Auburn Tigers: Find the next quarterback
Jarrett Stidham did a lot of things well for the Auburn Tigers. In his last season, he helped cover up a lot of issues the team had around him. He deserved better skill players and offensive line like he had in previous years, but he made do with what was on the team.
Without him, Auburn is going to have to figure out how to fix these issues. They have a lot of talent at wide receiver, but it will all come down to who is throwing them the football in November.
There seems to be a few leading candidates for the starting quarterback job. It will come down to either Malik Willis, Joey Gatewood, or Bo Nix. Willis has two seasons at Auburn under his belt, but he hasn’t played enough to earn the spot outright. Gatewood was redshirted as a freshman, so he hasn’t had much of a chance to prove himself as a starting quarterback.
In my eyes, the frontrunner for this race is Bo Nix. Nix was a five-star quarterback prospect who enrolled early to get some time to learn the system. If he shows the ability to grow as a passer, he will probably be the starting quarterback by the time the schedule gets tough.
The most important part of the offense this year will be the passing game. Malzahn is known for having mobile threats at quarterback, but the roster will have talent at the wide receiver position, and this year’s success will revolve around getting the ball to them efficiently.