Gump Day: True Believers and Buy-in — Alabama Football lost zero players to the Spring Portal

Zyan Gibson, ‘Bama’s 5-star CB out of Gadsden, is looking to be the Ryan Williams of this class: recruiting others, and building a new team around him for a new culture.

Zyan Gibson, a 2026 Alabama football commit, is actively recruiting other top prospects, particularly wide receiver Cederian Morgan.

Zyan Gibson, described as a “silent leader,” aims to “build a culture” at Alabama by attracting the best players.

Zyan Gibson is focused on finding teammates he can connect with and win alongside in Tuscaloosa.

Since DeBoer arrived, one of the consistent themes we’ve seen pop up is the buy-in that players have had, and many of the new guys that sign aren’t doing so to play football; they genuinely want to be here and have bought into the New Bama and KDB specifically. I would expect to see many more recruits like Hollywood and Zyan over the coming years.

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If you needed some affirmation of that, Alabama lost zero players to the Spring portal period. The buy-in has been incredible.

And recent Texas A&M import IOL Kam Newberry finally dishes on what I’ve said for months: To whom and how those losses happened are what rankles Alabama fans, especially after seeing how good they could play at times. But the outcome was about as good a job as you could do under the circumstances.

“I’m gonna say this, and I feel like enough people don’t give credit to that man to the fact that he took a roster that could have went way worse than 9-4 and made it as good as he could,” Dewberry said. “I feel like with all the people leaving, with everybody exiting, not even having his guys, if we’re being honest. His personnel, his everything that it takes a college coach to get a year under his belt to get to — I felt like he exceeded the expectations as a first-year coach, and I feel like a lot of people don’t give that man enough credit for that.

“And I know how some of these fans can be just because of what the ‘Bama standard is. We get that, we understand that. But I don’t think people understand the big culture shock of a changing a whole new coach. Now it’s different. It’s not like back in the day that all your roster guys are just staying that you recruited in the past. No, all these players are gone. Everybody leaving.”

That kind of commitment is why Dewberry, with just one year of eligibility left, chose to depart his starting job with the Aggies and finish his career under DeBoer.

Buy-in and depth have been constant themes all Spring around the program. Alabama’s kinetic Kane Wommack sounds delighted with the roster that remains, and it genuinely sounds like most of the dead weight has been jettisoned from a program that is focused now on development in the long term, and winning in the short term.

That is absolutely unheard of in this day and age: losing zero players to the Portal. It obviously points to the expert hand of Courtney Morgan too. Whatever we’re paying him, it’s not enough.

‘Bama fended off suitors this Winter, but I’m certain we’ve not seen the last of the Big Money boys come sniffing around his way.

KDB is embracing the challenge, and despite getting absolutely pilloried last year by some ‘Bama fans, he brings up the obvious countervailing point here: would you rather coach at a place that doesn’t have Alabama expectations?

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Last night, ‘Bama softball got off to a flaccid start, falling in an early hole vs. the Barn. But with some great pitching by Briski, and just enough offense from the usual suspects, ‘Bama secured the win, upending the Tigers and advancing in the SEC Softball Tournament.

The night belonged to Salen Hawkins, however, who drove in two of the Tide’s three runs, and had some absolute web gems in the field.

Alabama should always wear their whites.

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The case against Miles’ co-defendant began yesterday with opening arguments, but despite throwing some early haymakers in their presentation, the DA’s case got off to very shaky ground with the revelation of a third gunman on the scene and their star witness testifying that before the shooting, the victim passed the gun to Michael Lynn Davis first.

Both of these, of course, bolster the self-defense claim — a claim that Tuscaloosa vigorously denied for the better part of two years, and even appeared to lie about or hide exculpatory evidence of:

It was during the prosecution’s opening statement that Mejia also seemed to confirm the longstanding assertion of the defense that a third shooter was involved in the fatal incident.

As Patch previously reported in September 2023 as a self-defense hearing was being held for Miles, one witness who had been served a subpoena to testify — Jack Thompson — had been called to the stand but never showed up to court.

This is important because Turner Law Group, the firm representing Miles, has claimed since early on in the case that it was Thompson who can be seen getting something out of the trunk of a stolen red Impala driven by Shu’Bonte Greene when the group had a brief meeting with Johnson and the occupants of the Jeep in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Grace Street.

