Congrats, reader of this column. We made it. Football season is here.

That’s what August means. No more months without football. Talking season is over (sort of) and games will be played this month.

With fall camp kicking off around the country this week, I thought I’d dig into 5 questions that I think will be answered by the end of fall camp. Or at least I hope they will be.

Let’s dig into it:

1. How does the Alabama quarterback battle shake out?

Yep. Had to start here. For the first time since at least 2018, there’s uncertainty about who’ll emerge as Alabama’s starting quarterback. A 3-way battle between Ty Simpson, Jalen Milroe and incoming Notre Dame transfer Tyler Buchner should have plenty of intrigue. At SEC Media Days, Nick Saban compared it to “baking a cake” and how the Tide would need some time to determine a starter.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. What would be a surprise is if this battle continued into the start of the regular season. Remember, that Texas game is in Week 2. I’m not sure that’s the time to give a starter his first set of full reps. What’ll be interesting is if we get any sort of clarity on the pecking order by the end of camp. Ideally, Alabama isn’t splitting first-team reps 3 ways.

Much has been made about Buchner’s transfer, and understandably so. He was added to a room with 4 scholarship quarterbacks, and it came on the heels of a lackluster spring game showing from Simpson and Milroe. Saban maintained that his starter has to “not make the plays that beat us.” Milroe and Buchner have more experience there, but they haven’t proven that they can be mistake-free guys with ball security.

My guess? We won’t have an official starter named at any point during fall camp, and we’ll find out Alabama’s unannounced starter in the opener. That’s how Saban approached it in 2018 with Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts. All we can hope for is that this QB1 reveal yields another “so quit askin'” post-Week 1 soundbite from the G.O.A.T.

2. Can Georgia avoid negative headlines?

Look. It’s 14 incidents related to speeding or reckless driving this offseason. That’s not nothing. It’s especially not nothing when you’re the 2-time defending national champs and you’re trying to become the first team to 3-peat since 1936 Minnesota. It’s really not nothing when the first real day of the offseason began with a tragedy that took the lives of 2 members of the Georgia program.

It hasn’t been an ideal offseason for the Dawgs. But the question now is whether that drama is in the past or if it’ll continue with guys back on campus. It’ll only be magnified if the issues continue. When you’re the 2-time defending champs, yes, we scrutinize your focus differently than if you’re 6-6. It comes with the territory.

If the fall camp conversations in Athens center around the quarterback battle and finding a game-wrecker on the defensive line, that’d be a huge win heading into Week 1.

3. Will we get any Jimbo Fisher-Bobby Petrino drama?

And by “drama,” I don’t mean Fisher continuing to play it coy with his offense in 2023. I mean will we get any noted interactions between the longtime offensive play-callers. For the record, that doesn’t have to be a negative interaction. Drama can be Fisher addressing the media by saying, “I couldn’t be more excited to showcase this offense that Petrino is running.”

Do I expect that? No. Will Fisher continue to be asked about Petrino’s impact on the offense throughout fall camp? Absolutely.

I don’t expect to get any sort of availability from Petrino himself. That’s not unique to A&M. I would, however, love if we got a 20-minute availability session from Petrino at some point during fall camp. What would he say about his relationship with Fisher? And would he provide any sort of insight on A&M’s offensive identity in 2023?

The Fisher-Petrino fireworks — good or bad — are as fascinating of an SEC storyline as there is in 2023.

4. Will Maason Smith look like the second coming of Jalen Carter?

I know that Smith was cleared for full activities coming off his torn ACL that he suffered in the 2022 opener against Florida State. But will he be just as explosive as the guy who was the buzz of LSU’s fall camp last year? Because if he is, nobody in the SEC has a better chance to be the 2023 version of Carter. That’s how dominant he can be.

But at the same time, there’s no guarantee that Smith, even 11 months removed from that season-ending injury, will have the same burst. At least not right away. It’ll be interesting to see any sort of videos and reports out of fall camp that get the hype train going again. He participated in spring camp, but only in individual drills. He didn’t play in the spring game.

It’s hard to imagine that Smith will quiet the pre-2023 buzz. Any positive reports will lead us to think that he’s ready for take off. The guy was a preseason first-team All-SEC selection despite the fact that he only has 5 career starts, 1 of which was the FSU game.

Kelly said in spring that Smith’s return will be “immense.” Here’s hoping Smith’s potential is on full display in 2023.

5. What’s next for Spencer Sanders?

Take this for what it is, but the prevailing thought I heard at SEC Media Days related to the Ole Miss quarterback was not that he was getting ready to win the starting job. It was that he was getting ready to hit the transfer portal again. Why? He was apparently third in the pecking order in the Ole Miss quarterback room behind Jaxson Dart and LSU transfer Walker Howard, which would be a stunning turn of events for the 4-year Oklahoma State starter who was the MVP of a New Year’s 6 bowl.

According to On3, Sanders said that he would be at fall camp and that he couldn’t wait to represent Ole Miss. Sanders is coming off a spring in which he was limited with a shoulder injury, though he certainly looked the part in the Grove Bowl. The issue for him is if Dart is locked in as the starter — something that felt very much up in the air dating back to spring — he’ll be using his last year of eligibility as a backup in some capacity.

That is, unless he leaves as a grad transfer. He could play elsewhere immediately. A lot can change in the next few weeks, especially if Dart gets the majority of the reps with the first-teamers. It’s hard to project what a market would look like for Sanders, especially if he decided to transfer in mid-August.

For now, Sanders could give Ole Miss one of the best backup situations of anyone in America … as long as he stays in Oxford.