Alabama football’s spring quarterback competition is still ongoing, and Keelon Russell remains very much alive in the three-way battle.
Russell, who enrolled at the University of Alabama in January, just has three months of college football experience under his belt, and he is in the mix for one of the most coveted quarterback jobs in college football.
All intel gathered by Touchdown Alabama this spring points to Russell’s raw skill set being hard to ignore despite him having to rapidly adjust to the life of a college athlete. Multiple sources have said it is easy to tell he is ‘special’ and a different type of talent.
However, the Texas product is doing what many coaches like to call drinking out of a water hose at the moment. He is having to adjust to new surroundings, a new playbook, college football practices and in-depth team meetings in the midst of this battle. Alabama looks to be attempting to make this transition as smooth as possible with him not taking as many first-team reps in the Tide’s second scrimmage.
“He’ll get one reps from time to time, but you know, that’s no indication of really where we feel he’s at,” Kalen DeBoer said Friday after Alabama’s second scrimmage. “He’s killing it. He’s doing a great job. You can see when he’s out there. He’s getting more and more comfortable moving the ball down the field. When there’s a throw to be made, he’ll make the throw, that’s for sure. So just the learning curve, I think that comes along with being young. But those other two guys, you know, a little bit more, you know, as far as understanding the offense and you’re trying to continue to install things, and they have a grasp of the basics from day one so you can do just a few more things.”
Many feel Alabama football’s quarterback battle will carry on into the fall, and this is where things could get very interesting. Ty Simpson is the projected frontrunner in this battle, and this is expected with the amount of experience he has being a college quarterback. Things are expected to come easier to him and Mack at this point in the battle.
Russell has the potential to return to Alabama in the fall looking much different and more comfortable in the offense which means this off-season will be vital for all three quarterbacks.
Alabama’s offensive coordinator, Ryan Grubb feels this approach is approach is vital to forming a team.
Grubb discussed this during a recent interview while reflecting on Washington’s 2022 quarterback battle.
“At the end of the first spring, we didn’t name Mike (Penix) the starter,” Ryan Grubb said. “We waited and Dylan Morris had a really good spring and it was a legitimate battle. We carried that into the summer, and I thought that part was really a key part of the team forming. They saw, okay, we trust these coaches, that they’re going to, everybody’s going to get a fair shake, we’re going to work hard, we’re going to be very objective in how we give information back to the players. And that was exactly what we did. And I think that formula will hold true. So we got to get to that.”
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Justin Smith is the Director of Recruiting for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via @Jdsmith31Smith
