Alabama’s Coaches Trying to Instill Confidence in Ty Simpson to “Let it Fly”

Ty Simpson made his starting debut for the Crimson Tide against Florida State, a game Alabama lost 31-17, and (for the 11th straight time) had the field stormed on them. While Simpson's performance was far from perfect, he completed 59% of his passes for 254 yards and two touchdowns. Simpson also rushed for 17 yards, but that's including sack yardage taken out of his total.

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There were times on Saturday when he had opportunities to make plays, but a receiver dropped a pass, the pressure got to him too quickly, or he made an incorrect decision, and it resulted in the Crimson Tide being behind the sticks or failing to convert a first down. In his first game as a starter, Simpson got happy feet in clean pockets and made some questionable decisions, but played well enough for Alabama to have a chance at a victory.

Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer thought Simpson needed to have more trust in himself to "let it fly."

"I think there were a couple of times where he probably could have avoided having to get to that point by just ripping it. Just trusting himself," DeBoer said. "The guys were where they needed to be, the reads happen. That comes along, right? Just getting into the flow. I know they want verification on, 'this is what we practiced,' first game of the year. But just cut it loose. When you see the read, it isn't like they're putting 12 guys on the field. There's only 11 out there. When this structure goes a certain way, and it is what you practiced, trust and believe in it.

"So then what it does is it forces him into that progression or that read being missed, and now the next step, which I think you're referring to in taking off and scrambling. There's a time or two where he could have made some decisions that were better, but he also had kept some drives alive. Especially the first one, I thought he did a nice job. He came up short right there at the end of the game. That was a tough one where he came up a few inches short, but the effort was there, and you could see that from trying to fight for every inch he could to keep that drive alive. He's gonna learn from it, Ty wants it, no doubt. He's a guy that takes ownership himself, and that's what we do from the coaching staff on down to our players. Going into this week, it's just always reassessing win or loss, what we need to get better at, what our strengths are, and then how we've got to progress and what the plan should be moving forward."

Ryan Grubb also wants to see progression development from Ty Simpson as he prepares for his second career start, this one against ULM.

"Ty, he’d be the first one to tell you, the progression discipline is a big thing for any quarterback," Grubb said. "So I think when you get down in a football game, there sometimes can be the ‘I want to make the big throw every time,’ and there were some times there where, certainly, I know he’d just stay with his first read and just stay within the progression. So for him, I think you just got to keep instilling that in practice. Like, don’t pass on your number one. Take that, just keep moving. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll keep working on that."

Simpson had 'happy feet' at times in the pocket, where he abandoned a clean pocket and manufactured his own pressure. Ryan Grubb wants to see Simpson work on keeping his eyes downfield and not feeling phantom pressure.

“The toughest part, I think, for quarterbacks in general, is not letting one pressure or a bad protection bleed into the next play," Grubb said. "And certainly that can be the case. I think there were times where the protection was adequate, where Ty got a little bit antsy. He had a couple drives later where I thought he did a good job of not dropping his eyes. So I think the biggest part for him is trying to simulate some of those pressures in practice and create those hostile environments for him in the backfield that he's got to be able to keep his eyes down the field: poise. I know that's something that he's excited to try to work on.”

Alabama will take on ULM at 6:45 p.m. CT on Saturday, September 6.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.