Former Texas A&M QB Zach Calzada announces commitment to SEC rival

Zach Calzada led Texas A&M to their biggest win in years — a shocking upset over the Alabama Crimson Tide. His future looked bright with the Aggies, but the quarterback decided to enter the transfer portal following the season.

Now, Calzada is set to join one of the Aggies SEC rivals — the Auburn Tigers.

Committed‼️ #WDE 🦅 pic.twitter.com/TCrNFTMCds

— Zach Calzada (@ZachCalzada) January 6, 2022

Auburn has been looking for it’s replacement for quarterback Bo Nix, who decided to transfer to Oregon. With Calzada joining the fold, the bad blood between the Aggies and the Tigers isn’t going anywhere.

Last season, Calzada led Texas A&M to a 20-3 victory over Auburn. While it wasn’t his best game, the quarterback did enough to lock up the win for his team. Evidently, he impressed Auburn coach Bryan Harsin enough during the game that the duo will now combine forces next season.

Furthermore, Calzada, a redshirt sophomore, started 10 games last season in the place of Haynes King who suffered a season-ending leg injury in the first game. He’ll have immediate eligibility at Auburn, as this will be his first time transferring. King, a redshirt freshman, is likely to attempt to regain his starting job for the Aggies come 2022.

The Buford, Georgia, native threw for 2,185 yards, 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions this year for Jimbo Fisher’s 8-4 squad. Calzada’s season completion percentage at 56.1% ranked 13 out of the SEC’s 14 starting quarterbacks.

Coming out of Lanier High School, Calzada was a top-500 prospect with 25 Division-I offers.

Bryan Harsin on the future of Auburn: ‘We want to win’

Auburn made a bowl game in Harsin’s first year with the program. However, with Zach Calzada joining the fold, the duo knows the goal is to do more than play in a bowl game.

The goal is to win — and that’s exactly what he wants to do.

“We want to win, and we want to be successful, and Auburn football should, in my opinion,” Harsin said, following Auburn’s loss in their bowl game. “There’s things to clean up, there’s a lot to do, and we’re here to do it. So these next couple days, we’ll reevaluate where we are, we’re going to dive right into recruiting and we’re going to get back together as a staff and we’ll go through, ‘What did we learn.’ … We’ll get Austin Davis here on staff and we’ll have a team meeting on the 11th and we hit the ground running.

“And we’re not going to back down. That’s just the bottom line. We’ve got a lot of work to do and we know where we want to be and the guys that are in our program that are going to be a part of what we’re doing, they’re going to have the same mentality, too. I know they are because there’s a lot of new faces that are going to be sitting in that team room very soon. I know there’s a lot of guys that are coming back that want those things. … This game is disappointing. Once we get back to Auburn and we have a chance to kind of sit back there for a few hours and take all this in, we’ll get right back on to what we have to do to get better.”