When could Auburn name the starting quarterback?

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When could Bryan Harsin name Auburn’s starting quarterback?

Updated: Jul. 21, 2022, 9:59 a.m.|

Published: Jul. 21, 2022, 9:34 a.m.

The latest on Auburn's quarterback race

By

Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

Don’t expect Auburn to name a starting quarterback until the tail end of August.

Auburn coach Bryan Harsin does not plan to rush the decision on who will take over as the Tigers’ starter this season following the offseason departure of three-year starter Bo Nix. The competition between T.J. Finley, Zach Calzada, Robby Ashford and Holden Geriner began in earnest during spring practice and has carried through the summer months.

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It will continue to wage on well into fall practices, according to Harsin. The second-year coach did not want to commit to a firm deadline for naming a starter, but he gave an indication of when he hopes one is decided upon Thursday at SEC Media Days in Atlanta.

“We’ll have one as we get into that first game prep,” Harsin said. “…I usually say it’s about 10 days out is kind of where it’s happened, but we’ll name a starter when it’s right. There will be a time in camp when everybody knows, and then it’s just a matter of how we want to roll it out. So, we’ll know before you guys know, and then we’ll figure out how we roll it out and how we want that whole thing to go.

“When you do decide who the quarterback’s going to be, that’s a big moment. Everybody’s going to make a big deal out of it, and that particular player is going to have to handle that; the other guys are going to have to handle that. You want to do it the right way.”

Auburn opens the season Sept. 3 at home against Mercer in the first of five consecutive games at Jordan-Hare Stadium to open the season. Ten days prior to the opener would put a decision around Aug. 24. That means a starter could be named three weeks into fall practices, as the team reports for camp Aug. 4 and will hold its first practice Aug. 5.

“It’s going to come down to whoever wants it the most,” running back Tank Bigsby said.

Finley is the lone player in the room who was with the team last season. The former LSU transfer started the final three games of 2021 for Auburn after Nix sustained a season-ending ankle injury. He also came off the bench to lead a second-half rally against Georgia State early in the season, and he finished the year completing 54.7 percent of his passes for 827 yards, six touchdowns and an interception.

Calzada and Ashford both transferred into the program this spring, with Calzada coming over from Texas A&M and Ashford returning to his home state after starting his career at Oregon. Ashford did not see the field at Oregon, but he did impress during his first spring at Auburn, stealing the show on A-Day while taking home offensive MVP honors. He completed 12-of-16 passes for 132 yards during the Tigers’ spring game.

Calzada, meanwhile, was limited in the spring while recovering from an injury to his non-throwing shoulder — which he sustained, incidentally, in Texas A&M’s win against Auburn last season. With the Aggies last year, Calzada completed 56.1 percent of his passes for 2,185 yards, 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions while starting 10 games. His best performance came during an upset of Alabama, when he completed 21-of-31 passes for 285 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.

“I think that helps him; it doesn’t hurt him,” Harsin said of Calzada’s experience at Texas A&M. “He’s been through it, and the one thing about the quarterback position, and Zach in particular coming in there, as a young player, you don’t know what you don’t know, especially at the quarterback position. I would say T.J.’s the same way, those guys that have transferred in… Those guys, as far as how they prepare and what they need to know, and Zach going through a season and the ups and downs, taking hits, makings throws, winning games — they beat Alabama, great, and there were some other subpar performances in there, just the level of consistency you have to have in preparing yourself each and every week, I think that’s where he can bring an advantage to that and just know that it doesn’t matter if it’s Week 7, you’re going to get back in there on Monday and do the same thing, because if you don’t, whatever team you’re playing, they’re going to beat you if you don’t come out there and do the same kind of work and get better.”

Calzada, whose work ethic was lauded by Bigsby — who also said the Texas A&M transfer “has that dog in him” — was cleared for full participation this summer and has been getting requisite reps at the position along with Finley, Ashford and Geriner, the four-star freshman who enrolled in January. Harsin has been impressed with the progress each of the quarterbacks have made this offseason, noting “they’re a lot further than what they were in the spring.”

“Those guys, they’ve really, I think, taken the next step in the film room,” Harsin said. “e know they can throw, they can run, they can do all those things. There’s the physical component to it, but it’s really the mental side, and I feel like our preparation and the study habits that Coach Kiesau has implemented—we’re just further along in those areas. So, they understand the system, they understand what we’re trying to do, they understand why we check something, and they can communicate it so when they’re out there with the other guys, they can explain to our other players why we’re doing something, and that’s something you want your guys to be able to do.”

Even with a decision on a starting quarterback looming over Auburn’s preseason practices, Harsin said that decision won’t necessarily preclude the other quarterbacks from seeing the field this fall.

“The thing about the quarterback position, too, is you may have other guys in there too that contribute,” Harsin said. “It’s not like I haven’t done that in the past, where you got another guy that also comes in and plays and is a part of it, maybe in a package and some other things. We haven’t determined that yet, but when we do, we’ll roll it out, we’ll make it really good for whoever that starter is, and obviously we want to be respectful to the backups because they’re one play away. Those guys are also competing and want to be in that role, but we have to decide what that’s going to look like.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.