Alabama Football: Walter Camp Preseason All-Americans for UA trio

Preseason All-American selections are nice to ponder, even though actual performance is necessary to determine end-of-season All-America teams. Three Alabama football players are preseason selections of the Walter Camp Foundation. All three are deserving choices – but there should have been at least one more Crimson Tide player included.

A quick reminder about why the Walter Camp selections are important is twofold. One reason is, of course, history. Walter Camp chose the first college football All-American team in 1889. The Walter Camp Foundation was formed in 1967 to continue Walter Camp’s work. The Foundation describes its purpose as,

"to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and to continue the tradition of selecting annually an All-America team."

While Walter Camp is described by some as the father of American football, the Camp Foundation All-American teams are less noticed than the ones compiled by the AP, the American Football Coaches Association and the Football Writers Association.

The other reason of importance is the three groups listed above, plus the Sporting News and the Camp Foundation are the five sources used to determine the designation of Consensus All-Americans.

Going back more than a century of college football history, Walter Camp was sometimes accused of an eastern bias in selecting players. There is no indication the Camp Foundation favors any region of the country or football conference.

The Walter Camp selections are split into a first and second team. Each team is comprised of 25 players.

Among the Power Five players chosen,  13 are from the Big Ten, 11 are from SEC teams, eight from the Pac 12, eight from the ACC (including Notre Dame players) and five are from Big 12 teams.

Six programs had three players chosen. Along with the Alabama Crimson Tide, they are Clemson, USC, Notre Dame, Georgia and Michigan. The Ohio State Buckeyes had the most players selected with four.

Alabama and Georgia are the only programs with three first-team selections.

SEC schools also represented are Georgia and Florida, with two players selected each. The only other SEC programs with selections are Texas A&M, South Carolina and LSU, with one each.

Alabama Football Players in Walter Camp List

• Bryce Young – First Team Quarterback
• Will Anderson Jr. – First Team Linebacker
• Eli Ricks – First Team Defensive Back

A glaring omission by the Walter Camp Foundation was not including Alabama football safety, Jordan Battle. Battle will be a first or second-team All-American.

The complete 50-player list can be seen here.

Exactly half of the SEC football teams were not represented with any preseason, All-American selections.