LEAD STORY: Nine Tigers on the Preseason All-SEC Team — and a Poll That Doesn't Match
LSU came out of SEC Football Kickoff in Tampa with the loudest week of any program in the league and the hardware to back it up on paper. The Tigers placed nine players on the 2026 Preseason Media All-SEC teams, nearly doubling the five selections they carried into 2025.
The first-team group is deep and positionally diverse: tight end Trey'Dez Green, offensive tackle Jordan Seaton, defensive lineman Princewill Umanmielen, linebacker Whit Weeks and punter Grant Chadwick. Defensive back DJ Pickett and safety Ty Benefield landed on the second team, with center Braelin Moore and linebacker TJ Dottery earning third-team nods. Nearly half of the nine arrived through the transfer portal — Seaton, Umanmielen, Benefield and Dottery among them — which is the clearest validation yet of how LSU built this roster in the offseason.
The conspicuous omission: quarterback Sam Leavitt, who missed all three teams. Voters went with Texas' Arch Manning, Ole Miss' Trinidad Chambliss and Georgia's Gunner Stockton behind center. That's a strange split, because FanDuel has already installed Leavitt at +2200 to win the Heisman Trophy, 10th nationally and third among SEC players behind only Manning and Chambliss. Somebody is wrong, and the season will sort it out.
The poll itself added another wrinkle. Media members again picked Georgia as the league favorite, with Texas, Ole Miss and Texas A&M slotted ahead of LSU at No. 5 — putting the Tigers squarely on the CFP bubble in a conference that placed five teams in the field last season. For a program that dominated the conversation in Tampa, fifth reads less like a snub than a dare.
QUICK HITS
- The expectations bar keeps rising in Baton Rouge. ESPN's Jordan Rodgers argued on Get Up that anything short of a College Football Playoff National Championship appearance would make LSU's first year under its new staff a failure, pushing back on Paul Finebaum's more measured take. Rodgers pointed to Indiana's rebuild and its 2025-26 national title as proof that year-one turnarounds are possible. Possible, yes — but that transformation was called unbelievable for a reason.
- Kentucky's alumni team is 48 hours from a $2 million game. La Familia survived a three-game slugfest with Louisville's The Ville, taking the decider 63-57 in Lexington after Darryl Morsell's Elam Ending dunk stole Game 1, 72-68. Montrezl Harrell's 35 points had evened the series at Freedom Hall.
- Georgina Corrick put Utah on the doorstep. The Talons ace threw a complete-game four-hitter in a 2-1 win over the Chicago Bandits in Game 1 of the AUSL Championship Series, per D1Softball. Utah is one win from a second straight title.
- A former SEC track and field alum is a national champion. Euphenie Andre captured the triple jump title at the USATF Outdoor Championships, per school athletics releases.
- Crunch-time football, quantified. CBS Sports published a five-year statistical dive into which programs actually close games — a useful reference point as the league's contenders start stacking one-score November matchups.
PORTAL WATCH
Nothing moved in the last 12 hours. The portal is dormant this deep into July, which is exactly what LSU wants — the Tigers' four portal additions on the preseason All-SEC teams are now roster fixtures, not question marks. The next meaningful wave won't arrive until fall camp attrition begins.
RECRUITING BUZZ
No new SEC commitments on the board tonight. The notable national board move came outside the conference: point guard Tyrone Jamison committed to Baylor, he told ESPN on Saturday. It's the Bears' seventh consecutive class featuring a top-50 prospect — a streak SEC basketball staffs are chasing, and one worth tracking as summer evaluation periods close.
GAMES TO WATCH
No games on the SEC calendar today, but Sunday brings real stakes to Lexington.
La Familia (Kentucky alumni) vs. Boeheim's Army (Syracuse alumni) — TBT 2026 Alumni Semifinal, single elimination
- When: Sunday, July 26, 2:00 p.m. ET
- Where: Historic Memorial Coliseum, Lexington, Ky.
- TV: FOX (national broadcast — an antenna gets you the game)
- Stream: FOX Sports app, FOXSports.com, Fubo, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue
- Tickets: Ticketmaster via tbthoops.com
La Familia's roster runs deep with familiar Wildcats — Willie Cauley-Stein, Andrew Harrison, Archie Goodwin, Marcus Lee, DeAndre Liggins, Kahlil Whitney, Sean McNeil, Chris Coffey and James Mainor-Bell alongside Morsell. Syracuse counters with Buddy and Jimmy Boeheim, Eric Devendorf, Elijah Hughes, Wes Johnson, Cole Swider, Tyson Walker and Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu, and swept Seton Hall's Hall In to get here — 82-52, then 81-76 on Walker's Elam Ending free throw.
Respect the résumé: Boeheim's Army is 27-10 all-time in TBT with a 2021 title. Under this year's revamped 14-team format, the winner advances to the Alumni Final, three wins from $2 million. Kentucky and Syracuse last met with a championship on the line in 1996, when the Wildcats won 76-67 for their sixth title. Thirty years later, the alumni get their rematch.
