Ryan Grubb, Nick Sheridan Assess Ty Simpson's Growth Through Eight Games

After missing the College Football Playoff in its inaugural 12-team format last season, Alabama didn't make many changes to its coaching staff. However, there was a big move on the offensive side of the ball.

Nick Sheridan was named Alabama's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach before the 2024 season after Ryan Grubb left the Crimson Tide just a couple of weeks into that February for the Seattle Seahawks' OC position. But Grubb was relieved from Seattle after last season ended, and DeBoer brought him back while making Sheridan the quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator.

Grubb and Sheridan have worked in unison throughout this season, and their chemistry has rubbed off on Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson. The redshirt junior lost his first career start to Florida State, but since then, the Crimson Tide hasn't fallen to an opponent and Simpson has grown to become one of the favorites to win the Heisman Trophy and also the prospect of being a top pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Grubb and Sheridan recently spoke with longtime NFL head coach Jon Gruden about Simpson's growth through eight games. Gruden said that Simpson "might be the most highly coveted guy in the country right now," and the two Alabama coaches gave their takes on the Crimson Tide quarterback.

Ryan Grubb

"Ty, you talk about a guy that's persevered through some things just in his career, which any young and growing quarterback that's going to be elite is going to have to do," Grubb said. "They have to fight through competition, becoming the guy, and then when you become the guy and you lose your first start of what's supposed to be your year and you're on the road, we challenged him with some stuff.

"To Ty's credit, he responded. We just said, 'We want to see that you're the leader of this football team and the quarterback, and we're going to take a few reps from you a little bit here and there.' And, man, he just dug in. He just dug deeper.

"And I think Ty has a profound love for ball. He's in the facility all the time. He's a grinder. He loves it for all the right reasons, too. Pure competition. He's an excellent locker room guy. He's super bright, you know, he's just a really fun guy to coach."

Nick Sheridan

"I think the thing that's been, to Grubb's point, he loves to be coached. He wants to get coached. I think all great players get upset when they don't get coached, and he's that way. And so that's where I think you've seen the growth, the improvement.

"He shows up every day wanting to get better, looking for ways that he can improve. He's continued to get better and better and there are things that happened the other night that he knows he wants to be better at from the game this past Saturday.

"So there's a long way for us to go and a lot of room for us to improve on. But you know, he loves that challenge and he loves the work that goes into that."

The match between Grubb and Sheridan has been very apparent, and DeBoer felt that way before the season even kicked off. He said on Aug. 27 that "Our quarterback room is getting coached better than any other quarterback room in the country," and called Grubb and Sheridan an "all-star crew" on July 16.

"Ryan Grubb is the coordinator, he's going to call plays and oversee all of it in his mind and see the direction it goes," DeBoer said. "But I could tell you there's a number of guys, and Grubb does a great job of going to different guys to ask questions. If it's O-line related, he feels good about his knowledge of the O-Line, but he's going to talk to coach [Chris Kapilovic].

"But when it comes to quarterback play and even the offense in general, Nick's right there with great answers, great hypotheticals, the what-ifs, all of those devil's advocate type things that you need to have and someone is doing it in a non-threatening way."

Ryan Grubb

Nick Sheridan

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