Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer inherited Jalen Milroe for his first season with the Crimson Tide. With the two-year starter off to the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks, he and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb—a new addition to the Alabama staff who previously worked for DeBoer at Washington—have a decision to make between three quarterbacks with very different profiles.
Despite a lack of starting experience, Ty Simpson is the veteran in the quarterback room, entering his fourth year in Tuscaloosa. Austin Mack, a third-year sophomore, began his career at Washington before following DeBoer to Alabama. And freshman Keelon Russell was one of the nation’s top recruits in the 2025 class, and is competing for the job as a true freshman.
There is plenty of time for the Tide to settle on QB1, but Grubb admits that if the season opener against Florida State was this week, Simpson would be the leader in the clubhouse.
“He is. He is right now. And we don’t really deal in absolutes until we have to, but I was trying to answer that as honestly as I could,” Grubb told Ryan Fowler on Tide 100.9 Thursday. “We had our post-spring evaluations done with the guys, and Ty took care of the football better. He operated better. I thought he improved for an older quarterback. I know [he’s] young to playing and starting experience. But as an older guy, I thought, especially toward the latter part of spring, he started to show more of those characteristics. But we’re still going to let them compete.
“Guys gotta keeping competing through the summer and fall camp and we’ll let the cards lay where they may, and typically these things have a way of sorting themselves out just by production and performance. And we’ll track every part of that with the guys and be very up front in our communication with the guys.”
The race is far from over, however, and Grubb had substantial praise for Russell, who he says pairs “elite vision” and skills with an impressive calm demeanor for a young player.
“Keelon has elite vision. I’ll start there. … Certainly, as he gets more comfortable in our offense, you can really see the plays when it’s like, ‘O.K., he really understands this concept. This is a grooved play for him, and he’s making decisions really, really quickly,’” Grubb said. “He’s making decisions quickly and he’s getting the ball to the right people. So I think as a young player, when you see that, you’re like, wow, this guy’s really got a chance.
“Then, you pair together an elite skillset physically that he has—his God-given ability—that’s where magic happens for guys. You put that with just his disposition as a guy, very calm player, especially for a guy trying to pick up … a system that’s going to take a little bit for most guys to get down. And he is absolutely hunkered in and is not intimidated by the process at all. It’s been really impressive to see.”
The third player in the race, Mack, is the best “pure thrower of the football” of the group, Grubb says, and a player who picks up concepts as well as anyone.
Fowler asked Grubb to lay out what makes an ideal quarterback for his and DeBoer’s system, which the OC says comes down to three main attributes.
“I think the first thing is elite decision-maker. You obviously have got to have all the physical attributes, the ball can spread to the right places on the field, but decision-making, command and leadership are non-negotiables,” said Grubb. “Those are the things every great quarterback is going to have.”
With a tight quarterback battle, it makes sense that Alabama is currently defaulting to the most veteran player in the room, but there are still many, many practice reps to be had before kickoff against the Seminoles in August.
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