What Alabama Can Do to Make Things Easier for Ty Simpson in First SEC Start

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson is preparing for his first SEC start this weekend at No. 5 Georgia. His first career start was on the road at Florida State to start the season.

It wasn't a bad performance for Simpson against the Seminoles. He didn't have any turnovers and threw for two touchdowns, but it wasn't necessarily a good performance either. He completed just 53 percent of his passes and was sacked three times. As the defeicit got larger and Simpson started pressing, he made some bad decisions with the football.

While the quality of opponent dropped pretty significantly, Simpson has been nearly perfect in the Crimson Tide last two games with victories over Louisiana Monroe and Wisconsin, completing nearly 90 percent of his passes for 608 yards and seven touchdowns. Simpson said he feels " a little more comfortable" heading into his second road start.

" I think the first game, we didn’t really know what to expect, and it was just the first start," Simpson said after Tuesday's practice. "You know what I mean? Having a couple games under my belt definitely helps. Understanding like, hey, this is what I need to do to prepare better and understand everything like that. Just know what I do best and understand my game better. It will be exciting, and I’m super, super blessed.”

In a hostile environment like Georgia with the quality of talent on the Bulldogs' defense, Alabama will need to do whatever it can to make things easier on Simpson. Having senior running back Jam Miller back from a preseason injury will certainly be a boost to a running game that has struggled since the opener.

Alabama currently ranks 13th in the SEC and 103rd in the country with 123.7 rushing yards per game. Redshirt sophomore running back Richard Young is averaging 2.5 yards per carry, and sophomore Daniel Hill isn't fairing much better at 3.8 yards per carry. The blame doesn't fall only on the running backs, as the offensive line needs to improve in run blocking as well.

A Ryan Grubb and Kalen DeBoer offense tends to be more reliant on the passing game than the run game anyway, but Alabama still needs to find a better balance between the two so that everything doesn't fall on Simpson's shoulders.

"Always good to get the run game going," Grubb said. "Certainly, it alleviates a lot of pressure off of Ty and gets him closed coverage looks, get our receivers out on the outside one-on-one, so definitely important.”

Alabama center Parker Brailsford said the running game is "definitely" something that the offense has to get going. He said it's something they have been working on a lot at practice. It won't be an easy task this week as Georgia as a top-20 run defense nationally.

The Crimson Tide had a lot of success throwing the ball in last season's victory over the Bulldogs. Jalen Milroe threw for a career high of 374 yards, and Alabama had some dynamic plays from its skill players on the outside. That game was in the friendly confines of Bryant-Denny Stadium. It will be more challenging for the offense on the road this year.

Senior wide receiver Germie Bernard talked about what he and the other receivers can do to make things easier for Simpson and the offense as a whole as the receivers have struggled with drops at times this season.

"It’s gonna be loud, so we know that have to line up fast, and we have to look at the signals," Bernard said. "We can’t make things too difficult for Ty because Ty has a lot of things on his plate. You know, just line up fast, doing our job and winning— winning on the outside. They like to play man-to-man, so you’ve just got to win and catch the ball when the ball comes.”

Simpson relishes the challenge and opportunity ahead of him this week.

"It's an exciting week," he said. "This is why we came to Alabama. This is why I stayed here to play games like this against a really good team in a really good atmosphere."

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