Jalen Milroe will start for Alabama football at quarterback vs. Middle Tennessee

After months of speculation, Jalen Milroe will start the game against Middle Tennessee at quarterback for Alabama football, sources with direct knowledge confirmed to The Tuscaloosa News.

Milroe is in his third season with the program.

Milroe has been competing with Ty Simpson, Tyler Buchner and Dylan Lonergan for the opening at quarterback that stemmed from Bryce Young's departure to the NFL. Milroe is the most experienced at Alabama, having started the game against Texas A&M a season ago. Simpson is in his second season with the program and mainly saw time in cleanup duty late in games in 2022. Buchner transferred from Notre Dame after the spring. Lonergan is a freshman.

Nick Saban has repeatedly said during the preseason that whoever starts initially won't necessarily have that job locked in all season. The competition, he has insisted, will continue.

"Fall camp is not the beginning of the end," Saban said in August. "You got an opportunity to separate yourself you can play with consistency and play winning football at the position, but that competition goes on and on and on and we need all our quarterbacks to continue to improve and continue to compete, compete far beyond even the time that we name a starter."

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Saban said Thursday that Alabama wants to play more than one quarterback against Middle Tennessee on Saturday (6:30 p.m., SEC Network).

"I've told the guy who's going to start the game, we want you to play well enough so we have an opportunity to play all the guys at the position because that's important for us," Saban said Thursday during his radio show at Baumhower's Victory Grille.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Jalen Milroe will start for Alabama football vs. MTSU