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Ty Simpson is not your typical former five-star recruit, neither in how long it took him to become a starter at Alabama, nor in the fact that his time on the bench to prevent him from becoming a first-round pick. Despite spending his first three years as a backup, including two behind a starter whose accuracy was a significant hindrance to the team, Simpson has been tabbed as the heir apparent to Matthew Stafford.
The Los Angeles Rams believe in Simpson’s talent. And so do some of the people who followed his unusual journey over four years at Alabama.
Brent Taylor is a writer at the SB Nation’s Alabama blog Roll Bama Roll and he’s been through the entire Simpson experience over the last four seasons, from being one of the more unheralded five-star QB recruits of his time, to finally getting his shot to start three years later, until his body was nearly coming apart at the seams by the end.
I asked Brent about what it was like, from the fan’s experience, to track Simpson from recruit, to competing for the most important job on the team, to his one season as the starter.
“There was a large contingent of Alabama fans who really wanted to see Simpson in early 2023 when Jalen Milroe first won that job (me included). It went kind of weirdly… ”
As well as if he’s surprised that Simpson went 13th overall and what the quarterback’s greatest strength and greatest weakness will be going into the most important job on the Rams.
“It’s something that you just don’t see from college QBs often these days…”
Here’s what he had to tell me about Simpson, then and now.
Q: What was the feeling among fans when Ty Simpson committed as a recruit in 2022? Where does he rank among Saban’s QB recruits all-time?
Brent Taylor: Simpson was relatively under-the-radar for a 5-star QB recruit. Cade Klubnik and Drew Allar were the big two that year, and Simpson, despite a #29 overall ranking, was a guy that was coming from a small school in Tennessee, and it just didn’t really draw the hype you usually get from a 5-star passer. Still, there were a lot of high expectations for him, despite most of us knowing he was a guy that would likely take a couple of years to adjust to college speed (he made a LOT of hay in high school just running read options, scrambling around, and being a better athlete than everyone on the field).
As far as where he fit in the All-Time Saban recruit rankings, there was Blake Barnett in 2015 (major bust), Tua Tagovailoa in 2017, and #1 overall recruit Bryce Young in 2020 that all out-ranked him in terms of recruiting rankings and fan expectations. You could also throw in current Ohio State QB Julian Sayin on that list on a technicality, since he did sign with Nick Saban…. he just also transferred a month later when Saban retired. All that to say, Simpson wasn’t some chump that managed to have a solid senior season, he was always someone who we thought could/should be elite.
Q: The elephant in the room for me is spending three years on the bench, including two behind Jalen Milroe, who was a solid college quarterback but not someone that most of us remember being Tim Tebow or Cam Newton in college. What was the feeling there when Simpson spent 2 years behind Milroe and why didn’t he transfer?
BT: The short answer is that it was a weird situation, and it was compounded by Ty Simpson reportedly (and through his own admission later) struggling with confidence and emotions, and that led to him just not being ready.
The very long answer:
There was a large contingent of Alabama fans who really wanted to see Simpson in early 2023 when Jalen Milroe first won that job (me included). It went kind of weirdly… Nick Saban always loved to start the most veteran QB at the beginning of the season opener when there was a QB battle, then rotate through the game until he picked a starter in a week or two. Well, game 1 that year, Milroe scored on nearly every possession against some scrub school, then the Tide just played kill-the-clock when Simpson came in. The next week, the Tide played Texas and got behind early, and Saban just said later that he felt like Alabama was close and didn’t want to kill continuity.
Week 3 was the tipping point, when Alabama played South Florida in a torrential downpour. Saban decided before the game that Milroe wasn’t cutting it and that Simpson and transfer veteran QB Tyler Buchner would both get a shot. Well, Buchner was an abject disaster and the Tide was LOSING to USF when Simpson got the shot to take over and win. He did just that, completing a few downfield passes and ultimately leading a couple of scoring drives. He also got sacked like 7 times.
At the time, I personally thought that Simpson showed enough in those horrific playing conditions that I thought he should be given a second look at getting playing time over Milroe. However, Saban didn’t see things that way, and we had Milroe the rest of the way. Ultimately, I think it was more about Milroe’s X-factor as a runner (the Alabama offense was struggling to pass and to run….. But they just kept scoring because Milroe could house it from 50 yards out on any given play).
2024 rolls around, and Alabama now has Kalen Deboer.
