By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Entering last year, the questions for the Alabama Crimson Tide revolved around all of the “new” in T-Town.

This time a year ago, the Tide were preparing to embark on the first season under Head Coach Kalen DeBoer after Coach Nick Saban retired following the 2023 season.

Although a relatively successful 2024 season that saw a 9-4 record and just missing the first 12 team College Football Playoff, entering 2025, there’s a similar feeling of trying to feel out the “new. New quarterback, new offensive coordinator, new year for Alabama.

The biggest news coming out of Tuscaloosa in the offseason was a quick change, after one year, for Kalen DeBoer at offensive coordinator.

When DeBoer took over for Bama in 2024, he hired Nick Sheridan who had previously been an OC at Indiana before spending two years with DeBoer at Washington as a tight ends coach.

While the offense in 2024 had flashes with Jalen Milroe at quarterback, there seemed to be something missing or off all season. That led to the change at coordinator to a familiar name that has been associated with Kalen DeBoer.

Ryan Grubb leads the Tide offensive unit in 2025. Grubb spent two magical years with DeBoer at Washington as his offensive coordinator as Michael Penix Jr. and Rome Odunze helped lead the Huskies to a national championship game appearance.

Although Grubb takes over the title and play-calling duties, DeBoer made it a point to keep Sheridan on staff as a co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

The group that Sheridan will be leading this year in the quarterback room is going through a lot of “new” too.

With Jalen Milroe now battling for a job with the Seattle Seahawks, one of the biggest question marks has been who takes the snaps for the Tide in 2025.

Many expected throughout the off-season that Ty Simpson would turn into QB1 and Coach DeBoer announced that Ty Simpson would indeed be the starting quarterback for Alabama to start the year.

Simpson is a familiar name for the “Roll Tide-ers” after joining the program in 2022 but has only seen 16 career games since then.

Simpson has only recorded 50 pass attempts with only real meaningful snaps coming in the 2023 matchup against South Florida where he helped lead Bama to a victory in game 2 of the year when Milroe got benched for one game by Nick Saban.

While Simpson isn’t the elusive playmaker that Milroe has been the past few years for Bama, many believe he doesn’t have to be.

Between Ryan Williams, who you may have heard a time or two was only 17 years old last year as a freshman phenom, along with a couple of transfers to the receiving corps, Simpson seemingly only needs to have a firm grasp on the offense and a good distributor to get the ball in the hands of playmakers.

The season doesn’t start slowly for the new pieces for Alabama as the Tide opens the season with a road trip to Tallahassee to take on Florida State.

While the Seminoles had an abysmal season in 2024 (2-10 record and only one ACC win against Cal), Mike Norvell is expected to lead a much-improved team into Doak Campbell Stadium against the Crimson Tide.

So, while there’s a lot of new inside the gates of Bryant-Denny Stadium, the offense has an astounding number of great leaders on staff and weapons on the field for the “new” to turn into household names quickly in T-Town.