Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson is heading to the NFL but only after turning down some head-turning money to remain in college and enter the transfer portal.
Colin Gay of the Tuscaloosa News reported Tuesday that Simpson officially submitted his paperwork for the 2026 NFL draft after declaring he would earlier this month. However, according to Gay, the signal-caller was offered $6.5 million from Miami and $4 million each from Ole Miss and Tennessee.
That was much higher than the $400,000 he made in base salary at Alabama in 2025, although the total doubled to $800,000 due to incentives.
Chris Low of On 3 talked to Simpson about the situation.
“Miami was kind of like, ‘All right, we’re moving on,’ and then they lost out on Sam Leavitt and came back with that big number,” Simpson said. “And then Ole Miss called again and said they could match it.
“I had a knot in my stomach. I didn’t know what to do.”
Yet he turned to former Alabama head coach Nick Saban for advice.
“Take the money out of it,” Saban said. “If everybody was offering you zero dollars, what would you want to do? Would you want to come back and play college ball, or would you want to go play NFL ball?”
Simpson is following his NFL dreams, but he also felt he would have damaged his legacy with the Crimson Tide if he finished his collegiate career at another school.
“I just couldn’t do it because of everything I stood for and what Alabama had meant to me and the legacy that I built there,” he said. “Everybody would just remember me as the guy who took all this money and went to Miami or Tennessee for his last year. But I was a captain. I put my hand and footprints in the cement at Denny Chimes.
“I would have lost everything that I built at Alabama.”
Simpson led the Crimson Tide to the College Football Playoff, where they defeated Oklahoma in the first round but lost to Indiana in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal showdown. He finished the season with 3,567 passing yards and a 28-to-five touchdown-to-interception ratio.
B/R’s NFL Scouting Department ranked Simpson as the 30th overall player and third-best quarterback in its latest big board of prospects. Only Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza and Oregon’s Dante Moore were ranked higher at the position.
It also projected Simpson as the No. 13 overall pick in its latest mock draft.
That means he figures to be in line for quite the contract as a first-round draft pick even if he turned down millions to stay in college.
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