Favorite emerges in Alabama quarterback race for 2025 football season

Ty Simpson is still the leader for Alabama looking ahead to fall football camp.

Alabama is yet to officially name a quarterback for the 2025 season, but the former 5-star prospect looks like the favorite. | Gary Cosby-Imagn Images

Alabama football offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said Ty Simpson would be the team’s starting quarterback if they played a game at the end of spring practice, and he reiterated Simpson’s hold on the competition heading into the summer.

“He is. He is right now,” Grubb said to Tide 100.9 FM’s “The Game”.

“We don’t really deal in absolutes until we have to, but I was trying to answer that as honestly as I could. I knew that people were looking for direction and, shoot, so are the guys in the room.” 

He added: “Those were not surprising things. Those are things that we had already talked about with the guys. We had our post-spring evaluations done with the guys.”

Simpson was a near-consensus five-star prospect in 2022, considered the No. 2 quarterback and No. 25 overall player, according to an average of the four national recruiting services.

The quarterback was also named the No. 2 player from the state of Tennessee.

But Simpson isn’t the only option Alabama has to look at.

Austin Mack, a transfer from DeBoer’s program at Washington, and incoming five-star freshman Keelon Russell are also pushing for QB1 consideration.

Russell was the No. 2 overall prospect, second-ranked quarterback, and top player from the state of Texas, per an average of the national recruiting rankings.

For the moment, it seems Simpson has the seniority to occupy the top of Alabama’s leader board, but whoever takes the reins will be under enormous pressure.

Alabama went 9-4 in Kalen DeBoer’s debut as head coach replacing seven-time national champion Nick Saban, but a record like that won’t be tolerated for long.

DeBoer and Grubb return credible skill players on offense and boast one of the nation’s premier offensive line rotations, but quarterback remains a major point of concern given the lack of experience the Tide’s options have under their belt.

“Ty took care of the football better. He operated better,” Grubb said. 

“I thought he improved for an older quarterback, and I know young to playing or starting experience, but I thought for an older guy, especially towards the latter part of the spring, he really started to show more of those characteristics.” 

He added: “But we’re still going to let them compete. We still are right now. We will again in fall camp.”

(Tide 100.9)

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