North Alabama Lions 2026 Season Preview

Dearmon's Ledger Reads Red

Brent Dearmon closed 2025 at 2-10 with a 1-7 mark in league play, and a power rating stuck at No. 77 leaves little statistical cover for 2026. North Alabama's roster picture is muddied by the transition to next season, but the raw math from last fall, a single conference win and a rating in the bottom half of the sport, is the plain baseline Dearmon has to build off. Nothing in the results says this program has turned a corner yet.

Adkins Joins a Team Unlucky in 2025

The 2-10 mark buried a team that lost the close ones, going 0-4 in games decided by a single score and bleeding turnovers at -7 on the season, both trends that tend to swing back. The defense is the real issue, giving up 39.2 points and 465 yards a game while allowing scores far too cheaply at 11.9 yards per point against, so incoming transfer Cayden Adkins joins an offense that still needs to find more from 189 passing yards a game and a 37.9% third-down rate. Brent Dearmon's roster was better than its record last fall, but until that defense stops giving points away cheaply, the offense has no margin to work with.

Banks Bowen arrives from Oklahoma State to take over an offense that managed just 189 passing yards per game and a 37.0% success rate a year ago, numbers that trace straight back to the passing game DC Tabscott left behind after throwing four interceptions against two touchdowns. Bowen's own resume is a blank slate, four passing yards, but that's less a red flag than a clean sheet for Brent Dearmon to build around a run game that already worked, 167 rushing yards per game ranked 44th nationally. The bet is that better decision-making at quarterback, not more talent around him, is what turns a 25.3-point offense into something more dangerous in 2026.

North Alabama's ground game produced 167 rushing yards per game a year ago, good for 44th nationally, but the two backs who did the heaviest lifting, Jayvian Allen (750 yards, 9 TD) and Jalyn Daniels (309 yards, 2 TD), are both gone, along with LT Sanders and Roderick Taylor. Jaylon Calhoun arrives from App State to try to fill that void, though he carries no prior stats on file, so the carries he inherited come with zero track record attached. With the passing game already stuck at 85th in yards per game and the offense stuck at 103rd in yards per play, whatever Calhoun gives Brent Dearmon on the ground will largely decide if this offense moves the needle in 2026.

North Alabama's passing game produced just 189 yards per game a season ago, 85th nationally, and now the two players who caught the most passes on that offense are gone, Justin Pegues (46 catches, 459 yards, 4 TD) and Tanaka Scott (30 catches, 528 yards, 4 TD) among them. Brent Dearmon replenishes the room with high school signees Keith Donald and Isaiah Owens, both unproven at this level, which means the passing attack has to be built around an experienced quarterback and backfield rather than proven targets. With yards per play already at 4.84 (103rd) and success rate at 37.0% (91st), the receiving corps needs someone from that incoming group to emerge just to keep the offense from getting more one-dimensional, not less.

Kaleb Heatherly's 17 catches and 223 yards walk out the door, leaving Brent Dearmon without his most productive tight end from an offense that already struggled to stretch the field, ranking 85th in passing yards per game and 103rd in yards per play. That short-area production has to come from an experienced group of returners and any transfer additions to the room, but with a rushing attack that carried the offense at 167 yards per game and 44th nationally, the simplest path is leaning on tight ends as blockers and safety-valve targets rather than expecting a downfield replacement for what Heatherly gave them.

A line that produced 4.84 yards per play (103rd nationally) and helped an offense stuck at 91st in success rate now hands the interior to Leavy Johnson, a South Alabama transfer stepping into the trenches for Brent Dearmon's group. The ground game itself was the lone bright spot, 167 rushing yards per game ranked 44th, but the departures of Anthony Bauer, Noah Bolticoff, Drew Lawson, Witt Mitchum and Gage Saint among seven linemen gone means that push has to be rebuilt around Johnson rather than assumed. If North Alabama wants its passing game to climb out of 85th in yards per game, it starts with whether Johnson and the pieces around him can hold up better than last year's 37.9% third-down rate suggests.

Brent Dearmon's front gave up 6.93 yards per play last season, a number that lines up with a defense that let opponents pass for 285 yards a game, and none of that came from the departed trio of E.J. Colbert, BJ Diakite and Kaleb Brown, who combined for four tackles between them. That means the actual damage was done by players not accounted for here, and whoever fills those spots in 2026 inherits a line that ranked 118th in points allowed per game with almost no production lost on paper. The bar is low enough that even modest individual snaps up front should read as progress against a unit this porous.

A pass defense that bled 285 yards a game and ranked 124th nationally in that category traces straight back to a linebacker corps that could not hold the middle, and North Alabama loses its two most active tacklers there in Demarcious Robinson (8 tackles, 1 TFL) and Jahbari Hill (5 tackles). Cayden Adkins arrives from Georgia State, where he posted 5 tackles and a TFL in 2025, to help Brent Dearmon patch a defense that finished 118th in yards per play allowed. The Lions stayed competitive on early downs, holding 42.6% of opponent plays on schedule (65th), but until the front seven turns that into stops instead of missed tackles, the passing numbers will not move.

Opposing quarterbacks torched North Alabama for 285 yards a game through the air last season, a number that put the secondary near the bottom of the country at 124th in passing yards allowed and helped drag the whole defense to 39.2 points surrendered a night. That production leak cost the Lions Davon Martin and Cameron Jamar, among the departures, and the answer up top is Tennessee State transfer Dominique Dixon at safety. Dixon arrives without a stat line to lean on, so the actual bet is that an experienced group around him tightens the coverage that let 6.93 yards per play walk out the door in 2025.

Adam Watford's 66 punts and 46.6-yard average walk out the door, and long snapper Nathan Curry goes with him, leaving Brent Dearmon needing a full battery replacement rather than a single hole to patch. That average was a legitimate weapon for a two-win team, and nothing in the current picture replaces it by name, so North Alabama's field-position math likely gets worse before it gets better in 2026.

Banks Bowen Under Center

North Alabama's season swings on Banks Bowen, the Oklahoma State transfer arriving with all of four career passing yards, now tasked with running the offense for a team that went 1-7 in league play. Jayvian Allen's 750 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns are gone, so Bowen cannot lean on a proven ground game to bail out an unproven arm. If he plays like a project, the Lions' offense stalls again; if he settles in fast, a 200-ranked class and thin portal haul matter far less.

Dearmon's Road Underdog Trap

North Alabama lost every one of its seven road games straight up in 2025, yet Brent Dearmon's group still covered three of those as a road underdog and went 3-1 against the spread at home, a split that says more about how these lines are set than about the Lions turning a corner. Bettors chasing the bounce-back angle got paid too, with a 5-3 mark against the spread the week after a loss suggesting bookmakers overcorrected on a team that rarely strung good weeks together. None of it points to more wins in 2026, just a program whose number is usually priced a little too generous.