$6.5 million QB spurs major college football tampering debate

Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson officially filed paperwork to enter the 2026 NFL Draft following the 2025 college football season.

Simpson said that he turned down multiple large NIL offers, including a reported $6.5 million pitch from Miami and offers in the roughly $4 million to $5 million range from Tennessee and Ole Miss, despite never formally entering the NCAA transfer portal.

Multiple outlets reported that both Simpson and his agent were contacted with these NIL proposals off-portal.

“Miami was kind of like, ‘All right, we’re moving on,’ and then they lost out on Sam Leavitt and came back with that big number,” Simpson told On3. “And then Ole Miss called again and said they could match it.”

As a result, college football fans have raised questions about whether these communications could be viewed as tampering, given that the reported offers were made while Simpson remained at Alabama and was not in the transfer portal.

So let me get this straight…

Ty Simpson never entered the transfer portal, but Tennessee, Ole Miss and Miami offered him NIL deals.

Is that not that tampering?? 🤷‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/fCl2mcmeaQ
— College Transfer Portal (@CollegeFBPortal) January 14, 2026

Fans online were quick to make their thoughts known.

"It is tampering…. But they don’t care," said one user.

"That is 100% tampering," another fan replied.

"Make it make sense. No structure to this process," one other user commented.

"Not in the SEC 🤣," said another fan.

"What a mess college football has made," another user responded.

"So it’s only tampering when other teams do it to bama, but not when bama does it to other teams. Right," replied one other fan.

Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson. — Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson (15) runs against the Indiana Hoosiers | Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Simpson was Alabama’s full-time starter in 2025 and finished the season with 3,567 passing yards, 28 touchdowns, and five interceptions, completing 64.5% of his passes with a 145.2 passer rating.

Alabama went 11–4 and qualified for the College Football Playoff as a No. 9 seed, but after defeating Oklahoma in the first round, the Crimson Tide were routed 38–3 by No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal.

A five-star high school recruit from Westview (Martin, Tenn.), Simpson arrived at Alabama in the 2022 class as one of the nation’s top quarterback prospects, rated as the No. 3 QB and No. 26 overall player in the 247Sports Composite.

However, he redshirted and served as a backup from 2022–24 before earning the starting job in 2025.

After one season as the starter, Simpson now departs for the NFL, with multiple outlets grading him as a likely first-round prospect and potentially the second quarterback selected behind Indiana Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza.

Whether reported NIL contact from Miami and other programs constitutes tampering depends on who made the offers and how they were coordinated.

Direct, school-sanctioned inducements aimed at a currently rostered player would resemble tampering, while independent NIL proposals from third-party collectives can fall within current rules.

Ultimately, absent proof of institutional involvement, the situation remains a gray-area governance issue rather than a clear violation.

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