Bryan Harsin reveals most important factor in quarterback as competition starts to close

Auburn football is a bit in flux. The fanbase isn’t totally sold on the new coach Bryan Harsin after a year in the captain’s chair and the team itself is searching for a new quarterback after losing its starter of three years and the source of many a broken television in the homes of Auburn fans: Bo Nix, who transferred to Oregon after breaking his ankle late in the 2021 season.

So there’s a wide open quarterback race in the Plains. Always great fodder for preseason football talk. But the race ought to be winding down with a winner ready to take the reigns by the season-opener in a couple of weeks.

Recently, Harsin met with media to recap a scrimmage, where he offered little info as to who leads the QB competition, but did say all three competitors looked good this past weekend.

You can watch Harsin talk QBs right here or read his comments in full below.

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Bryan Harsin on Auburn QB competition

“Yeah it was good,” he said of the QB performance in the most recent scrimmage. “I thought we started slow, I don’t know. It wasn’t the quarterbacks. I just think we started slow from the offensive standpoint. That’s also a credit to our defense as well. It’s not just, you know, one side wasn’t executing. I thought the defense did a good job in those red zone situations. That’s where we started yesterday.”

What Harsin is looking for, though, isn’t fireworks or huge passes. Auburn needs a steady-demeanored signal caller to run the offense, not just launch the ball a hundred yards.

“But overall, like what we’re looking for from the quarterbacks is operation, you know. And that’s the biggest thing. I mean, I know everybody wants to see these guys go out there and just make plays. But you have to get the call from the sideline, you got to communicate it, you got to operate. And that’s the most important thing, right now, we’re looking for and they did that they did a good job with that. Then they made plays.”

So get the job done, take care of the football, run the offense like a pro, and maybe find an opportunity to make a play or two.

“So probably that third series, fourth series it started to pick up, tempo picked up, execution picked up. And I thought TJ [Finley] did some really good things in the scrimmage as far as just managing the clock and the situations and making sure that we didn’t have to call timeouts. So he has a really good awareness on the field. I thought Robby [Ashford] made some plays, just standing in the pocket and throwing. And made some plays with his feet and getting out and scrambling and making a few throws. Zach [Calzada] did a nice job as well. He moved the chains and scored touchdowns.”

A lot to like from all three main quarterbacks, per Bryan Harsin.

“So all three guys — you know Holden[Geriner] didn’t get a ton of reps in the scrimmage — but those three guys mainly, they all did some positive things that we needed to see from them.”