​The big news yesterday is that Alabama continues to work towards filling out their 2028 recruiting class with some high end talent – this time pulling in an up and coming offensive tackle, Anthony Blalock.“Any time you commit to a place like Alabama, you have to fit the physical build,” Parker says. The first thing you see with Anthony are his long arms. He has heavy hands in his punch and he’s pretty athletic for his size. The type of player they are getting is one who wants to be great and is committed to his craft.”“He loves the game of football,” Parker continued. “He is very, very humble. I think they are getting a selfless player who, I can’t say this enough, wants to be the best and his goals for himself. He has drive. He also has a great demeanor for the position. His teammates can rally around him because he’s not a me guy. He’s never asked for this, but in his daily habits, he’s learning to speak up and be a leader. He’s taking on new challenges as he transitions from a young player to an upperclassman and he wants to do that.”Blalock’s got on college radars after this past season, where he started every game as a sophomore. Kentucky, Ohio State, Texas Tech, Florida State and others offered.“His freshman year, he sprinkled in on varsity and helped us out. That was his first taste,” Parker said. “His sophomore year, he was the full-time starter. After that year, he started to get the high-level recognition so now he needs to be elevated on every single detail of every single day. That was new for him as he realized he had to sharpen up and be at his best every day because any weaknesses that coaches or evaluators would see, he had to address those and he’s done a great job with that.”Blalock is a 4-star recruit out of Ohio (committing to the Tide over the hometown favorite, Ohio State). At 6’5” 320 as only a rising junior in high school, he’s got sky-high potential to become an absolute monster. 247 has him ranked #127 overall and the #8 OT in the class. ESPN hasn’t gotten around to ranking him yet, so the composite scores for him aren’t as good.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWith Blalock in the fold, the Tide now holds the #2 overall recruiting class for 2028. It’s still early, of course, but things are definitely starting well.With us all well into bored season, Athlon Sports went and made projections for all the bowl games. Did they give any rationale, opinions, analysis, etc. into anything? Even just a sentence or two? Nope. They just gave us a really long list of bowls – but couldn’t be bothered to even say something like: “We think Alabama takes a step back.”College Football Bowl Projections for 2026-27Location: EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla.Tie-In: ACC vs. SECProjection: SMU vs. AlabamaNice work there, Athlon. That took some real creative brainpower.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn any case, I think if the Tide ends up in the Gator Bowl, there wil