Ty Simpson details multi-million-dollar NIL offers made by Tennessee, Ole Miss, Miami
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Ty Simpson is off to the NFL Draft. A handful of football programs, however, did their best to get the Alabama quarterback to return for another season of college football and hit the transfer portal. Simpson recently spoke to Chris Low of On3 and detailed the efforts of Tennessee, Ole Miss and Miami to get him to transfer for the 20026 season.
Per Low, the schools communicated offers to Simpson’s agent. Simpson never entered the NCAA transfer portal.
Low writes that offers from the 3 school started at around $4 million. He reports that Tennessee was willing to go up to $5 million and Miami eventually offered $6.5 million. Simpson said Ole Miss was willing to spend as much as Miami.
“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 told Low. “And then Ole Miss called again and said they could match it.”
Simpson detailed to Low that the big decision was stressful, as he could not ignore the big offers to play another season of college football. Simpson credits a prior postseason message from Nick Saban with helping him decide.
Saban’s message to Simpson was simple: ‘Take the money out of it. 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?’
Officially, Simpson declared for the NFL Draft last week. With the portal speculation, however, he relayed to Kalen DeBoer that his decision was final. Simpson considered his legacy at Alabama in his decision.
“Everybody would just remember me as the guy who took all this money and went to Miami or Tennessee for his last year,” Simpson told Low. “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.”
Miami is seeking to replace Carson Beck in 2026. Tennessee’s Joey Aguilar and Ole Miss’s Trinidad Chambliss are not currently considered eligible for 2026.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
