Jumbo Package: Alabama officially has a breakfast date with Texas this fall

Happy Friday, everyone. As Roger was delighted to tell us, the baseball team has managed to make it to round three of the SEC tournament unscathed, with 2-seed Texas A&M on the docket for today. They have seemingly come from nowhere to position themselves well for the NCAA tournament. Keep it rolling, men.

In football news, the kickoff time in Austin this fall is not what we wanted.

Sept. 3: Utah State at Alabama, 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network)

Sept. 10: Alabama at Texas, 11 a.m. (Fox)

Sept. 17: Louisiana-Monroe at Alabama, 3 p.m. (SEC Network)

Nov. 19: Austin Peay at Alabama, 11 a.m. (SEC Network)

Just terrible. Hopefully Alabama’s players will be prepared at that hour to deliver the whipping that Texas deserves.

Brian Kelly didn’t exactly do much due diligence on LSU. He just has “beat Nick Saban” on his bucket list.

“I never visited,” Kelly said earlier this week on the Varsity House Podcast. “It was the alignment between the president, the athletic director and knowing that you were going to go into a program that had all those things in place. And you were going into a situation where you could compete with Alabama and Auburn and play those teams you wanted to go beat.

“So, I know those facilities were in place. It was the challenge. It was the ultimate challenge to come down here after being in the Midwest my entire career where most people said, “Well, you can’t do that. You can’t go down there and win in the SEC. You’re not from there.’

“So, it was probably the challenge to do it, and the alignment of an athletic director and president that were together in wanting to provide all the resources necessary to win a national championship.”

You’re going to have to do better than 12th in the recruiting rankings, Brian. I’m on the record as a skeptic of Kelly’s fit in Baton Rouge, and am hardly alone.

Brian Kelly to LSU. Not that it was the move from Notre Dame to LSU, but I just feel like Brian Kelly to LSU is not necessarily a great fit — and the fact that he left while they still had a chance to play in the Playoff. That was shocking to me.

2023 safety Elliot Washington II has decided to open his recruitment back up. He had been committed to Alabama.

Will Backus at 247sports thinks Alabama succeeded with the portal this offseason.

With just five transfer commits, Alabama holds a top-five spot in 247Sports’ team transfer rankings. The Tide did not have too many roster holes to fill, so they were able to be pretty selective in addressing their needs. They did so almost perfectly. Jameson Williams was a huge loss from the receiving corps, but Alabama replaced him with speedster Tyler Harrell, who averaged an absurd 29.1 yards per catch last season. Alabama also secured the best defensive back in the portal in Eli Ricks, and plugged its biggest gap on the offensive line by landing Tyler Steen, who has playing time in 30 SEC contests under his belt from his career with Vanderbilt. That is not to mention wide receiver Jermaine Burton or dynamic running back Jahmyr Gibbs, who will both step up at big-time positions of need.

Unfortunately, the portal hasn’t been as kind to Javon Baker. Kentucky apparently dropped him.

Former Alabama wide receiver Javon Baker, who signed with Kentucky in February, is no longer transferring to UK, a football team spokesman confirmed Thursday. A former four-star recruit, Baker was projected to compete for a starting spot for UK this fall.

Since Baker had not yet enrolled at UK, he can now consider other options in the transfer portal.

Hopefully he can land somewhere and find success.

That’s about. it for today. Have a great weekend.

Roll Tide.