Three Questions Surrounding Lotzeir Brooks Ahead of Sophomore Year: Just a Minute

Alabama's wide receiver room is in an interesting predicament, as it has to replace not one, but two of its starters.

Germie Bernard, who led the Crimson Tide in catches and yards, exhausted his collegiate eligibility after the 2025 season and he proceeded to be picked by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the second round of the NFL Draft. Isaiah Horton, who led UA in touchdowns, transferred to Texas A&M following the Rose Bowl loss.

115 days remain until the season opener against East Carolina, and while Ryan Coleman-Williams is guaranteed to be a starting wide receiver for the third consecutive year, the other two spots are vacant.

Lotzeir Brooks, who was the first receiver to come off the bench last season, is the primary option to take the WR2 spot. After recording an impressive 32-reception, 441-yard and 2-touchdown freshman year, BamaCentral's Hunter De Siver, Joe Gaither and Theo Fernandez discussed the sophomore's potential for 2026 on The Joe Gaither Show on Wednesday morning.

Fernandez first asked De Siver what the chances are that Brooks has a sophomore slump. Here's what De Siver said.

What are the chances Brooks has a sophomore slump?

"It's kind of similar to DeVonta Smith (listed at 6-foot-1, 175 pounds at Alabama) in terms of size concerns (Brooks is 5-foot-9, 193 pounds). So people are going to always throw around, 'Oh, he might get injured because he's so small.'

"But other than that, if you get an increased role after a freshman year where you're basically a fringe four-star who wasn't really highly recruited and has multiple games where you big plays like [the fourth-and-long catch] against Mizzou to ice the game and then against Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff on the road and have two touchdowns and he's not even a starting receiver, I really don't know what the scenario would be other than an injury or something like that where he could have a sophomore slump.

"I think this receiver's room is very talented. But Ryan's the guy, Lotty's the guy and that third player, we still don't know who it's going to be. It was probably going to be Noah Rogers, but he's going to be out for a little while. So they're probably going to experiment for the first few weeks of the season. They're probably going to throw in Derek Meadows, Cederian Morgan, Rico Scott and a couple of other guys in there just to see who could be a starting wide receiver.

"But throughout that whole time, Lotzeir Brooks is starting and he'll get a ton of targets. I don't really see a sophomore slump being a possibility for him."

Gaither then asked De Siver to project some over/unders for Brooks: 49.5 receptions, 649.5 yards and 5.5 touchdowns. Both Gaither and Fernandez took the unders on all three categories. So is Brooks guaranteed to start alongside Coleman-Williams? Here's what Fernandez said.

Is Brooks a guaranteed starter?

"I think Alabama will be playing WR2 by committee," Fernandez said. "I think it'll be a 2A, 2B, 2C. When Noah Rogers comes back, maybe even 2D. I think it'll just be a mix of a bunch of guys making plays out there. Everyone knows they're talented and everyone knows they're high-level football players.

"Maybe by the end of the year Cederian Morgan has separated himself or maybe it's Lotzeir Brooks who does take the jump and separates himself. But I think, at least for the first half of the season, it'll just be a lot of these different guys.

"Defenses don't really know who the featured receivers are on this team and it'll be a nice mix. I don't think there will be complaints about the wide receiver production, but I also don't think there will be a second receiver whose numbers necessarily jump off the page."

So, going back to those over/unders, Gaither explained why he's picking the under for each of the categories.

What are Brooks' expectations?

"I think he'll be close to a lot of those numbers that [De Siver] threw out there," Gaither said. "He basically said 50 catches, 650 yards and five touchdowns. I think he's going to up his catches from 32 to about 40-45. I think he's going to up his yards from 440 to right about 500. I think five touchdowns is about right, but I think it's a bit high, so I'm going to double last year and go to four largely due to the point that [Fernandez] is trying to make.

"I think the wide receiver room is so talented that you kind of keep the rotation high and you're using a bunch of different roles to where you say, 'OK, Ryan is the clear WR1, and everybody else gets a large chunk of the second options.'

"When you look at the end of the season, you could see Derek Meadows for 30 catches, Cederian Morgan for 30 catches and I think they're all going to be around that 30-catch range to where there's a WR 1 and a bunch of WR3s that make up the rest of the production. I think Lotzeir Brooks is going to find himself in that second category."

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