The United Football League, the product of a recent merger of the XFL and USFL, held the first part of its player dispersal draft on Friday, Jan. 5, with the results publicized on Monday. Five former Alabama football players were either protected or selected in the draft.

The new eight-team league consists of four teams from each of the former leagues, meaning four more teams from each league were dissolved following the merger. The dispersal draft process allowed the surviving teams to protect up to 42 players from last year's roster and draft up to 20 more from the pool of players whose teams no longer existed. Teams were limited to only selecting players from the league they were in last year, so a current XFL team could not have selected a player from a defunct USFL team, and vice versa.

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The most notable Crimson Tide alumnus in the UFL, and perhaps one of the most recognizable names across the league, is linebacker Reuben Foster. A member of the 2015 Alabama team that won a national championship, Foster was named first-team All-SEC, a unanimous All-American, and won the Butkus Award in 2016. He was a first-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers and spent some time with the Washington Commanders before joining the USFL's Pittsburgh Maulers last year. Foster was drafted by the Houston Roughnecks.

Joining Foster in the USFL conference is another former Tide linebacker. Dylan Moses was on both the 2017 and 2020 national championship teams and was named an All-American and All-SEC twice each in his career (second-team All-American and All-SEC in 2018, third-team All-American and first-team All-SEC in 2020). A significant knee injury in 2019 cost him his junior season for Alabama, and he went undrafted in 2021 largely due to medical concerns with that knee. Moses joined the Memphis Showboats last season and was protected by the team in the dispersal draft.

Meanwhile, in the XFL conference, two former Crimson Tide players, defensive back Jared Mayden and guard Chris Owens, will reunite in Arlington as Renegades. Mayden was one of the players protected by the defending XFL champions, while Owens was drafted from the Seattle Sea Dragons. Joining them in the XFL conference will be guard Dallas Warmack, who was protected by the St. Louis Battlehawks and played for Alabama as a backup lineman before transferring to Oregon in 2018.

Auburn also saw three former players protected or selected. Defensive tackle Davonte Lambert was protected by Arlington, linebacker T.J. Neal was protected by Memphis, and offensive tackle Calvin Ashley was drafted by the Birmingham Stallions after playing for the New Jersey Generals in last year's USFL.

Players who were not protected or selected on Friday will be available for selection by any team during a second dispersal draft on Monday, Jan. 15, so there is a possibility that more Alabama and Auburn players join new teams soon.

UFL training camp is set to begin on Feb. 24, with each team rostering 75 players into camp and paring that down to 50 before the league's inaugural season begins on March 30.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Former Alabama football players selected in UFL dispersal draft