Bryan Harsin addresses questions about letting Bo Nix play through injury

Auburn quarterback Bo Nix broke his ankle against Mississippi State last week. But he played almost the whole game — and Tigers coach Bryan Harsin talked about why he stayed in the game after the injury.

Nix suffered the injury in the third quarter, but ended up playing in the fourth quarter, too. Harsin said he listens to the medical team, and that’s why he let Nix stay in the game.

On the play Nix was injured, Harsin said he didn’t see anything other than a couple players falling into his quarterback, which happens in football. He added it’s just the nature of the game.

“Guys get injured and sometimes, it looks like something [they’ve] done 1,000 times and just as the result of that play was an injury,” Harsin said. “That’s really what it came down to. I don’t think there was anything much out of the ordinary when it came to that play right there. It just happened to be kind of the wrong spot, wrong time and probably positioning as a player. That’s kind of what happens when you get those types of injuries.

“When your feet are planted in the game, you always try to run your feet or always try to move your feet because guys get wiped out and that helps you and keeps you from hopefully having like a lower leg injury throughout a game and even through practice. Sometimes when you’re planted, you get hit just right and things happen. I think that’s what happened after watching it at the end.”

Bryan Harsin: Bo Nix ‘was limping around pretty good’ when TJ Finley entered

Harsin added he listens to the medical team during games, who told him Nix was good to go during the game. However, he pulled Nix late in the fourth quarter because he didn’t think he could play anymore. But he said TJ Finley was ready because he started throwing after Nix suffered the initial injury.

“Really, it came back to Bo and just if he’d go or not,” Harsin said. “He was limping around pretty good at that point in the game. So we got TJ ready. He had been ready, too. The first time Bo came out, [Finley] was kind of warming up and getting himself loose. At that point in the game, it just didn’t feel like or look like Bo could really go, so TJ was going to obviously be ready to go and get him in the game.

At that point, too, could we get a spark and get the ball down the field and make that happen? Because we needed to. We were now in that situation where we’ve got to score and try to score to get quick, we need a field goal at that point. So it really came down to that.”