Whit Weeks, Ryan Williams injury update: LSU, Alabama stars' status revealed on Friday availability report

Alabama and LSU renew their rivalry Saturday night in Tuscaloosa in the Tigers’ first game since parting ways with now-former head coach Brian Kelly, who was fired one day after LSU’s 49-25 home loss to No. 3 Texas A&M two weeks ago. Both teams are coming off byes as their seasons have taken wildly different directions this season.

The fourth-ranked Crimson Tide (7-1, 5-0 SEC) is in the midst of a seven-game win streak while the Tigers (5-3, 2-3 SEC) have lost three of their last four with all three losses coming against Top 20-ranked SEC opponets. The back-to-back loses to Vanderbilt and Texas A&M effectively eliminated LSU from College Football Playoff contention for the fifth consecutive season.

Alabama holds a 57-27-5 all-time advantage vs. LSU, and has dominated the series of late, winning the last two straight and 12 of the last 14 against the Tigers dating back to the Crimson Tide’s infamous 21-0 shutout in the 2012 BCS National Championship game. Saturday’s kickoff between No. 4 Alabama and LSU is set for 7:30 pm ET with the game televised on ABC.

Alabama Crimson Tide

• DL Jeremiah Beaman – OUT
• LB Cayden Jones – OUT
• DB Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. – OUT
• LB Jah-Marien Latham – OUT
• LB Qua Russaw – OUT
• TE Danny Lewis Jr. – QUESTIONABLE
• WR Ryan Williams – PROBABLE

LSU Tigers

• OL Tyree Adams – OUT
• DE Gabriel Reliford – OUT
• LB Zach Weeks – OUT
• LB Whit Weeks – OUT

Ryan Williams appears on track to play Saturday against LSU after the Alabama’s star sophomore wideout was listed as “probable” through the week’s first two availability reports.

Meanwhile, Alabama has already ruled out linebackers Jah-Marien Latham (neck), Qua Russaw (foot) and Cayden Jones (ankle) and defensive lineman Jeremiah Beaman (knee), with Beaman and Latham both out for the remainder of the season.

On the other sideline, Whit Weeks‘ prognosis is in far more doubt after the LSU junior linebacker was downgraded from “questionable” to “doubtful” in Thursday’s availability report, further suggesting he’s in line to miss his third straight game while still recovering from a bone bruise in his right ankle.

LSU interim head coach Frank Wilson revealed the plan was to try and ramp up Weeks’ activity level at practice this week based on his pain tolerance.

“Yeah, we’ll get him out there – I’m sorry, we’ll get him out there tomorrow to see what he can do and kind of measure it,” Wilson said Monday. “And, we’ll kind of build it as the week goes on based on his pain tolerance.”

Tigers freshman linebacker Zach Weeks, Whit Weeks’ younger brother, was downgraded from “doubtful” to “out” in Thursday’s availability report, while fellow freshman offensive lineman Carius Curne was completely removed from the report after being listed as “probable” on Wednesday.