University of Tennessee Martin was once Ty Simpson's playground.
He never left the side of Skyhawks quarterbacks growing up, taking in each drill at each of his father's practices, throwing a football too big for his hand.
But Simpson was not just another kid who wanted to play catch. He was not the annoying coach's son who interrupted drills. Simpson was different. He was fired up. He wanted to be involved, to compete, to be the best, to be set apart.
"It was awesome," said former UT Martin quarterback Derek Carr , affectionately known by the Simpsons as "our Derek Carr," as opposed to the player by the same name who plays for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League. "It's kind of refreshing, too, at the same time, going back and thinking back to whenever you're a kid, right? And everything's so simple. Almost like a breath of fresh air, like it is all so simple."
Simpson's journey with Alabama football has been anything but simple.
Simpson, a former five-star quarterback out of Martin, Tennessee, has backed up two Alabama quarterbacks. He's played for three different offensive coordinators, three different quarterbacks coaches and two different head coaches, one of whom he thought would never leave.
And his time as Alabama's starting quarterback has not yet come.
More: What Ty Simpson thinks of Alabama football QB Austin Mack: 'He's going to be a very good player'
That time may have finally arrived. Jalen Milroe , the quarterback Simpson has backed up for two seasons, has entered the NFL draft. Simpson is heading into spring practiced as the presumed favorite to be the first Crimson Tide quarterback to take snaps when Alabama faces Florida State on Aug. 30.
"It's not how I drew it up for sure," Simpson told the Tuscaloosa News. "I think anybody could tell you that. But it's God's plan and I think, ultimately, it will make me a better player."
Simpson, a redshirt junior in 2025, faces a spring where Alabama can, finally, become his team to lead.
But in that, Simpson has remained who he's always been: the loyal coach's son who grew up in a college football locker room, the coach-in-training whose love for the sport and for those around him shows up everywhere, from the sidelines of Bryant-Denny Stadium to the phone calls he makes with his brother, Graham.
Simpson is the Alabama quarterback who understands the long game and whose mentality is unwavering even with his turn behind center possibly coming soon.
"We've watched him completely change into an even better player than we thought simply because he's matured and he's recruited in-house and understands the way things work," said Julie Simpson, Ty's mother. "And he understands how the portal works. He understands the love of the game and how that can actually take you a lot farther than necessarily the money for the game."
It didn't take much convincing.
Ty Simpson had just returned from Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a Wolverines scholarship offer, one hand-delivered by Jim Harbaugh. The eighth-grade quarterback viewed the offer more as a "token of gratitude" that showed that Michigan liked him before any other program did.
Simpson was motivated, knowing that the Michigan offer would set him apart even before he took a snap at Westview High School in Martin, Tennessee. He knew he needed to get bigger, faster and stronger.
The best solution? Work out at UT Martin each morning before school. The problem? Simpson didn't have a driver's license, let alone a permit. But in a small town, and with a football facility minutes away, that did not stop the quarterback.
"We would let him drive the vehicle a mile to the office here in the morning without his driver's license," said Jason Simpson, Ty's father and the UT Martin football coach. "He would get up at 5 o'clock and come do that on his own."
That's who Ty Simpson was, the quarterback who never had to be told how to work to become a college player: He was wired like one from the beginning.
Ty Simpson knew what a quarterback was supposed to look like. He watched his dad, a former Mississippi State quarterback-turned-Southern Miss baseball player. He watched Carr. He trained with former UT Martin quarterback Dresser Winn .
Simpson had to learn how to be tough, how to have the loudest voice on his team. He had to become what he calls the "franchise guy," the one who leads through difficulties.
That is the impression he made on Westview football coach Matt McConnell when the coach arrived in 2019, inheriting a sophomore quarterback who had one season of starting experience under his belt. A new coach meant Simpson had to learn a new offensive system while balancing basketball and baseball seasons.
"(He was) willing to work and do what it took, you know, to be successful in whatever it was he was trying to do," McConnell said.
McConnell was not with Simpson long, leaving Westview after one season. But McConnell saw a quarterback who learned to read opposing defenses and coverages, how to move an offense without forcing plays downfield.
To Jason Simpson, Ty started "playing catch and taking completions" as the talent around him grew stronger, a team that won a state title in 2021 led by a quarterback who was named as Tennessee's Gatorade Player of the Year.
Winn knew Ty Simpson was different, calling him "obsessed" on the practice field even as the five-star ranking and the reality that Simpson would play major college football came.
"I was recruited somewhat highly coming out of high school," Winn said. "But I could always tell that Ty threw it better than me. He knew more about the game. He was more curious, more interested and he just was more athletic. He did everything better than I did."
