Alabama Football: Long term outlook in the QB room

The quarterback room for Alabama Football is currently in flux. The room consists of five scholarship QBs, and, with summer rapidly approaching, no one seems to have the slightest inkling who will start for the Crimson Tide this fall.

Redshirt sophomore Jalen Milroe and redshirt freshman Ty Simpson began competing for the 2023 starting job last season as they played behind Bryce Young. Junior Tyler Buchner, an incoming transfer from Notre Dame, is also heavily involved in the battle.

The sudden addition of Buchner late in the spring immediately muddied what was previously a somewhat-clear picture of the Bama QB room. A pair of true freshmen, Eli Holstein and Dylan Lonergan, are in the mix as well.

This room is already a little too crowded heading into fall of 2023. So what is the long-term outlook for the Alabama Football quarterback room?

None of Bama’s current QBs are seniors, so all of them could hypothetically return next season. Logically, the 2023 quarterback battle will likely weed out at least one of the three older players. In short, whoever finishes third in the QB race this fall can be expected to transfer at some point.

It will be intriguing to see if more than one signal-caller exits after this season; Bama seemingly has enough depth to absorb these departures.

The proverbial elephant in the room is 2024 5-star quarterback Julian Sayin, who will join the Crimson Tide next fall. Just how good will Sayin be? Does he immediately contend for the starting job and push other talented quarterbacks out the door? Will the Tide have enough stability at the position to allow Sayin to sit and develop for a year?

These are all very intriguing questions that are unanswerable at the current moment. It is nearly impossible to project how the quarterback room for Alabama Football will look beyond this season with so many variables involved.

The constant presence of the transfer portal, which can be both threatening and promising, further clouds the picture and makes the QB situation completely unpredictable.

Until the 2023 season comes and goes and dominoes begin to fall, the expectation is that Alabama Football will enter the 2024 offseason with six scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. The current QB competition has already begun to sway those dominoes one way or another.