Betting Stuff: Alabama makes the 2025 SEC futures market volatile ...Middle East

Alabama is the greatest wild card in the country in 2025. 

I have no idea who the Crimson Tide will be. Kalen DeBoer could be scouting the first round of the College Football Playoff. Or he could be watching it on his couch, actively trying to avoid social media. 

Last season, Alabama didn’t have a quarterback who fit DeBoer’s system and the Tide missed the Playoff. Oversimplification of events, sure, but that’s kind of what it boils down to. The DeBoer-led Alabama team we got in 2024 was not the one we expected to see. 

DeBoer reunited with offensive coordinator and longtime running mate Ryan Grubb this offseason. He and Grubb have to pick between Ty Simpson, Austin Mack, and Keelon Russell to lead the team in 2025. 

According to Greg McElroy (and other local writers on hand for the spring), Simpson is leading the race at the moment. 

A former 5-star recruit, Simpson is in his fourth season within the Alabama program. He played in 4 games in 2022, 6 games in 2023, and 6 games in 2024. He has 50 career pass attempts, 29 completions, and zero touchdown passes. 

Mack was a 4-star who committed to Grubb and DeBoer at Washington. That coaching staff brought him in believing he would be the heir apparent to Michael Penix Jr. The plan was to add a one-and-done transfer from the portal to give Mack another year to grow and then hand him the reins in 2025. Mack followed DeBoer to Alabama last offseason and still has that chance to take over Grubb’s offense. In this regard, very little has changed. 

And then there’s Russell, a 5-star signee who enrolled early and got right to work battling with the elder statesmen in the room for the starting quarterback job. A 6-3 passer from Texas, Russell was the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2025 class according to the industry-generated 247Sports composite rankings. Russell has remarkable accuracy, improvisational ability that can’t be taught, and can hit every spot of the field. 

“I think we’ve got 3 really, really good quarterbacks, and I mean that,” Grubb told ESPN this week. “I don’t think anybody has separated. They’re all playing good, but they’re not playing great yet. You’re looking for the guy that’s going to be consistent, that can show up the same and make the same plays all the time.”

That is not what you typically get from a true freshman. 

But it’s also not what Alabama got from Jalen Milroe last season. 

Russell has the ceiling to turn Alabama into an offensive juggernaut. But the Tide will undoubtedly go through some growing pains if that’s the avenue they take. Simpson, given the amount of time he’s been in the program and the game reps he has under his belt, might not make the back-breaking mistakes that freshmen do, but the ceiling won’t be as high. 

If it was, Simpson would have seen the field already. It didn’t work with Milroe last season. But DeBoer stuck with it and Alabama struggled through its worst season in nearly 2 decades. 

So what are the Crimson Tide going to do? We might not get an answer to that question until the fall. And that throws some significant variance into the futures market. 

Alabama 2025 betting futures

At bet365, Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee all have shorter odds to win the SEC title. Alabama travels to Athens on Sept. 27. Tennessee has to roll through Tuscaloosa 3 weeks later. Alabama also hosts LSU (+1000) and plays South Carolina (+1600) on the road a week after facing the Vols.  

The potential is there for DeBoer’s second team to absolutely wreck shop in the SEC. In his final season at Washington, I believed DeBoer to be one of the best coaches in all of college football. He didn’t forget the things that helped him lead Washington to a national title appearance overnight. And even with last year’s record now on his ledger, DeBoer still holds a 113-16 record as a college football head coach. 

According to Bill Connelly’s calculations, the Tide are 35th nationally in returning production. They’re the highest-ranked of the SEC contenders. Georgia and Texas are both outside the top 100. 

That played a part in Alabama’s preseason No. 2 ranking in Connelly’s SP+. The Crimson Tide still have a roster overflowing with blue-chip talent. They have one of the best playmakers in the sport in wideout Ryan Williams. They have a promising edge rusher in LT Overton who is still trying to put all the pieces together. 

Alabama can beat everyone — not anyone, everyone — in the SEC because of its sheer talent. Alabama could also be the fifth team in a 4-team race for Atlanta if it misses on the QB spot again.

Milroe completed less than 60% of his throws 3 times over his last 7 appearances. He had multiple interceptions in 3 of his final 8 appearances. When he was great (LSU, Auburn), he was using his legs. The passing game was just entirely too inconsistent. 

Alabama ranked 32nd in EPA per dropback last year. DeBoer’s last Washington team ranked ninth. Milroe could hit the big stuff when it was available, but the less glamorous parts of DeBoer’s offense proved difficult. Decision-making was an adventure. Milroe had a 60.3 passer grade (per PFF) on throws between 0 and 9 yards, the fourth-worst of any SEC passer with at least 50 attempts. He threw 5 interceptions on passes within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. 

Penix, for reference, had a 76.9 passer grade with 6 touchdowns and zero picks. 

Part of what made Grubb special at Washington was that he had answers for any problem the defense presented. And he had a passer who could hit the home run but also knew when to keep the chains moving. 

Alabama’s 2025 quarterback has to be better in that respect. The 2024 Tide were too all-or-nothing.

Again, this doesn’t really sound like the environment in which a true freshman quarterback gets turned loose. So how much can we trust Simpson? 

Not enough to throw anything behind Alabama to win the 2025-26 College Football Playoff. A first-year starting quarterback not just taking his team to the Playoff but winning the thing is a little rich for my blood. There’s not enough juice there, and there are other teams worth backing at the current prices (Penn State, Clemson). 

There’s probably enough, however, to throw something small behind the Crimson Tide to win the SEC. Do we see Russell in any kind of official capacity in Week 1? What about Week 11? The good thing about a truly hard-to-separate quarterback competition is that it leaves the staff with depth they can feel comfortable about. 

Alabama won at least 10 regular-season games every year from 2011 through 2023. 

Under Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide hitting double-digits in the win column was one of the safest bets in the sport. Last year didn’t just feature 4 losses, though. Alabama lost 3 times as a favorite of 2+ touchdowns. That rarely happened during the entirety of Saban’s tenure.

Milroe went 27-for-58 (46.6%) for 356 yards (6.1 per throw) with 1 touchdown and 4 picks over the final 2 defeats. Alabama scored 42 points against LSU on Nov. 9, scored 52 against Mercer a week later, and then managed just 44 total points over its last 3 games. It just didn’t fit.

Now, DeBoer has the luxury of choice.

If the quarterback is good, Alabama is going to be great in 2025.

Betting Stuff: Alabama makes the 2025 SEC futures market volatile Saturday Down South.

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