Nick Saban was different.
Ty Simpson remembers watching the former Alabama coach walk into a room with a swagger, dressed in a suit, confident in what he saw from high school players he was passionate about.
"As a guy who loved football and a guy who's been around it all my life," Ty Simpson said, "I just kind of fell in love with the process and the way that he envisioned it."
Saban was one of many SEC and Big Ten coaches who flocked to Jason Simpson's office at UT Martin to meet Ty, coaches from whom Jason admits he would try to steal ideas.
From when Saban talked to Ty Simpson, Jason remembers a coach who never made promises but whose pitch was clear: if you want to be an NFL starting quarterback, the pathway starts at Alabama.
Ty Simpson committed to Alabama the February before his senior season at Westview, choosing Alabama over Clemson, Ole Miss and Tennessee. He was a member of a Crimson Tide recruiting class ranked second nationally along with players such as five-star linebacker Jihaad Campbell and four-star offensive lineman Tyler Booker.
But as Campbell and Booker developed into Alabama stars who declared for the 2025 NFL draft, Simpson waited. He sat behind Bryce Young in 2022, watching how the Heisman Trophy winner carried himself, prepared for games and talked football. Simpson sat behind Milroe in 2023 and 2024, watching how the Alabama starter took care of his body to be in peak condition each Saturday.
Through three seasons, Simpson has 50 pass attempts for 381 passing yards and three rushing touchdowns.
Through three seasons, Jason Simpson has watched from afar, seeing his son learn and grow as a teammate and prepare as if he was the one taking first-team reps each Saturday.
"Everybody in that program is so highly recruited, and not everybody has to learn that skill," Jason Simpson said. "I think those things will make Ty more galvanized when he does get his opportunity."
Through three seasons, as Young and Milroe took the majority of Alabama quarterback reps, Julie Simpson remembers repeating a motto to Ty over and over.
"'Did you remember what you are there for?'" Julie Simpson said. "'And get out there and catch every snap and play (to) the best of your ability. And then your shot's going to come. That's what you're supposed to do.'"
Shortly after the 2023 season, the unthinkable happened.
Julie Simpson was in Tuscaloosa helping Ty move into an off-campus house. Ty was called to campus for a meeting. He told his mother he'd be "back soon."
Less than an hour later, Julie's phone began blowing up. The coach Ty Simpson saw as "immortal," the face of Alabama football he expected to never leave, was retiring.
"That was a God thing that I was there," she said. "Because he came in and was just devastated."
It was "a day of reckoning," Ty Simpson said, even as a quarterback who was no stranger to change, who knew how the football world worked, who saw the year-to-year turnover of his father's coaching staff.
As the shock lingered, Simpson had to make a decision. He grew up in college football. He knew it was a business. He knew Saban would not coach forever.
Yet his decision was a simple one.
"I had no doubt where I wanted to be," Simpson said.
His goals remained. He wanted to graduate from Alabama, which he did in December 2024. He wants to be the starting quarterback of the Crimson Tide, and he wants to win a national championship.
"I love this place," Simpson said. "If I didn't, I would have left, you know what I mean? But I love Tuscaloosa. I love the University of Alabama. I love the fans. I love the program. I love my teammates. And that's the reason why I stayed."
Simpson's dreams don't stop at Alabama.
From his first meeting with Kalen DeBoer, Saban's successor, Simpson said he made his aspirations clear: the same aspirations he shared in a quarterbacks meeting early in his Alabama career. Simpson wanted to coach, to follow in his dad's footsteps, something he was initially hesitant about.
"I said, 'Man, you're 20 years old. Don't apologize for that,'" Jason Simpson said. "I wish I'd have known what I wanted to do at 20 years old. ... That's a blessing to know what you want to do for the next 50 years of your life.'"
It's a dream that hovers over each interaction Ty Simpson has.
Jason Simpson sees it when his son talks to teammates as a coach does, encouraging them that the "money will come" and that the opportunity for a legacy and a national championship outweighs any potential transfer portal move.
Julie Simpson sees it when her son mentors his younger brother, Graham, who just finished his freshman season as the starting quarterback at Westview. The brothers talk multiple times each week. Ty strives to keep his brother humble and focused.
Winn sees it as a product of the priorities Ty Simpson has always held dear.
"That's all he's ever known, right?" Winn said. "I mean, playing football and being around football, his family and then putting God first. It's all he's ever known is those three things."
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Ty Simpson was a QB prodigy. Has his time at Alabama football arrived?
