‘All American’ Boss Says Final Season Sets up ‘Next Chapter — Another Spinoff?

All American returns this month, and the final season will take place over one life-altering week for everyone in the Vortex, including the new generation. Jordan (Michael Evans Behling) and Cassius (Osy Ikhile) were still processing the revelation that they are cousins as Beverly and South Crenshaw faced off in the championship game. The eighth season will force them to face the issues they’ve been avoiding as everyone prepares to step into the next chapter of their lives.

“This wasn’t a goodbye. It’s graduating to the next chapter of their life,” executive producer Nkechi Okoro Carroll tells TV Insider ahead of the new season. “They’re leaving the All American home. It’s a see you soon, and launching into this next chapter of their lives. Are they truly ready for it? Has everything they’ve been through prepared them for it? That’s the journey we ultimately take them on this season.”

Jordan and Cassius team up in the season premiere to help their respective teams when they realize their youngsters’ futures aren’t as set as they expected. That collaboration becomes a wealth of drama when bosses, wives, best friends, and hormonal teenagers are added to the mix. They have one week to step up, be an example for the kids looking up to them, and figure out the type of men they want to be going forward.

TV Insider spoke to Carroll about what to expect from the final season of All American, which kicks off on Monday, July 13, at 8/7c on The CW with a two-episode premiere. She teases how this single week will have major revelations for everyone in the vortex and who is keeping secrets that will affect everyone in the All American extended family.

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We still don’t know who won the championship game as we go into Season 8. What can you tease about those results and what it means for our current quarterbacks?

Nkechi Okoro Carroll: The fallout from that championship game has completely changed the mental space in which we find our teens at the start of the season, especially for KJ [Nathaniel Logan McIntyre] and Khalil [Antonio J Bell]. Because of that, they feel a little foreign to the people around them. They are not used to these versions of them. It starts feeling like a mental health thing, which becomes a bigger part of the story. What happens when it starts to feel like your dream is being taken just out of reach? Do you give up? Do you fight harder? Do you trust in the family and friends around you? Everyone is so busy trying to do the right thing that they actually start royally messing up. We’ll see that fallout. We’ll see that fallout in football. We’ll see that fallout in their love lives. We’ll see that fallout in their extended family dynamics as they build towards this big event this week. They will be really challenged to reevaluate their dreams, goals, true loves, and what’s truly important to them.

You’re setting them up for a “next chapter” and not really wanting to say goodbye. Does that mean you’re already thinking of spinoff potential?

Absolutely. I say it all the time. If a network or a streamer came up and said, “We want to spin off All American again,” my answer is always yes. This universe has proved to be so rewarding and fulfilling, and it resonated with so many people. There’s always potential to continue to a new chapter.

You’re digging into college recruitment in a big way this season. How is it different now than when you did it with the first generation of characters?

It’s the pressure that’s on them now. It’s truly like nothing anyone has ever experienced between the transfer portal and between NIL. They’re paid employees, essentially. It has changed the recruiting game. It has changed the amount of pressure. They’re being forced to grow up very quickly. It’s not, “Oh, I’m going to college, and I’m a student-athlete.” No, you’re going to a Division 1 college and you’re being paid to play. That’s a lot of pressure for 17- and 18-year-old kids before they’ve had a chance to mature or develop. We’ll see not just KJ and Khalil have to contend with that, but the coaches and the father figures in their lives who are trying to protect them as much as they can while helping them achieve their dreams.

Talk to me about Cassius and Jordan’s journey to bond this season after ending on pretty icy terms at the end of Season 7. 

We pick up almost six months after the end of Season 7. We fill in the blanks of what’s happened over those six months, but I think Jordan and Cassius would say, “We’re trying.” They may not always be succeeding, but they are trying, for the sake of themselves and for the sake of the broader family and everyone around them. The lifespan of Season 8 is one week of their lives. It is stress testing what they’ve been trying to build in a very real way at the start of the season. By the end of the season, we will truly answer the question of what makes you family.

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Coop (Bre-Z) was killing it in law school last season and starting a new relationship. What’s in store for her this season?

We see that she’s not the underdog this season, which is a first. The relationship is working out for her. The career seems to be working out for her. Her dream seemingly has come true, but for some reason, everyone around is like, “But something feels off. Something feels different.” Is she happy? Is this the life she truly wanted for herself, or is this something she felt she had to do to prove her worth? It is so frustrating for Coop because she feels like people just aren’t used to seeing her happy and winning. Therefore, it feels off to them. As this week of their lives plays out, Coop puts herself and her dreams first, believing that what she’s building with Breonna [Sasha Lance], both career-wise and personally, is what she wants and needs to be doing. She starts to realize that maybe she’s lost herself a bit in the pursuit of the dream that has her floundering at a time when the people she calls family and love her need her the most. She’s really going to struggle with feeling like she’s letting them down at the most critical point in their life. How can she turn that around and be the Coop that she always was? How does she live the dream that she’s always wanted and still honor that version of herself?

Layla (Greta Onieogou) went on tour during those six months. What is her headspace like when she returns to Beverly Hills?

Six months is a long time for anyone to be gone in any relationship. For relatively newlyweds who have only been married for a few years, that’s a solid time apart. When she comes back, it feels like everyone has moved on while she’s gone. She’s playing catch-up in what is supposed to be her own life. Further complicating matters is that she realizes she may have functioned a little too well away from Jordan during those six months. She’s reverted to some of the old patterns we saw in teen Layla, when she was used to fending for herself with no parents around. Some of those habits, some good and some bad, have returned in the six months she’s been away. We’re going to have to see her and Jordan really contend with that, as they’re in this week that is really challenging and stress-testing their marriage as much as it is the broader dynamic in the friend group. We had so much fun this season really playing with the dynamics of them as a young married couple, and what those adult married arguments look like when you’re also in a week where both of them are being faced with existential crises.

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And we need to talk about the high schoolers. They are a mess as usual! Amina (Alexis Chikaeze) specifically is having an interesting time at boarding school. What can you tease about that storyline and its impact on this season?

Amina is not doing well when he returns to the show. She actually returns with a really big secret that will unfold over the course of several episodes. It is something we realize she’s confided in KJ, and even that closeness the secret bred between them causes problems in KJ’s ongoing relationship with Tori [Lauryn Hardy]. The Amina storyline is a very important storyline. It’s a very impactful one. It really shapes who she realizes she wants to grow up to be and what she wants to do with her future. The fallout isn’t just on her. It’s her. It’s Preach [Kareem Grimes]. It’s Coop. It’s on the extended family at South Crenshaw High. It even ends up impacting their extended family at Beverly, but I am really excited for people to see how that storyline unfolds. What I will tease is that Episode 6 becomes a very important episode for Amina and is one of the episodes that shifts the season on its axis.

All American, Season 8 Premiere, Monday, July 13, 8/7c, The CW