Alabama football 2025: Is the kicking game a potential Achilles’ heel?

Happy Friday, everyone. The new NIL clearinghouse is already flexing its muscles a bit. Letters were sent to several top tier programs explaining that existing agreements with players run afoul of the rules. Some explanation:

Related Commission rejecting some athlete NIL deals

The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit. The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because the purpose of “selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose” according to the NCAA rule. A deal, however, could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples. “In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the letter said.

So, essentially, a collective’s role will be to distribute the capped $20.5M in payments to players, and to help broker deals between boosters and players for legit NIL agreements. The collective can no longer offer NIL deals to players, because the collective exists for the sole purpose of paying players. This makes sense, and if existing “NIL” deals with a collective are deemed noncompliant, then that money would theoretically count against a team’s salary cap.

This is what Auburn is counting on, but it seems to be wishful thinking. All the collective has to do is find a booster to pick up the check for part of the committed money. I am skeptical that the clearinghouse will be denying deals with private businesses based on the amount offered because it’s rather obvious that doing so wouldn’t hold up in court. As long as the clearinghouse sticks to policing collectives, it should survive. But not much will have changed if that’s the case, it’ll just be local boosters supplementing the pay for play salary cap and showing a legitimate business reason for doing so.

And Auburn will continue to suck.

Colin Gay evaluated Alabama’s special teams.

With the loss of Burnip to the NFL, California freshman Alex Asparuhov, who missed spring with an injury, and Colorado School of Mines transfer Blake Doud are expected to battle for starting reps in the fall. And with Nicholson gone, Conor Talty, who worked kickoffs for the Crimson Tide last year, is expected to take on place kicking duties. Alabama lost both Henderson and Law to the transfer portal. But both of the Crimson Tide’s primary punt returners — Adams and Williams — are back for 2025 along with Jaylen Mbakwe, who had two punt returns and one kickoff return in 2024.

To be frank, we have no idea whether Alabama will be able to kick the ball in any form this season. There are plenty of athletes to compete in the return game as long as they can catch the ball cleanly. I’d rather not see Ryan Williams doing it though.

Chase Goodbread decided to compare Kalen DeBoer’s first offseason in Tuscaloosa to Hugh Freeze’s on the pasture.

There are plenty of ways the second-year moves of Freeze and DeBoer aren’t to be compared, but by changing offensive coordinators after just one season, they put themselves in similar boats. It’s a shakeup from the top down; one that speaks to the demand for quick results. For Freeze, Auburn’s offense under Nix represented a significant forward stride — AU jumped from 90th to No. 29 in total offense — but at 19.1 points per game in SEC play, the scoreboard didn’t quite reflect the improvement in yardage. The team flailed its way to another losing record at 5-7, and with DeBoer currently running offseason circles around his rival counterpart in recruiting, the Freeze might be slowly melting on a hot seat. For both coaches, the bottom line is wins.

Herb Jones got paid.

New Orleans Pelicans forward Herb Jones has agreed to a three-year, $68 million contract extension with the franchise, representatives Mark Bartelstein and Kieran Piller of Priority Sports told ESPN. Jones now has a total of five years and $97 million on his Pelicans deal, with a new player option in 2029-30. The 26-year-old has risen from a second-round pick in the 2021 NBA draft to a two-way stalwart for the Pelicans, being named to the 2023-24 All-Defensive first team. He is one of eight players with 350 steals and 150 blocks since he entered the league. Jones has ranked in the top 10 in defense against isolations over the past two seasons among players to defend 150 isolations, per GeniusIQ.

Not many dudes play defense in the NBA, and even fewer love it like Herb.

Najee Harris had a Little Ralphie moment on July 4, but sounds like he will be OK.

Related Chargers RB Najee Harris sustains superficial eye injury during Fourth of July event

“Najee Harris was present at a 4th of July event where a fireworks mishap resulted in injuries to several attendees,” Hendrickson said in a statement, via Rapoport. “Najee sustained a superficial eye injury during the incident, but is fully expected to be ready for the upcoming NFL season.” The Mercury News first reported Harris’ accident. Rapoport added that Harris is likely to miss the start of training camp, which begins July 17 for the Chargers.

Last, Nick Kelly has a cool story about how Labaron Philon surprised his teammates and coaches.

Mallette’s phone also rang one night in late May. He didn’t recognize the number, though. It was a group FaceTime call, though. Included on the video call he saw all the returners: Latrell Wrightsell Jr., Aden Holloway and Aiden Sherrell, plus one unknown number. The unknown number: Philon’s. He had changed it. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. No. The true surprise was he revealed his plan to return. “I didn’t know he was coming back,” forward Aiden Sherrell said. “Coach kept it a secret from us. When we found out, we were super excited.” As part of the call, Philon also had a message to send. “His whole mindset when he came back, what he told us on the phone and told us in the locker room is we have unfinished business,” Mallette said. “We want to win the whole thing. We want to win it all. We feel like we came up short on our goals. That’s kind of the attitude of our locker room: We’re really hungry. I think he’s incredibly hungry. He’s going to do great.”

If that dude reaches his full potential next year, this team is going to be hell.

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

Roll Tide.

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