Alabama Crimson Tide news and notes from Monday and Tuesday, May 19th and 20th.
Alabama baseball downs Missouri, advances in SEC Tournament
Alabama baseball opened the SEC Tournament on Tuesday morning with a 4-1 win over Missouri to advance to Wednesday's quarterfinals.
Rob Vaughn handed the ball to Tyler Fay against the Tigers and Fay delivered. He threw six innings, gave up five hits, one earned run, walked one, and struck out six. With the Crimson Tide's offense kept mostly at bay, they needed Fay to toss a gem.
Missouri took the lead on a Mateo Serna homer in the 4th, but the lead only lasted a half inning. Justin Lebron and Kade Snell hit RBI singles in the bottom of the inning to put the Tide ahead 2-1. A sac fly by Will Hodo in the 7th and a Brody Neal homer in the 8th provided the insurance.
With a rain delay impacting the final opening round game, Alabama's matchup with Tennessee in the quarterfinals will now begin around 1pm CT instead of the originally scheduled 9:30am first pitch.
Nick Saban wins an Emmy, comments on Ty Simpson
Nick Saban's post-coaching career is going about as well as his coaching career did. In his first season on TV, Saban became an instant star on ESPN's College GameDay show. He helped deliver improved ratings. It earned him an Emmy.
What can't this man do?
Earlier in the day at his charity golf tournament, Saban issued his stamp of approval on Ty Simpson as the Crimson Tide QB.
Alabama is the leader for 5-star LB Xavier Griffin
It comes as no surprise if you have been reading the tea leaves, but Alabama has all the momentum in the recruitment of 5-star LB Xavier Griffin fresh off of his decommitment from USC.
Griffin had been committed to the Trojans for a year, but the Crimson Tide turned up the heat on his recruitment. OLB coach Christian Robinson has been leading the charge and has developed a relationship with Griffin that could carry Alabama to the finish line.
He recently canceled a visit to Georgia. He's scheduled to be in Tuscaloosa on an official visit the weekend of June 6th. With the way things have been trending, Griffin should be on commitment watch that weekend.
A couple of interesting comments from the SEC Network's "All In" documentary
On Monday night, the SEC Network aired a documentary called "All In", which followed the Crimson Tide during 2025 spring practice. There was some illuminating moments, most of which made it at least appear that this Alabama team is serious about buying in and getting back to a standard.
According to Ryan Williams, the buy-in wasn't always there last season in Kalen DeBoer's first season in Tuscaloosa. That no longer appears to be a problem.
And according to sixth-year senior Jah-Marien Latham, the last player remaining from Alabama's last National Championship team in 2020, the vibes from this year's group are similar to the 2020 team.