Auburn football: Ranking every starting quarterback since Cam Newton
Sean White came to The Plains as a four-star recruit and MVP of the Under-Armour All-American game. It wouldn’t take long for White to see the field as he started five games as a redshirt freshman in 2015.
Like Trotter and Newton, White had the unfortunate task of following the Nick Marshall era at Auburn and the results were very much mixed. He didn’t play well in 2015 but in 2016, White was the primary starter for the Tigers and turned in a decent effort.
In 2016, White played in 11 games, making 10 starts. He led the SEC in completion percentage (63.9 percent) but with the Auburn offense leaning on Kamryn Pettway and Kerryon Johnson, White wasn’t asked to do too much.
Still, White was careful with the ball and only threw three interceptions alongside nine touchdowns. Right when we were starting to see the talent that had him so highly touted coming out of high school, White was suspended to start the 2017 season for an undisclosed reason and then was arrested on a public intoxication charge and released from the team.
White never went on to play football anywhere else but did leave Auburn as the first freshman to start a game since 1999.
If this were a list of the most disappointing quarterbacks in Auburn history, Jeremy Johnson would be the easy number one. A four-star prospect and one of the best recruits in the state of Alabama, Johnson and his 6-foot-5, 240-pound frame were a sight to behold.
Blessed with great size, a rocket arm and strong athleticism, the comparisons to Newton were inevitable. Expectations for Johnson only rose when he flashed incredible potential as the backup to Nick Marshall.
Johnson got his first career start against Western Carolina in place of an injured Marshall and dominated completing 17 of his 21 passes and threw four touchdowns. Two weeks later, Johnson once again replaced an injured Marshall and threw another two TDs.
It would be two more seasons before we got to see Johnson as the Tigers main starter but the hype train was already chugging along. The hype for Johnson was so big that even before his college career got off to a real start in 2015, he was named a dark-horse Heisman candidate.
Although Johnson had two interceptions and four interceptions to start that season, the Tigers still won the game and the hype was still there.
Unfortunately, it seemed his poor play really shot Johnson’s confidence and while he showed glimpses, he never really became the player we saw in his first two seasons.
In 10 games in 2016, the former four-star recruit completed 60.5 percent of his passes for 1,053 yards, 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions while also adding six TDs on the ground. Not awful but certainly far below expectations.
Johnson would battle for playing time with Sean White and John Franklin III the next season but finished his Auburn career as one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory.
Johnson had a brief stint in the CFL and is now a member of the Spokane Shock of the Indoor Football League.