Every Season of ‘All American’ Ranked Worst to Best

After nearly eight years and more than 130 episodes across eight seasons, All American is heading for the finish line. The eighth and final season premieres Monday, July 13, 2026, with a two-hour event on The CW. It is the last original scripted series still standing from the network’s Warner Bros./CBS era. An hour-long retrospective special, titled All American: The Final Season Special, aired on June 22.

All American	Details
Created by	April Blair
Cast	Daniel Ezra, Bre-Z, Greta Onieogou, Samantha Logan, Michael Evans Behling, Cody Christian, Karimah Westbrook, Monet Mazur, Taye Diggs, Jalyn Hall, Chelsea Tavares
RT Score (As of July 7, 2026)	67% (popcornmeter)
IMDb Score (As of July 7, 2026)	7.6/10
Premiere Date (Season 8)	July 13, 2026
Network	The CW

The 13-episode farewell picks up six months after Season 7’s football cliffhanger. The season unfolds over a single week and follows Jordan, Layla, Coop, Cassius, KJ, Khalil, Amina, and Preach as their individual dreams strain friendships and family ties. The finale is set for September 28, 2026. With the ending locked in, it’s the perfect moment to look back and rank all seven completed seasons, from worst to best.

Note: All ratings are as of July 7, 2026.

7 All American Season 6 Is a Dragged-Out Farewell for Spencer

Airing Date: April 1-July 15, 2024

No. of Episodes: 15

Top-rated Episode: Black Out (S6E4) – 8.2/10

All American progressively dipped in quality with each passing season, but the series hit a low point during its sixth season. With only 15 episodes, the show seemed to stretch out Spencer’s goodbye after he got drafted into the NFL for the New York Bobcats. The season opened on a 15-month time jump and dragged out Spencer’s life milestones through the entire season.

While we are happy that he achieved his dream of becoming an NFL wide receiver and that he eventually got married to Olivia, it took away most of the drama that made the show engaging. Nonetheless, Daniel Ezra gets a proper heartfelt send-off, even though he returns as a guest star in Season 7.

6 Season 4 Disappoints With Its Multiple Subplots & Bad Writing

Airing Date: October 25, 2021-May 23, 2022

No. of Episodes: 20

Top-rated Episode: Champagne Glasses (S4E20) – 8.5/10

Season 4 is the show’s longest at twenty episodes, and that length is its problem. It follows the main characters through the back half of their senior year in school and into the first semester of college. This meant that the show was juggling numerous subplots in this season, which eventually resulted in the momentum sagging.

Some longtime viewers single out Seasons 3 and 4 as the show’s creative dip, when Spencer’s savior complex and an ever-expanding cast diluted the focus. Still, it edges out Season 6 because it kept the drama going, even with the mishandling of the tricky high-school-to-college transition.

5 Season 7’s Soft Reboot Left Fans Divided

Airing Date: January 29-May 5, 2025

No. of Episodes: 13

Top-rated Episode: No Role Modelz (S7E11) – 8.8/10

In the seventh season, All American made a bold creative choice. After wrapping up the less-than-successful spinoff, All American: Homecoming, the makers went for a soft reboot of the main show this season. The show rebuilt its premise around a new generation of Beverly and Crenshaw teens like Cassius, KJ, Khalil, and Amina, while Jordan, Layla, and others remained as connective tissue.

It didn’t make long-time fans happy, despite the previous season proving that the original cast had nothing more to provide. However, the show did find new viewers, with viewership climbing sharply among younger demographics across the run. However, it is in the mid-range because the ambition is cancelled out by the unevenness of the plot.

4 All American Begins to Fall off Its Rails in Season 3

Airing Date: January 18-July 19, 2021

No. of Episodes: 19

Top-rated Episode: Surviving the Times (S3E19) – 8.8/10

Season 3 is where opinion splits hardest. It is where the show begins to fall off the rails. But we decided to give it some leniency, considering that it was shot under COVID-19 restrictions that repeatedly paused production. The season centers on a medical mystery around Spencer’s injured arm as he returns to South Crenshaw for a championship run with Billy now coaching.

On the plus side, the season ignited the long-simmering Spencer-Olivia romance. However, this is where the show leaned hard into issue-driven storytelling and an increasingly overloaded plot. While there is genuine emotion, including the Coop-Mo cliffhanger, the show’s writing stumbles from this season.

3 Season 5 Has the Show’s Strongest Emotional Material

Airing Date: October 10, 2022-May 15, 2023

No. of Episodes: 20

Top-rated Episode: Now That We’ve Found Love (S5E20) – 8.8/10

Season 5 delivers the single most devastating moment in the series’ history, earning a top place in this ranked list. Billy Baker, the man who played a pivotal role in Spencer’s football career, dies a hero when he heads back onto a crashing bus to save a trapped player.

The death of Taye Diggs’ character handed the series some of its strongest emotional material. While it isn’t the best season, logic and execution wise, few episodes hit as hard as Billy’s exit, and that emotional gut-punch pushes this season firmly into the top three.

2 Season 2 Is Where the Drama Reached Its Peak

Airing Date: October 7, 2019-March 9, 2020

No. of Episodes: 16

Top-rated Episode: Coming Home (S2E7) – 9/10

All American Season 2 is the show at its soapy best. The Baker marriage starts to fracture as a result of Billy and Grace’s affair. Layla is given a genuinely affecting mental health storyline. And Coop is pushed deeper into Crenshaw’s gang world as she builds a music career. The second half of the season deals with Spencer’s shooting, with the mystery of who shot Spencer hanging as an overlying thread.

Spencer even chooses to leave Beverly Hills for South Crenshaw, which gives the series an emotionally grounded arc. Overall, the drama reached a high point, and the show topped the Netflix charts and reached even more audience members (via Deadline).

1 All American Season 1 Is the Gold Standard

Airing Date: October 10, 2018-March 20, 2019

No. of Episodes: 16

Top-rated Episode: Championships (S1E16) – 8.6/10

While it isn’t one of the best TV seasons, All American Season 1 remains the gold standard for sports drama on television. Inspired by NFL player Spencer Paysinger, the first season introduces the premise of a gifted Crenshaw teen recruited into Beverly Hills, where he is forced to navigate the differences between his two worlds.

Before the soap plots multiplied, the storytelling was lean and grounded, using football to explore race, class and belonging with real feeling. The season even drew comparisons to Friday Night Lights, with the Spencer-Coop friendship becoming one of the standout elements of the season. It deserves the top spot for such a perfect start to a long-running drama.

Ranking	All American Seasons
1	All American Season 1
2	All American Season 2
3	All American Season 5
4	All American Season 3
5	All American Season 7
6	All American Season 4
7	All American Season 6

What do you think of this ranking of All American Seasons 1-7? Let us know in the comments below!

All American Season 8 airs on July 13, 2026, on The CW. Previous episodes of the show are currently available on Netflix.