Ty Simpson Shows Big Play Ability For Alabama Football in Spring Finale
Leading the Crimson Tide’s backup offense, the redshirt sophomore displayed his arm prowess.
This past Saturday was the inaugural A-Day for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team under new coach Kalen DeBoer, providing the fans with their first glimpse of the new offensive and defensive strategies being used at the Capstone.
The quarterback is given a lot of responsibility by the DeBoer offensive design, but it also allows the signal caller to excel by producing mismatches in the throw patterns that result in chances for big, momentum-building plays.
Backup quarterback Ty Simpson performed well in front of the modest crowd inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. The redshirt sophomore completed seven of his 12 passes for 102 yards while guiding the offense to two touchdown drives.
On A-Day 2024, how did Ty Simpson manage the Alabama offense?
Drive 1: Touchdown after 14 plays and 75 yards
Red Morgan made a swift entry into the backfield and brought a free rusher face-first into the backup quarterback’s day. Simpson is a little miffed with the play call since the play-action roll put him squarely in Morgan’s path. Sensibly, he discards the ball rather than accepting a horrible sack on first down.
Simpson had to tackle the ball on third and six after a brief run off the right side. To keep the chains moving, the redshirt sophomore saw that Cole Adams and safety Brayson Hubbard matched up, and hit Adams for a 20-yard throw. Simpson does a fantastic job at introducing the pocket to provide himself ample room to complete the opening throw of the day and secure his first down.
Richard Young and Daniel Hill’s carries maintain offensive momentum and set up Simpson’s subsequent play from first and ten. Simpson would like to get this incompletion back because, in all honesty, he left a respectable pocket and fired a throw that was potentially intercepted. Simpson steps up into the pocket in response to the edge pressure, but this overstep puts him in further jeopardy. After making a course adjustment, he was out of the pocket, where he made matters worse by underthrowing his downfield target and failing to spot a safety scurrying into coverage.
On second down, he recognizes Qua Russaw accurately, but his dark jersey keeps him from gauging how many yards he could gain, raising a third and sixth. With just three rushes by the Alabama defense, Simpson has plenty of time to choose where to throw the ball, and he makes a sound choice as he looks to locate Emmanuel Henderson. But Simpson’s ball is too high, giving up a fourth down and an incomplete.
Danny Lewis Jr. was open for a ball from Simpson in a keyhole that separated Xavier Mincey and Jeremiah Alexander on a fourth down. His arm ability is on display as the key play results in a first down.
In the face of pressure, Simpson dumped a pass over to Daniel Hill, and he put together another solid play. The drive’s second play finds the quarterback in a difficult situation, but he overcomes it.
Four plays later, on a Richard Young throw sweep, the offense scored. Simpson successfully fielded an incorrect snap while still completing the pass to Young, setting him up for the offense’s second touchdown of the game.
Drive 2: 75 yards, 4 plays, touchdown
Kobe Prentice receives a great nice play-action throw from Simpson to start the following drive. Simpson corrects his error in the pocket on the previous drive and does a terrific job ascending the pocket to escape the edge pressure. Once he’s back in a bit of a pocket, he stops rather than applying pressure and unloads on Prentice. To aid Prentice avoid Keon Sabb, the pass may have been a touch lower, but at this point in the game, the offense gets 25 yards thanks to a nice throw and catch.
Jam Ty Simpson makes another smart read-option play as he leads the offense to the goal line after Miller breaks off a monster run. Although Simpson’s black jersey stops the play from happening, it’s another example of him making the proper choice and displaying some agility. The following play, Miller scored on a handoff, giving the offense a 31-0 lead.
Drive 3: 7 yards, 3 plays, punt
Kobe Prentice receives a check-down pass to start Simpson’s third drive. The development from the broadcast footage is hard to follow, but on the first play of the drive, Prentice is obviously Simpson’s third option, at best. On a second down handoff, Richard Young gets blown up, forcing the offense to go for third and eight.
Give the defense some credit; they successfully stopped the passing idea on third and long, rushing only four. Simpson crawled out of the pocket because he had nowhere to put himself. Though he did an outstanding job of finding Caleb Odom for a touchdown on the run, it was insufficient to keep the offense on the field and the chains moving.
Drive 4: 27 yards, 4 plays, punt
On the first play of the drive, Simpson hit Germie Bernard for a 35-yard touchdown, his last connection of the day. With Simpson extending the play with his legs, the Crimson Tide defense stayed firm, allowing Bernard to get into an open space in zone coverage.
Tim Keenan nuked the Crimson Tide’s following play as he beat Joe Ionata for a sack. On second down, Simpson and his receiver were not in agreement, and the quarterback fired a throw that almost went out of bounds, setting up third and extremely long. Simpson had Bernard on the outside for a completion that should have happened, but the Washington transfer missed it, thus the day ended poorly for the offensive of Alabama.
What many had speculated about the Crimson Tide offense in 2024 was confirmed by Alabama’s A-Day. The passing game will be wide open, get downhill, and test defenders vertically down the field. While the offense is still in its early stages under DeBoer, Simpson was able to successfully implement some of the downfield ideas even if he only completed 58 percent of his throws that afternoon.
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