Bryce Young was more than the engine that supercharged Alabama football’s offense last season.

The eventual first-overall pick in the NFL Draft was the Tide’s heartbeat, continuing a run of great success and leadership. In addition to replacing some of Young’s 3,000-plus yards and 36 total touchdowns, UA will need to find a new voice in the huddle and a strong presence in the locker room.

More than halfway through fall camp, Nick Saban is awaiting one of the current options to step up and take control of the competition so Young’s successor is an obvious choice.

“What I tell the quarterbacks is, ‘It’s not up to the coaches,’” Saban said during his mid-week press conference. “‘You’re looking over your shoulder to see if the coach is gonna do this or that. How about you forcing me to play you? Forcing me to play you. Force us to play you. When you get your reps and you get a chance to play you play so good we don’t have any choice but to play you rather than worrying about all this other stuff.’”

Each of the starting contenders — Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson and Tyler Buchner — has worked with the first-team offense at times and tried to build chemistry throughout the wide reciever, tight end and running back rooms. The battle for QB1 is expected to surpass Sept. 2′s game against Middle Tennessee State.

But until one of them proves otherwise, UA may continue rotating through throwers ahead of bigger matchups like Week 2 against Texas and an always-tough Southeastern Conference schedule (which starts on Sept. 23 against Ole Miss). What remains to be seen is whether Alabama will need whoever gets the starting job to also be a leader.

“There are some guys that have an impact on other players. I think that there’s a couple guys on the offensive line that has provided some really good leadership,” Saban said. “I think there’s some guys on defense that have some maturity that’s provided some leadership. We actually need it at every position because if you have guys at every position that are setting a good example every day by what they do. It gives young players somebody to emulate. And I think that’s important. But I’ll go back to my original point, the fewer guys that we have that need somebody to emulate, the better off we’re gonna be.”

Saban is basically asking for Buchner, Milroe or Simpson to display confidence and own the battle. As Saban said after the Tide’s first scrimmage last Saturday, he’s “not a stats guy.” Instead, he wants the find the guy to lead Alabama into the 2023 season.

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Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].