Alabama Football: This week in T-Town and across CFB

On Wednesday, Alabama football players and another 38,000-plus Alabama students begin classes. Adjusting to the seasonal calendar, practice times for the Crimson Tide move to 3:40 PM, CST.

Though practices will be later in the day it will still be blistering in Tuscaloosa with temperature highs predicted to range from 99 to 102 Tuesday through Saturday. Those are actual temperatures. The heat indexes will be higher.

Nick Saban will have a media session on Wednesday at approximately 6:00 PM CST. Gameweek 1 for the Crimson Tide will start with Nick Saban’s depth chart unveiling, on Aug. 28, in a noon media session. Then finally, on Saturday night, Sept. 2, we can talk about what has happened with the Crimson Tide, rather than devoting so much time to what will or might happen.

Alabama Football Television News

For Alabama football fans that may have missed some broadcast changes, former Crimson Tide QB, Greg McElroy has been promoted to fill the ABC/ESPN role vacated by Todd Blackledge. The former Penn State QB has moved back to his Big Ten roots. The top ABC/ESPN crew will again be Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe. McElroy will join Sean McDonough and Molly McGrath for ESPN’s Saturday Night Primetime. There are no changes in the main SEC Network, SEC Saturday Night with Tom Hart and Jordan Harper, joining Aubie Cole Cubelic for a seventh season. In fairness to Cubelic, he rises above his Auburn background in his media work.

In weeks 1-3 of the season, Alabama football games will be on the SEC Network (MTSU), ESPN (Texas) and ABC (South Florida).

CBS will begin its final SEC season on Sept. 16, with South Carolina vs. Georgia. The double-header Saturdays for CBS will be Oct. 14 and Nov. 4.

Another key date for the college football season will come with the first CFB Playoff Rankings release, on Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Games will be somewhat shorter in the coming season for two reasons. Except in the last two minutes of each half, the game clock will not be stopped after first downs. Play review by officials will also change, allowing the replay official to overturn an officiating error, without the on-field referee reviewing the video of the play.

There will also no longer be ‘icing’ of kickers, with a rule change not allowing successive timeouts. More detailed information on these changes, along with other new rules can be seen here.

Week 0 catapults us into the new college football season, with Navy and Notre Dame playing in Dublin. Also on Aug. 26, Vanderbilt hosts Hawaii.