Most important Tigers for the 2020 season: Bo Nix

[aubiefifty 18,231]

Most important Tigers for the 2020 season: Bo Nix

ByJason Caldwell

4-5 minutes

---

 

AUBURN, Alabama—Coming off a football season when he was named the SEC Freshman of the Year, Auburn quarterback Bo Nix is looking to improve his numbers with Chad Morris taking over the offensive coordinator role for the Tigers.

Completing 58 percent of his passes for 2,542 yards and 16 touchdowns and six interceptions while adding seven rushing scores, Nix did some good things for the Tigers, but there is plenty of room for improvement heading into year two.

Having Morris to work with should help unlock some of that with the Tigers expected to become a more wide open offense that utilizes the RPO much more than Auburn did a season ago. That’s what Nix has done his entire life so it should be an easy transition for him to adapt to Morris’ style of play.

Even though they didn’t have a spring practice together, Nix said getting in the office early with Morris and learning as much of the offense as possible is going to be important when they are able to get on the field together this season.

“Looking back, I'm glad I did that, and I'm glad I went in there from the start,” Nix said of his talks with Morris. “We really got a good jump on things and we were really looking forward to going into spring because we were already kind of ahead just as a quarterback room in general. 

“Then we were going to bring our guys along as we went so, obviously, not having spring, not having an extra set of practice, especially after a year of playing, I mean that kind of hurts. You wish you could have it back, but at the end of the day, everybody did it and nobody got their spring practice.”

Something to build on for Nix is that his numbers were much better in the second half of games last year, especially in the fourth quarter. In the second half in 2019, Nix completed 62.5 percent of his passes with 10 touchdowns and only two interceptions. In the fourth quarter his completion percentage was 63.9 percent with four touchdowns and one interception.

Like most quarterbacks, Nix needs to continue to get better on third downs. That was the biggest issue a season ago. After completing 67.8 percent of his passes on first down with 11 touchdowns and one interception, the numbers dropped to 51.7 percent on second down with three touchdowns and four interceptions.

On third down is when the struggles really came. Overall on third down plays Nix completed 49.5 percent of his passes with one touchdown and one interception. Attempting 105 passes on third down, Nix completed 52 with Auburn converting on 37 for first down.

Keeping drives alive is the name of the game and if Nix and Morris can do that more often in 2020 the Tigers have a chance to really take a step forward as an offense.

 

Bo Nix and Chad Morris will work together for the first time in 2020. (Photo: Jason Caldwell, Inside the Auburn Tigers)