Kalen DeBoer lays out an exact timeline for naming Alabama’s starting quarterback, and it’s sooner than you think
Alabama’s coaching staff has an idea of when they want to name the starting quarterback for the season opener against Florida State.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama is exactly three weeks away from taking the field against Florida State for the season opener in Tallahassee, but the coaching staff still hasn’t officially named a starting quarterback, which has some of Tide faithful a little uneasy as Week 1 continues to draw closer.
There’s good news on that front though.
Following Alabama’s first scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday, head coach Kalen DeBoer addressed the staff’s timeline expectations for naming a starter between Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and five-star freshman Keelon Russell. Apparently, that decision date is happening relatively soon.
“From a timeline, because I know that’s kind of what you want, I feel like we’re getting closer,” DeBoer told reporters. “I would’ve said before camp we’ve definitely got to make a decision by the time we get done with the second scrimmage, and I would anticipate for sure that being the case. Then we’ll see how the next few days go, but it’s two good showings, especially by Austin and Ty again today. And Keelon making the progress that we’d hoped for. You can see what his ceiling is going to be, it’s just a matter of more reps.”
Simpson has been the favorite for a while now. Both DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb have mentioned multiple times this offseason that the redshirt junior would be Alabama’s starter if the team were playing a game that day, but while that does show the battle trending in one direction, it’s far from a guarantee until things are made official.
Apparently, the quarterbacks, as a whole, have done a good job of taking care of the football during fall camp so far.
“The biggest thing with those guys, the quarterbacks, is they’ve done a great job, first of all, taking care of the football,” DeBoer said. “No picks today, and a few touchdown passes. I don’t know the exact number, but a few touchdown passes between all three of them. And a completion percentage over the course of camp for all three has been in that range that we want. We like to have a minimum of 65%, and they just did a good job being consistent when they take care of the football.
“I think there’s maybe three picks all camp when we talk about 7-on-7 drills, team drills. I might be off on one, probably not off two. But they’ve done a good job taking care of the football. I think the first week, just missed a few plays. The last practices, finding the ways to get explosives.”
It sounds like we’ll have a lot to talk about a week from now.
