{"id":259241,"date":"2026-08-23T03:46:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/23\/alabama-makes-keelon-russell-austin-mack-decision-ahead-of-week-1\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T03:46:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:46:06","slug":"alabama-makes-keelon-russell-austin-mack-decision-ahead-of-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/23\/alabama-makes-keelon-russell-austin-mack-decision-ahead-of-week-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama makes Keelon Russell, Austin Mack decision ahead of Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>One of the top stories surrounding the SEC this season was surrounding the quarterback battle at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/colleges\/alabama_crimson_tide\/505\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alabama<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The battle all offseason has been between sophomore Keelon Russell and senior Austin Mack, and after months of competition, the Crimson Tide have finally settled on their starter in Week 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Kalen DeBoer has named his starter<\/h2>\n<p>According to ESPN&#8217;s college football insider Pete Thamel, Alabama has named Russell its starting quarterback for the 2026 season, choosing the sophomore over veteran Austin Mack.<\/p>\n<p>Russell appeared in just two games last season, completing 11 of his 15 passes for 143 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He also added three carries for 17 yards.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\">\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/college_football\/articles\/alabama_makes_keelon_russell_austin_mack_decision_ahead_of_week_1\/s1_13132_44205830\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the top stories surrounding the SEC this season was surrounding the quarterback battle at Alabama. The battle all offseason has been between sophomore Keelon Russell and senior Austin Mack, and after months of competition, the Crimson Tide have finally settled on their starter in Week 1.\u00a0 Kalen DeBoer has named his starter According [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6806],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-259241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gossip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}