Milroe was pretty much the key voice in the offseason supporting the new coach and giving it his all to keep the roster together and team morale up. With that level of leadership in circumstances where the entire roster could have just…left… It only made sense to stick with Milroe. Still, as 2024 wore on and the Alabama offense got worse and worse, we were pretty much all calling for Ty Simpson to get a shot. Again, I think the combination of loyalty and Milroe’s ability to run when nothing else was working is what kept that change from ever happening. I also don’t think that Milroe would have kept that starting job if he had tried to come back in 2025 rather than going to the NFL.
For what it’s worth, Simpson has spoken candidly about his frustration with those years and that it would have made all the sense in the world to transfer. Ultimately, he’s just kept saying that he loved Alabama and wanted nothing more than to leave a legacy there, rather than being viewed as a guy who left when things were hard. And I think that personality is something that the Rams valued highly.
Q: What’s Simpson’s super power, the trait that will make him successful in the NFL? And what’s his Achilles heel, the one thing that could stop him from ever becoming a starter?
BT: His best trait is how good he is coverage processing, accuracy in the intermediate areas, and a willingness to trust those two things and just let the ball rip. It’s something that you just don’t see from college QBs often these days now that college offenses are all so focused on pre-snap decisions and one-read passes.
The trait that might doom him? Pocket awareness and subsequent injury concerns. When we first saw him on the field a few years ago, he was nearly oblivious to his offensive linemen getting beat or edge blitzes. He improved in his year as a starter, but his internal clock still runs way too long and he’s way too trusting of his OL (and don’t get it twisted, Alabama’s OL was atrocious last year). He takes way too many sacks from behind as he hangs in the pocket absolutely forever. On one hand, it was nice to have a QB who wasn’t a happy feet scrambler after 4 years of Bryce Young and Jalen Milroe. On the other, I did a lot of screaming at Ty to just DO SOMETHING. Throw in NFL defenders that he can’t just outrun like he did pretty often in college, and he could wind up spending a whole season on his back if his team doesn’t have a good OL. Fortunately, the Rams do.
Q: I know that DeBoer hasn’t named a starter yet, but generally speaking do you think the Crimson Tide is getting an upgrade compared to last season with Simpson? This is something that matters to me when the QB being compared to his a mid-first round pick.
BT: This one’s tough. At the end of last season, the offense has ground to a halt for Alabama. Part of it was the fact that the Tide had one of the NCAA’s worst rushing offenses. Part was that Simpson had a combination of a messed up shoulder, gastritis, and ultimately some broken ribs. It was clear he wasn’t the same player he was earlier in the year, but no one would admit just how broken he was at the end (again, back to taking WAY too many sacks getting blindsided). I think any QB Alabama puts in will be better than the broken corpse of Simpson that we saw at the end of last season.
But if we’re talking about early-to-mid season Simpson, then Alabama will most likely downgrade.
Veteran Austin Mack is a solid enough guy who filled in admirably last year when Simpson broke his ribs, but I think it’ll be a steep drop off if he wins the job. The caveat is that Alabama also has 2nd-year man Keelon Russell waiting in the wings, and Russell is the Tide’s highest-ever recruit – edging out Bryce Young, Andre Smith, and Julio Jones. So Russell is the kind of guy who we’ll be even more excited about than Simpson. But he’s also got potential to be in the Young/Tagovailoa stratosphere, or maybe even beyond it, so I wouldn’t put that as a knock on Simpson, and even with that crazy potential, Russell still won’t be able to match the NFL-level offensive playbook command that we got from Simpson.
Q: Okay, let’s get down to brass tax. Were you surprised that the Rams drafted Simpson as early as they did and will it prove to be a good pick?
BT: I wasn’t particularly shocked. There had been enough leaks that I had already been thinking that the Rams would be the team. The fit just made sense – he’s got a lot of Jared Goff tendencies, for better or worse, and getting to be a succession plan on a team that runs a lot of middle-of-field passing concepts just felt right. I think in a more normal draft that wasn’t devoid of QBs he was the kind of guy that would have gone at the end of the 1st or early second with someone trading up, but I think he was always in the bucket of a guy that only good teams were going to draft (and the Rams just happened to be a good team picking high). He’s not a creative playmaker under pressure that bad teams will look at to be a franchise-saver. Instead, he’s a more methodical passer who has really high production upside IF he’s on a team with solid blocking.
I think he’s a bit of a risky pick for the Rams and I won’t be shocked if he fails out of the league…. BUT I also understand the thinking, think it’s a good fit, and I think that Simpson’s upside in the right system is much higher than the general populace gives him credit for.
