Auburn football: Potential 2022 starting QB Fatal 4-Way brewing

The Auburn football QB room just got a whole lot more interesting. Despite the coaching change and the commitment of freshman quarterback Dematrius Davis, there was no indication that rising junior Bo Nix would ever lose the starting role he’s held for two years.

Now, nothing is certain.

Head coach Bryan Harsin and his support staff kept the ball rolling in the transfer portal this week by landing LSU transfer QB T.J. Finley, who started five games for the Tigers as a freshman.

Since hitting the portal and committing to Auburn, Finley has insisted that he will be fighting for the starting job:

"“Not saying they’re promising me anything, but it’s promising as far as the future. It’s basically that I can come in and compete for the starting job, and if I were good enough to be the No. 1 guy, I would be the No. 1 guy.”"

AL.com’s Tom Green reports that, at its core, the recruitment of T.J. Finley was meant to deepen the depth chart and acquire a more well-equipped player at the quarterback position. While the staff has incoming freshman Dematrius Davis on the Plains, he’s still someone that has never played a minute of collegiate level football.

No one expected Davis to take the starting job from Nix right away, but he was clearly second in line for the QB1 position should something happen. With Finley on the roster, it’s possible that Davis won’t see any playing time at all this year, and things heat up even more in 2022 when 4-star QB recruit Holden Geriner arrives on the Plains.

That’s right. Unless this is the year and Bo Nix somehow ends up in the NFL Draft a year prior to his graduation, the Auburn football team will have a Fatal 4-Way of talent in the QB room. Two four-star recruits out of high school will be battling it out with SEC veterans for the QB1 job.

While there’s always the possibility of someone hitting the transfer portal, especially with the newly minted one-time transfer rule, it doesn’t seem likely at the moment. Dematrius Davis has publicly declared how happy he is to be on the Plains, and Holden Geriner spends a lot of time pushing for Auburn in the comments of potential recruits on Twitter.

For now, it looks like there will be a summertime battle between Finley and Nix for the starting job in 2021, but anything could happen in 2022.