Cast & Characters of ‘All American’ Season 8

All American Season 8 Cast Overview

• All American returns for its eighth and final season on The CW with a two-hour premiere on Monday, July 13, 2026, running 13 episodes through a series finale titled “To Live and Die in L.A.” on September 28.
• Michael Evans Behling, Greta Onieogou and Bre-Z take over for a cast that has moved on from its original lead, with Osy Ikhile, Nathaniel Logan McIntyre and Alexis Chikaeze carrying the show into its last chapter.

The CW’s popular Friday Night Lights-adjacent sports drama All American is back for its eighth and final season, and it does so without Daniel Ezra’s character, Spencer James, that it was built around. Fortunately, the remaining ensemble cast is more than capable of carrying the show to its finale.

Need to get up to speed on who’s who on All American before watching season 8? Here’s your complete guide to the cast and characters of All American.

Want to revisit the previous seven seasons, or need to get caught up before the finale? Watch All American on DIRECTV.

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‘All American’ Season 8: Full Cast & Characters

Here’s everything you need to know about the All American season 8 cast.

Michael Evans Behling as Jordan Baker

Known For: Empire

Jordan has spent the whole series as the coach’s son who had to earn everything twice, once on the field and again from under his own father’s shadow. By the final season he’s no longer the kid on the depth chart. He’s building something, partnering with his cousin Cassius on a football combine and trying to turn a lifetime around the game into a true career.

Outside pressures start to impact Jordan’s family dynamics, however, forcing him to make choices around personal loyalty and professional ambition. For a character who lost his father and has always defined himself through the Baker name, watching him weigh blood against opportunity is the most grown-up version of Jordan the show has offered.

Greta Onieogou as Layla Keating

Known For: Heartland, Ransom

Layla started the series as a wealthy Beverly Hills girlfriend and has ended up one of its most resilient survivors. She has repeatedly reinvented herself, becoming a businesswoman and music executive while the boys chased football. In the final season she’s still doing it — pursuing her own ambitions inside a friend group where everyone’s dreams are suddenly pulling in different directions.

What’s kept Layla interesting is that the show never let her be just the love interest. Her battles with her father’s collapse, her own depression and the pressure of running a label gave Onieogou material most CW romances never get near.

Bre-Z as Tamia “Coop” Cooper

Known For: Empire

Coop is the heartbeat of Crenshaw. She came up through the streets, survived what the show’s other characters mostly only witnessed and clawed her way into the music industry on sheer will. Loyal to a fault, quick to throw a punch or a bar, she’s the friend who shows up when it counts and the one whose past keeps trying to pull her down.

Osy Ikhile as Cassius Jeremy

Known For: In the Heart of the Sea, Black Mirror, Citadel

Cassius enters Beverly High as the new head coach and, in the final season, becomes one of its central figures. He’s intense and principled, aware that he’s carrying the weight of a program plus his son KJ on his own roster. His partnership with Jordan on the combine gives the season one of its warmest storylines, right up until family and business start pulling against each other.

Nathaniel Logan McIntyre as Kingston “KJ” Jeremy

Known For: David Makes Man, The Equalizer

KJ is the team quarterback and he has one goal: Get to the NFL. Coach Cassius’s son and a transfer to Beverly High, he’s talented, driven and, as the final season reveals, in deeper than he ever lets on. Over the six-month gap before Season 8 opens, he and Amina grew close, but their friendship came wrapped in secrets, including ones kept from his girlfriend Tori. When Amina tells him her problem is “really bad,” it lands on KJ first.

Alexis Chikaeze as Amina Simms

Known For: Miss Juneteenth, Rap Sh!t

If Season 8 has a ticking time bomb, it’s Amina. Preach’s daughter comes home from boarding school claiming it’s just for “Dead Week,” the study break before finals, but she’s hiding something serious and she’s terrified of how her father will react. The premiere ends with her telling KJ, “It’s bad. It’s really bad.” Showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll has confirmed the secret ripples outward until it touches nearly everyone, making Amina the biggest wild card of the final season.

Antonio J. Bell as Khalil Edwards

Known For: Harriet, Greenleaf, Manhunt

Khalil Edwards lives in the space between the life he wants and the street life that won’t let him go. After a gang confrontation left him rattled, he heads into the final season with a lot to prove and a lot to protect. Khalil is recalibrating after that reckoning, and his choices feed directly into the season’s core questions about loyalty and cost.

Kareem Grimes as Cordell “Preach” Simms

Known For: Boyz n the Hood, S.W.A.T., The Vince Staples Show

Preach has one of the most complete arcs on the show. He started as a Crenshaw gang figure and has moved through prison, security work, another prison stretch and, improbably and movingly, a job as an English literature tutor. He’s Amina’s father, which puts him squarely in the blast radius of the season’s central secret — and gives Grimes his most emotional material yet.

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Watch ‘All American’ on DIRECTV

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