumbent Talty, who had his struggles last fall and heard some boos from Tide fans, or will it be the Marshall transfer Quinn, a Northern Irishman who impressed during the A-Day Game?
Quinn’s winding journey to T-Town is a charming one. He played Gaelic football for 5 years back home and didn’t get his first taste of American football until last fall at Marshall, where he made 21 of 26 field goal attempts, including a 55-yarder. Discovered at performance camps in America, including successful 69- and 68-yard attempts during a showcase at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, Quinn impressed at Marshall but wanted something bigger in 2026 — which might just be the starting kicker job for the Tide.
A-Day provided another showcase backdrop for Quinn, who drilled two 47-yard field goals among his 4 makes. While Quinn thrived during his first impression in front of Bama fans, those familiar struggles resurfaced for Talty, who was good from 30 and 32 yards but missed from 38.
Sure, it was one afternoon in mid-April, one snapshot, but the young man from Northern Ireland by way of the Sun Belt might just be Alabama’s answer at a most crucial position, in a most crucial Year 3 of the Kalen DeBoer era.
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Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
