Spring practice ends without answers as Alabama, Florida, Tennessee QB races intensify

Philo and Jones each had two touchdown passes during Florida's final spring scrimmage, but it was Jones who played turnover-free football. Jones moved the pocket on one of his scoring tosses to Auburn transfer Eric Singleton Jr. on a perfectly executed corner route.

More of that is needed from both competing quarterbacks for a Gators team looking to make a splash offensively this season with one of the deepest wideout rooms in the SEC.

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Brad Crawford

"The players make the decision about how they practice and prepare," Sumrall said this week on the Stadium and Gale podcast. "The numbers are the numbers. We show them daily their efficiencies with the football, mental mistakes and all that stuff. There's a football component -- am I making the throws, what's my adjusted completion percentage? There's a statistical component that's pretty black and white, but I task all those guys from a tangle component of having to lead.

"Through the 15 spring practices, there may be one guy that had a certain number of days where if we had to name a starter, maybe he won the day? Maybe there's another number on another guy. You look at the full body of work. I don't look at just one day and say, 'Well, this guy had one day that was better.' It's a full body of work, and we've been ridiculously transparent with all the guys in that room."

Sumrall insists the final decision will be a collaborative effort within his offensive staff, based on each player's full body of work from the start of spring through the first week or so of fall practice, when first-team reps are no longer evenly distributed.

"You can start Game 1 and not start Game 2," Sumrall said. "I don't get caught up in the quarterback deal being the biggest conversation piece."

During his first season at Troy, Sumrall started Gunnar Watson most of the season, but also gave Jarret Doege an opportunity in two starts. The Trojans won 12 games in 2022, and Sumrall has inferred the Gators could play two quarterbacks as well if it comes to that.

Alabama deciding between upside and experience

Kalen DeBoer doesn't rebuild at quarterback -- he reloads, recalibrates and lets the pressure sort things out. He landed a commitment from 2027 five-star Elijah Haven over the weekend, the top-ranked signal caller in next year's cycle, but has a current situation to sort out first.

Alabama's race for its next QB1 is still very much a live debate between Mack and Russell. And make no mistake, this isn't a placeholder competition. This is a tone-setter for the Crimson Tide's 2026 ceiling coming off last season's playoff appearance with first-round pick Ty Simpson under center.

Mack, the more experienced of the two, entered spring with a slight edge based on familiarity with the system and physical readiness. At 6-foot-6 with a live arm, he looks the part and, more importantly, has command of the offense entering his fourth season in this system.

Coaches trust his ability to operate the full playbook, and the ball comes out on time. When it doesn't, Mack has enough mobility to extend plays without putting the offense in bad situations. But here's the thing about the last few Alabama quarterback battles: raw talent always finds a way to make things interesting.

That's where Russell enters the picture.

Russell might be younger as a redshirt freshman, but his upside jumps off the tape. His release is quick, his instincts are natural and there's a noticeable confidence in how he carries himself -- rare for a player this early in his college career. Throughout spring, Russell flashed the kind of playmaking ability that forces defensive coordinators to adjust. He's not just managing the offense; at times, he's elevating it, as he showed in the spring game.

Russell impressed during his team's final scrimmage of spring with 240 yards passing and four touchdowns, but took more reps in the second half by design due to Mack being "dinged up," according to DeBoer.

"I thought they looked more comfortable," DeBoer said after A-Day. "Both sides, trying to get back to the basics. At the end, you feel both sides trying to get through some of the red zone concepts that we haven't practiced as much. Once we saw a couple big receivers not getting lined up with a lot of confidence and now the quarterback is double checking, that is stuff we have to work on next week. Getting to clean all of the time until there is not a question whether someone knows their responsibilities. That goes along with the installs."

Josh Heupel stresses 'growth' at Tennessee

There's experience vs. raw ability for the Vols, too, but there's more clear upside with Brandon. Choosing MacIntyre, a redshirt freshman, means Tennessee's coaching staff would be going with the option who had passing attempts (9) last fall instead of immediately taking the training wheels off one of the top recruits in the 2026 cycle.

Brandon brings a different dimension -- and it's one that's hard to ignore. He's electric with the ball in his hands, whether that's extending plays or creating something out of structure. In a spring setting where defenses are often vanilla, Brandon still managed to flash the kind of playmaking ability that pops, per reports.

There were sequences where he looked like the most dangerous player on the field, turning broken plays into positive yardage and forcing the defense to account for him in ways that MacIntyre doesn't. The trade-off, at least for now, is polish. Brandon is still learning the finer points of the offense -- timing, progression reads, and knowing when to take what the defense gives him instead of chasing the big play.

Those are coachable areas, but they showed up enough during spring to keep this competition balanced. While the Vols' quarterback room didn't show the practice-to-practice consistency necessary to win at the highest level in the SEC this spring, per Heupel, he is pleased with the competition up to this point.

"I do love the growth from that group," Heupel said after Tennessee's Orange and White game. "I love the way they've competed with themselves, with each other. I love the way that they've grown every single day. Each of them maybe had a day where it was a little bit below what they had shown and their expectations, too, and they responded and came back the next day and were a lot better.

"So there's a lot of positive, a lot of things that they and we have to work on as a football team, but I like the work that they've put in and where they're at. Now we've got to continue to grow here."