The time is now for homegrown Alabama football tackle Wilkin Formby | Goodbread (2025)

It was buried pretty deep, but not unnoticeably so.

A footnote of a remark embedded beneath the cascade of questions fielded by Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer about the quarterback position on Monday. One that won't end up triggering message board hysteria or being snipped for a Youtube short. But one that spoke directly to a critical factor in the Crimson Tide's 2025 season: much-needed improvement at the right tackle position.

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Specifically, Tuscaloosa native Wilkin Formby's position.

"He's a tackle for us that we need to rely on to get it done, not just at an OK level, but at an elite level, to accomplish our goals," DeBoer said of Formby.

That bottom-lines the third-year sophomore's importance to the program with an emphasis that DeBoer doesn't often speak with, but he's exactly right about it. The former four-star prospect from Northridge High is in a strong position to secure the starting role he couldn't quite attain a year ago. But being a starter and being an effective one are two entirely different challenges, and DeBoer's comment suggests Alabama's offense could suffer if the latter challenge isn't met.

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The subtext here is that the Crimson Tide is breaking in a new starting quarterback — presumably Ty Simpson — who is short on game experience with only 50 career pass attempts. Be it Simpson or not, there are inevitable growing pains to be endured at the quarterback position this fall, and they'll hurt a lot more if pass protection is sub-par. Pass protection is a five-man job, of course, but the sore spot a year ago was the right tackle position manned for the most part by Elijah Pritchett, who has transferred to Nebraska. Formby struggled at right tackle as well, but saw only 291 snaps there to Pritchett's 555.

But it's a problem that pre-dates Formby.

Alabama's last first-year starter at quarterback, Jalen Milroe in 2023, took a whopping 44 sacks that season while his left tackle, Kadyn Proctor, struggled mightily in pass protection as a true freshman, particularly in the first half of the season. Milroe contributed to that by holding the ball too long, and the pressure didn't all come through Proctor, but it gives Alabama fans a very recent example of the messy combination that leaky protection and first-year quarterbacks can make.

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An argument can be made that Alabama hasn't fielded two standout starters at offensive tackle since legendary coach Nick Saban won his last national championship in 2020. The 2021 line lacked consistency at right tackle. The 2022 pairing that featured Tyler Steen at left tackle and a young JC Latham on the right side held up fairly well, although Steen was more of a stop-gap than a dominant force as a transfer from Vanderbilt, and Latham drew a team-high 11 penalty flags as a first-year starter. See above on 2023 and 2024.

In short, for a program that aspires to compete consistently for SEC and national championships, offensive tackle play has been consistently deficient. And Alabama's new quarterback has no chance of performing his best if that doesn't change. DeBoer believes Formby is ready to make that happen.

"I think what you lose sight of sometimes is, if you flipped on the film from a year ago, what would it look like? We're in it every single day with him, and he's focused on the now. You peel back a little and sometimes you forget how far a guy has come," DeBoer said. "And that's the case with (Formby). It's the physical piece, it's the discipline piece, and that's for every guy, but especially for an offensive tackle, there are so many little details now that he's picking up on, that he wouldn't have picked up on even late in the season last year."

As a Tuscaloosa native who grew up rooting for Alabama, Formby is an easy player for fans to get behind. Behind Formby, UA's options include Olaus Alinen, Ball State transfer Arkel Anugwom, and a pair of highly-touted freshmen in Michael Carroll and Jackson Lloyd. But it's Formby who DeBoer watched transform this spring into a different player.

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Perhaps just in time.

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: The time is now for homegrown Alabama football tackle Wilkin Formby