Alabama
2026 NFL Draft Scouting Report: Ty Simpson, Quarterback, Alabama
The scouting reports keep on rolling, as in this one, we take a look at Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson. This was a rollercoaster season for the Alabama quarterback, as mid-season, he was being mocked at the number one overall pick.
A rough end to the Crimson Tide season seems to have cooled those opinions, but is he still among the top quarterbacks in the 2026 NFL Draft? Let’s talk about it.
Simpson, a former five-star prospect out of Westview High School in Martin, Tennessee, won a state championship in his senior year with offers from Clemson, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and others before landing at Alabama back in 2022. He would sit for three years before getting his shot this season, where he would throw for 3,567 yards, a 28/5 TD/INT ratio, and a 64.5% completion percentage.
The Alabama offense this season utilized motion quite a bit, which allowed Ty Simpson to break down defenses pre-snap. Quick at the line to make adjustments for blocking and routes. He has a quick throwing motion and release, which allows him to fire balls off quickly in the face of defenders. Short yardage throws are a plus, as he cand eliver an accurate ball in between the hashes. Fine enough pocket awareness, doesn’t take needless sacks.
Now we get to where some feathers might get ruffled…
I don’t understand the Ty Simpson hype. He doesn’t have any physical tools that will translate to the next level. He can scramble, but will likely run in the 4.7 range. Arm strength is above average at best, and it shows on tape, as his deep-ball accuracy is significantly lacking. Not sure his frame can withstand a beating in the NFL, since he struggled with this in college, fumbling in 5 (!) straight games. Media members were quick to judge Oregon’s Dante Moore for his sample size, but failed to mention that Simpson has 15 career starts.
Simpson was horrible to close out the year. In his last six games, his completion percentage plummeted to 57%, and he averaged just 158 yards per game. He was horrendous in the SEC Championship game against Georgia, completing just 48.7% of his passes and throwing for 212 yards on 39 attempts. In the College Football Semi-Final against Indiaia was arguably worse, throwing for just 67 yards on 16 attempts.
The grade on Ty Simpson is going to be significantly worse than the national media, and that’s ok. Sometimes you have to go against the grain and have your own opinion instead of parroting what others say.
Simpson comes in with a fifth-round grade and is not someone I would draft to be my starting quarterback in the NFL. However, some NFL GMs will talk themselves into burning a first-round pick on him and regret it three years later.
No. 23 Alabama’s roller coaster season continued on Sunday with a lackluster performance in a 100-77 blowout loss to No. 19 Florida. The Gators worked themselves into a double-digit halftime lead and cruised to victory, creating Crimson Tide questions entering the final two months of the year.
Alabama Dominated by Florida for Fifth Straight Time
“They turned us over 18 times,” Nate Oats said after the loss. “Boogie [Fland] ends up with eight steals, you’ve got to credit their guards. They played well. Everybody’s afraid of Florida’s front court, rightfully so, I mean, they’re tough, they’re good, they’re skilled. [Rueben] Chinyelu is one of my favorite players in the league, and he ends up with 14 and 17, which is ridiculous, 17 rebounds, but the guards really controlled this game here. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t have better guard play with the amount of turnovers. They didn’t turn the ball over on their side at all. We forced two turnovers the whole game, and only one of them was on their back court.
“You look at our backcourt, it was 14 turnovers. We had a lot of turnovers in our backcourt. It’s hard to win a game when you’re minus 16 in the turnovers and minus six in the O-boards. You talk about trying to win a possession game, they destroyed us in the possession game. They scored 100 points and only made three 3’s, but you don’t have to take many threes when you’re getting dunks and layups off turnovers. 25-0 on points off turnovers, not sure I’ve ever been associated with a game like that. It’s disappointing, and it’s also a credit to Florida’s game plan. They went to the switching. We didn’t handle it well, their physicality on the switches caused our guards some major problems. We did a terrible job adjusting to it.”
Florida forced Alabama into 18 turnovers in Gainesville to serve the Crimson Tide their fourth conference loss of the season. The 18 were a Crimson Tide season high for giveaways, and the Gators turned those 18 into 25 points, outpacing the Crimson Tide by scoring 26 fast break points to Alabama’s three. The Florida ball pressure allowed the Gators to take 16 more field goal attempts, and with that, they dominated Alabama inside, outscoring the Crimson Tide 72-26 in the paint.
Every Alabama guard dealt with turnovers on Sunday as Florida’s ball pressure was elite. Labaron Philon led the team with five on his own, making it his fifth game this year with five or more turnovers.
“Yeah, a lot of his [Labaron Philon] turnovers came early, I thought.” Oats said. “But he definitely had a few in the second half. He ends up with five turnovers. He’s had five turnovers way too many times this year. When he turns the ball over this much, it’s hard. You’d like to go play Holloway, and Holloway isn’t turning the ball over very much and he turned it over himself three times today. They did a really good job switching. I don’t necessarily think it was him pressing as much as him not handling the physicality of their bigs once they switched.”
