Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer identifies possible successor to Jalen Milroe for the 2025 season

As final preparations are made to kick off a new college football season, the Alabama Crimson Tide are entering a new chapter. With Jalen Milroe off to the NFL, Kalen DeBoer is now tasked with rebuilding the puzzle — and one candidate appears to have the edge in the race to take over the starting quarterback role.

There was plenty of speculation about who would take over the starting quarterback role in Tuscaloosa after Milroe declared for the Draft. That gave head coach Kalen DeBoer time to carefully evaluate his options.

In a recent conversation with the media, DeBoer spoke about the healthy competition for one of the team’s most important positions. While he acknowledged the battle is still ongoing, he admitted that one name currently has a slight edge over the rest — Ty Simpson.

“You mentioned Ty Simpson. We’ve made it known that if we played a game at the end of this spring – even right now, because it really wouldn’t change – we would have Ty as our quarterback,” DeBoer said on ESPN Sioux Falls. “But they’re all competing for the spot. Ty’s been around now. He’s seen it, he’s competed and has all the tools. Just like these other guys, he has all the tools to go out there and get the job done.

“And he’s done a really nice job of improving and looking forward to this opportunity that he’s waited a long time for, because he could’ve gone to – not any other, but a lot of programs in the country that would’ve been looking for a quarterback and had an opportunity a year ago already. He … has done just a great job of leading us so far here through this offseason.”

Ty Simpson chooses to stay at Alabama

When many thought Ty Simpson might enter the Transfer Portal in search of more playing time elsewhere, the talented quarterback ultimately chose to bet on himself and stay at Alabama — ready to compete for a spot on Kalen DeBoer’s team.

“I’m not gonna sit here and say it wasn’t hard because there were some days, I feel like God wasn’t on my side and I didn’t really understand His plan,” Simpson said at the Manning Passing Academy. “But I prayed about it. At the end of the day, there wasn’t anywhere else where I wanted to play. I felt that God had put me in Tuscaloosa for a reason. I always felt like I could accomplish everything that I could – still to this day, with winning a national championship and being a first-round pick there at the University of Alabama.

“And I couldn’t leave my friends, my teammates. Some of my best friends who are going to be in my wedding one day are my teammates there at the University of Alabama. Seeing them on a different sideline, it didn’t feel right to me. With Coach [Nick] Saban’s guidance and the guys who are on the team and go to school there, there was nowhere else I would rather be than the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.”