Ty Simpson was one of the first recruiting losses of the Josh Heupel tenure with the Martin native spurning his home state Volunteers to commit to Nick Saban and Alabama.
As Simpson prepares for the upcoming NFL Draft, he joined Jon “Gruden’s QB Class” for an hour long sit down conversation and film breakdown of his career. But the first question Gruden asked Simpson was about how he turned down the opportunity to play at Tennessee.
“It was hard,” Simpson said. “I wanted to. It just didn’t work out that way.”
Simpson was extremely close to becoming a Vol. As AL.com’s Nick Kelly reported last fall, Simpson’s dad Jason was preparing to leave his position at UT Martin head coach to become Tennessee’s quarterback coach under Jeremy Pruitt.
If the deal had gone through, Ty would have followed his dad to Knoxville and likely become Tennessee’s starting quarterback. But Tennessee fired Pruitt with cause due to recruiting violations and neither Simpson ever arrived in Knoxville.
Simpson committed to Alabama just five weeks after Tennessee hired Heupel as its newest head coach.
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“It was just something about the A, Coach Saban, the infrastructure there with the NFL,” Simpson said. “There wasn’t anything like it. I knew that as a ball guy, I was infatuated with football, I loved it so much and I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I could play with the best players and that it could prepare me for the NFL. May have not been exactly how I saw it but it made me such a better player and better person and I love the University of Alabama.”
The West Tennessee native spent four years at Alabama but only one as the starter. He lost a quarterback battle with Jalen Milroe ahead of his sophomore season before eventually becoming the Crimson Tide’s starting quarterback last season.
Simpson completed 64.5% of his passes for 3,567 yards, 28 touchdowns and five interceptions during the 2025 season Alabama posted an 11-4 (7-1 SEC) record. They won one game in the College Football Playoff before Indiana torched them 38-3 in the Rose Bowl.
ESPN’s latest mock draft projects the Arizona Cardinals to select Simpson with the 30th pick in next week’s NFL Draft.
Gruden, of course, has ties to Tennessee. He started his coaching career as a GA at Tennessee, met his wife in Knoxville and was a white whale of multiple Tennessee head coaching searches over the last two decades.