The Crimson Tide has a short turnaround as they welcome the SEC leading Texas A&M Aggies into Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday. The Aggies look to follow in Florida’s footsteps and bring the heavy ball pressure to Alabama as first year head coach Bucky McMillian has his program at 26th in the nation at forcing turnovers.
Former Tennessee running back Khalifa Keith committed to Alabama, according to On3.
The 6-foot-1, 235-pound running back played for the Vols from 2023-24. He appeared in 16 games at Tennessee and recorded 124 rushing yards, one rushing touchdown, one reception and eight receiving yards.
Keith appeared in four games in 2024. He totaled 100 rushing yards and scored one touchdown on 21 attempts, while also recording one reception for eight yards.
In 12 games during the 2023 season as a freshman, Keith totaled 24 rushing yards on 11 attempts. He was also named to the 2024 Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll.
Keith transferred to Appalachian State in 2025. In six games for the Mountaineers, the former Vol recorded eight rushing yards on three attempts.
Keith is from Parker High School in Birmingham, Alabama.
Tennessee will host Alabama on Oct. 17 at Neyland Stadium. The Vols have won the last two games against Alabama at Neyland Stadium in 2022 and 2024.
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For the second time in three days, South Alabama let a double-digit, second-half lead get away, but made enough plays in the end to win.
The Jaguars bested Sun Belt Conference rival Georgia State 69-67 on Saturday at the Mitchell Center, their third straight victory. South Alabama (16-6, 7-3 Sun Belt) is now a half-game back of first-place Troy in the conference standings.
“We found a way,” South Alabama coach Richie Riley said. “The thing about conference play is when you get to this stage — of the back half especially, I say this all the time. One team wins, one team loses, one team goes up, one team goes down. We’re moving up in the standings. We won, and it was not our best stuff. We didn’t play very well.
“… But just proud of our guys. Like I said, we didn’t have our best stuff, but we found a way and we’ll take it and we’ll move on.”
South Alabama let a 12-point lead get away vs. Coastal Carolina on Thursday night, but scored the game’s final five points to win 53-48. On Saturday, the Jaguars led the entire second half, but still endured some tense moments late in the game.
South Alabama led 60-48 heading into the final nine minutes vs. Georgia State, but the Panthers (9-14, 6-5) stayed close behind a barrage of 15 3-pointers. After the Jaguars’ JJ Wheat made both ends of a 1-and-1 free-throw situation with 20.8 seconds to play, Georgia State’s Malachi Brown buried his seventh 3-pointer of the night to cut South Alabama’s advantage to 68-67 with 15.3 seconds left.
Wheat was fouled again at the 12.9 mark, but this time missed the front end of the 1-and-1. However, the senior guard stole the ball away moments later, and teammate Randy Brady was fouled with 5.2 seconds left.
Brady made his first free throw to go up by two but missed the second, and Georgia State got away a last-gasp 3-point attempt. However, South Alabama’s Adam Olsen got in the face of the Panthers’ Jelani Hamilton just enough that Hamilton’s shot clanked off the front of the iron at the buzzer.
“AO (Olsen) gave the perfect contest that we teach,” Riley said. “He jumped at his peak as high as he could, with two hands vertically, without leaning into foul and he got up there high enough to make it come off short.
“And without that contest, [Hamilton] makes it. … AO max-contested that perfectly and he made him miss, but it was online. I thought it might be going in, but thank goodness AO contested like that and we were able to get out of there.”
South Alabama shot 52% from the field and turned the ball over only five times on Saturday, but made only three 3-pointers and missed nine free throws.
Chaze Harris scored 15 points to lead the Jaguars, and also added six assists and four rebounds. Jayden Cooper fired in 11 points, while Olsen scored 10 and pulled down a season-best 11 rebounds.
“Yeah, it’s just a part of my game that I need to expand on,” said Olsen, the Jaguars’ second-leading scorer at 16.5 points per game. “You can’t just be a scorer, can’t just be a shooter. I have to do stuff on the other end. So I’m really working on my conditioning, being able to play the amount of minutes I do and affect the game in other ways, like getting rebounds.”
Brown led all scorers with 21 points — all on 3-pointers, and also had nine rebounds and four assists. Hamilton added 12 (with three 3-pointers), while Trey Scott scored 10.
Georgia State won the rebounding battle 37-33, including 16 on the offensive glass. South Alabama, however, outscored the Panthers 50-12 in the paint.
“That’s a lot — 50 in the paint,” Riley said. “That’s just pounding, pounding in the paint. We did a nice job of finishing plays. And only turned it over five times, so it helped us even out enough of the offensive rebounds, the 3s, and they only made six 2s, which is a good number.”
South Alabama now heads back on the road to face App State, which is also a half-game out of first. The Mountaineers are 15-9 overall and 8-4 in the Sun Belt, but trail the Jaguars by percentage points in the league standings.
Tip-off for South Alabama at App State is set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, with live-streaming via ESPN+.
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