Alabama Quarterback Battle May Not End Before Florida State

Kalen DeBoer opens fall camp this week, replacing an NFL quarterback for the second straight season. Ty Simpson threw for 3,567 yards and 28 touchdowns before declaring for the draft. What separates this replacement from the last one is everything standing around it. Alabama returns one starting offensive lineman, and the receiver signed to stretch the field will not be on it when the season starts. Nothing about the Alabama quarterback battle gets decided in a vacuum.

DeBoer is in no rush regardless. He has put the call roughly after the second scrimmage in mid-August, which leaves whoever wins about three weeks with the first team.

What Noah Rogers Took With Him

Rogers left the spring game on a cart with a brace on his leg. He had arrived from N.C. State with 919 receiving yards across two seasons, a top-100 recruit out of Rolesville, North Carolina, and a starting job waiting opposite Ryan Williams.

DeBoer ruled him out of the opener within days. “He won’t be ready to go right when the season starts,” DeBoer told WTUG-FM. The news has improved without changing much. “Early on, when he was first injured, probably a timeline that he’s surpassed,” DeBoer said in Tampa. “I would still expect him to miss some games early in the season.” Rico Scott, Derek Meadows and Cederian Morgan take those snaps until he returns.

The Alabama Quarterback Battle Has No Deadline

Austin Mack knows the offense better than anyone who might beat him out. “Mack, he’s the experienced hand,” Greg McElroy said on Always College Football. “He came with Kalen DeBoer from Washington. He’s played in five games over the last two years. This is his fourth year in the system. And by the way, he was a top-100 recruit himself. So let’s not do the thing where we pretend that this veteran guy can’t play. But he knows every answer to the test. He’s just never been asked to take the test just yet.”

Keelon Russell answered a different way. He threw four touchdowns in the spring game while Mack worked through an injury on a capped snap count, and he arrived in Tuscaloosa as the No. 2 overall recruit in his class. Receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams said watching Russell feels like a video game.

Neither has started a college game. Mack has appeared in five games over two seasons, while Russell has played in two games, both behind Simpson. The Alabama quarterback battle asks DeBoer to choose between what he knows and what Russell might become.

McElroy does not think camp settles it. “Here’s my call: I think Mack and Russell will both play the first couple of weeks, and then Alabama will lock in one for that Florida State game in Week 3,” he said. “Then, the winner inherits Alabama.” Alabama hosts East Carolina, travels to Kentucky, then gets Florida State in Tuscaloosa.

McElroy expects the staff to grade something other than the arm. “I think DeBoer and Grubb, they’re going to watch who takes care of the football,” he said. “Who is most capable of leading the offense, not necessarily a talent evaluation. This might be more of a trust evaluation.”

That evaluation happens behind a line rebuilt from almost nothing. Michael Carroll is the lone returning starter, and Alabama hired Adrian Klemm and brought in 11 new linemen after averaging 104.5 rushing yards a game, a group that lands mid-pack in our SEC rankings. The winner inherits Alabama, as McElroy put it. He also inherits everything still unfinished in front of him.