Defense attorney Mary Turner has said that Thompson retrieved a shotgun that was later fired during the shootout on Grace Street — a theory that was questioned and disputed by prosecutors in the early stages of the murder cases against both suspects.

Indeed, District Attorney Hays Webb, during the immunity hearing in the fall of 2023, initially objected to Turner’s comments about Thompson retrieving a shotgun and said there was no evidence to support such claims.

This has apparently changed

This entire case has pissed me off from Jump Street. The case against Miles was always weak as hell, and it’s nonexistent for a capital murder charge. The DA’s game has been pretty clear to anyone that’s been around the law (or cops) long enough: the State is slow-rolling the MLD trial hoping to bootstrap a conviction there to Darius Miles. They simply don’t have a case against Miles. And, what case is there, shows at best beer muscles from a bunch of young, intoxicated men butting horns over a woman and the attendant machismo and dick swinging that involves. At worst, Michael Lynn Davis and Darius Miles had a very strong case for self-defense; a case that the TPD buried and the State misrepresented, in violation of Brady and their constitutional rights.

You know me. I’m not one prone to swinging the rayciss cactus, pretty much ever. But do you think this is capital murder if this is a group of drunken Bubbas in Coker? And I don’t wish to impugn the reputation of our public servants either, but if Darius Miles isn’t an Alabama basketball player, does TPD keep him in prison for over two years, and slow-roll his trial over such flimsy evidence?

You can arrive at your own answer, but I know where I’ve fallen on both of these issues for quite a while now. And burying evidence of self-defense damn sure doesn’t make me afford the State any goodwill either.

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The way the NFL advisory council evaluates player is about to radically change, though we don’t know into what it shall magically transmogrify.

The reason? Agents and lawyers and handlers extorting schools and puffing up their two-star taterheaded clients as program-changers:

“What we have seen the lasts three to four years, schools have submitted and then kids used those evaluations to hold their schools hostage. So, they (the NFL) are cancelling the program because they don’t want to give a grade that says first or second round and then the kids or their agents use it against you all.”

Moreover, experts shared, agents have been caught fabricating information they have claimed to receive from the NFL’s CAC, which has worked closely with the NCAA during its existence.

“Agents are supplying false and or misleading information,” he said, “They’re saying I submitted my kid to the CAC and this was his grade. He didn’t know I knew that the kid had not been evaluated by the CAC.”

Tom Mars is in shambles.

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As you would expect, Nick Saban getting into Donald Trump’s ear re: the ongoing pay-for-play disaster is going down like a fart in church with the class action firm that has upended $2.6 billion in revenue.

“Coach Saban and Trump’s eleventh-hour talks of executive orders and other meddling are just more unneeded self-involvement. College athletes are spearheading historic changes and benefitting massively from NIL deals. They don’t need this unmerited interference from a coach only seeking to protect the system that made him tens of millions.”

The full press release from Hagens Berman is of course the most self-interested pilpul you’ll ever read, going out of its way to demonize the dean of college football.

“While he was a coach, Saban initially opposed NIL payments to athletes, pushing to add restrictions and red-tape through national legislation to add ‘some sort of control.’ During his time scrutinizing the athlete pay structure, he made tens of millions of dollars and was previously the highest-paid coach in college football,” said firm managing partner and co-founder, Steve Berman, who serves as court-appointed co-lead counsel in the litigation, of the settlement slated to become one of the largest antitrust class-action settlements in history.

I’ve said it countless times before: class actions are almost always a scam, with 60%+ going to the class counsel who file these things, and claimants getting (quite often literal) pennies on the dollar. That’s why AT&T can gouge you for a decade and your cut of the settlement is a $15 Chik Fil A coupon.

As a legal and professional matter, the tone of this irked me to no end. First, Hagens Berman destroyed antitrust law as we know it, and college sports in the process. But for Claudia Wilkens’ animus to the NCAA, O’Bannon is tossed in 90% of the courts in this country. Second, I loathe litigation via character assassination. Saban isn’t even an adversary, an opposing party, or a beneficiary here; he’s a private citizen exercising his political speech rights on an issue of public concern. To go after a private non-party is tacky, lowbrow, shit-on-their-shoes ambulance-chasing crap at the best of times, and this was not such an occasion.

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And, finally, your moment of levity…

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CB will be back later with Softball. For now, have a great morning. Roll Tide.

And I’m sorry this is so late. Storms knocked my power out until about 8 this morning.