General
This is an opinion column.
We’ve said it before and why not one final time this college football season?
Wow.
What an incredible ride through a completely new world this has been. This journey ends Monday night with two northern invaders deciding a champion in the heart of SEC country.
Ohio State and Notre Dame offer a modern twist on the sport dominated by its southern counterparts for the past two decades-plus. Blue bloods flush with green currency are the answer to the SEC’s recent rampage through the sport.
Look to Michigan, last year’s first non-southern champ in a decade. It used considerable alumni wealth to convince a talented Wolverine senior class to stick around for one final, clearly successful season.
This year, their biggest rival and the Catholic icon of the Midwest will decide the first 12-team playoff champ. And if there’s one throughline from this year’s national title game connecting it to the past decade is quarterback play.
Or at least, profile.
Notre Dame and Ohio State bring veteran passers — not necessarily the flashiest guys or anyone who sniffed Heisman talk — to the final college football game of the season. Both are transfers. Will Howard of Ohio State came from Kansas State while Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard was at Duke the previous season. They were the No. 7 and No. 8 quarterbacks in the portal last season, according to 247Sports.
Names but not ones on the marquee like Miami’s Cam Ward,
Before them, it was Michigan’s JJ McCarthy outdueling Michael Penix from Washington. Stetson Bennett, Mac Jones, Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence were seasoned veterans who won crowns before that.
We note all of that to look forward to next season and the two powers from this state hoping to rejoin this conversation.
Alabama and Auburn arrived at this offseason earlier than both would’ve scripted, while both face incredibly impactful quarterback competitions.
The two appear to be taking two completely different gambles in the quest to re-enter the conversation that recently shifted north.
Alabama, barring any late changes, will enter the spring with veteran backup Ty Simpson leading the way. A former five-star and son of a college coach is following the old-world model. He’ll be entering his fourth season in Tuscaloosa without a single start — practically unheard of in the transfer era — after serving as the primary backup for Jalen Milroe the past two seasons.
Simpson is the difference between seasoned and experienced. He’s appeared in 10 games over his first three seasons but not taken many meaningful snaps. At South Florida in 2023, Simpson threw for 73 yards on 5-for-9 passing when Milroe was benched and the backups took turns. Nobody stood out and Milroe was back in the saddle the next week end was never truly threatened again.
That’s part of the question with Simpson.
Even with inconsistent play from Milroe last year, it never felt like Simpson was on the verge of replacing him.
Could he be another Mac Jones or Blake Sims who waited his turn and is ready to blossom? Or was he not challenging for the top spot for a reason?
The only other returning QB in Tuscaloosa is Austin Mack, a transfer who followed Kalen DeBoer from Washington last offseason. At 6-6, 236, the Loomis, California product looks the part but was most productive on the scout team in 2024.
And the third option is something Alabama and Auburn share, in some sense.
Both have dynamic freshmen complete with recruiting hype and big arms. Keelon Russell is Alabama’s 5-star, No. 2 overall recruit in the 247Sports composite with the ability to pull a Jalen Hurts.
Auburn has Deuce Knight, the No. 5 QB in the 2025 class who flipped from Notre Dame to the Tigers during the season. He’s got a big left arm, but like Russell, would be a departure from the trend of veteran QBs locking down championship game spots.
Auburn’s answer to that is the transfer portal.
After another disappointing offensive season, the Tigers went out and got two quarterbacks from the market. Both have experience but aren’t quite the splash signees that were available.
Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold would be considered the favorite to succeed Payton Thorne, but the former 5-star was inconsistent in Norman. The No. 4 QB in a class led by Arch Manning and Nico Iamaleava never really found his footing at Oklahoma, was briefly replaced last year but has the pedigree to make an impact in the right offensive scheme.
Like at Alabama, the Auburn quarterback will have a talented group of receivers. The Tigers return names like Cam Coleman, Malcolm Simmons and Perry Thompson while also grabbing No.1 WR transfer Eric Singleton Jr., from Georgia Tech.
The Crimson Tide retained star freshman Ryan Williams and veteran Germie Bernard while snatching highly-regarded transfer Isaiah Horton from Miami.
Bottom line: Alabama and Auburn have options ranging from unproven/unrealized 5-star veterans to highly-touted freshmen in the most consequential quarterback competitions in a while.
They’ll be led by two head coaches known as offensive minds who have something to prove to keep their seats from getting too warm. That’s pressure for all involved.
There’s talent at receiver in both places, but that was also true last year when predecessors fell short of the goal.
So, this will be a fascinating offseason in both Tuscaloosa and Auburn as the two gamble on quarterback derbies with a few similar themes but differing approaches.
Still in their infancy, these competitions begin with one more game to play from a 2024 season that ended in disappointment at the two in-state SEC schools.
They’ll look east Monday night as two teams from the north fly south to put a stamp on what they’d like to see as a new era in college football’s scrap for regional supremacy.
Both bring experienced but not flashy quarterbacks to the climax of an insane storyline — one that could be a blueprint for those hoping to be contenders of the future.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
Read More
