Happy Thursday. Fall camp is officially underway, which means we are contractually obligated to care about depth charts, anonymous sources, and coaches saying "we're excited about the growth we've seen." But first, the chaos.

Let's start in Tuscaloosa, where Kalen DeBoer walked out of Alabama's first fall practice on Wednesday, got asked about the program's lowest preseason ranking in 18 years, and delivered what might be the most Alabama-coded response in history: "We're definitely aware." That's it. Three words. DeBoer said them bluntly, turned around, and presumably went back inside to stare at film. Alabama is sitting at No. 11 in the preseason coaches poll — the first time the Tide has been outside the top 10 since 2008 — and was picked sixth in the SEC at media days. Sixth. Nick Saban, apparently unable to help himself, spent part of the week on SEC Network explaining that 50 roster turnovers is a valid reason to pump the brakes on expectations. Paul Finebaum heard this, drove straight to a camera, and absolutely unloaded: "It's like the dad telling the young son, 'It's okay if you strike out at the Little League game.' It's not okay at Alabama!" Finebaum called Saban's gentle PR campaign for DeBoer "Daddy Saban putting his arms around him," which is the kind of imagery that will haunt Tuscaloosa barbershops for the next six months. DeBoer's response to all of this: keep working in silence. The fanbase's response: thermometer-through-the-roof Discord servers.

Meanwhile, Curt Cignetti has been living his best life on a nationwide SEC demolition tour. The reigning national champion stood at Big Ten Media Days last week, trophy gleaming, and told everyone the Big Ten "doesn't run a hype machine" — a shot so obvious it didn't need a name attached. "When we fall short, we say we fell short. We don't cry a river, whine and complain," Cignetti said, essentially performing a dramatic reading of every SEC coach's press conference from the last three years. The SEC faithful immediately Googled Indiana's 2026 non-conference schedule and found: Old Dominion, Kennesaw State, and Indiana State. Indiana has no Power Four opponents outside the Big Ten on its future schedules, and this week confirmed it cancelled its home-and-home with Notre Dame — reportedly to, and I am not making this up, "adopt SEC scheduling philosophy." The SEC, humiliated into a nine-game conference schedule in part because of Cignetti's mockery last year, now also mandates a Power Four non-conference opponent. Indiana does not. The man is incredible at this. He loses the moral high ground and keeps the trophy. Respect.

Finally, in Washington: the Protect College Sports Act, which the SEC and Big Ten dramatically swooped in to support at the last second after Trump basically threatened to subtweet them, appears to have died on the vine before the August recess — the Senate adjourned Thursday without scheduling a vote. Sen. Ted Cruz had been promising all week it would pass. Senate Majority Leader Thune basically shrugged. So Greg Sankey spent the summer lobbying Congress, threatening to secede from the NCAA, and pivoting to boasting about attendance figures — "Our football programs draw an average of 80,000 fans per game. That's the stat of my summer" — and now has nothing to show for any of it except a fun Tampa vacation and a conference full of coaches who are mad about their schedules.

Season starts in 30 days. Everything is fine.