Auburn football: 5 Tigers that could step up following Bo Nix’s injury

Auburn football QB Bo Nix appears to be done in 2021, with a broken ankle reportedly knocking him out of this coming weekend’s rematch from a year ago in Columbia, South Carolina against the Gamecocks and likely the Iron Bowl as well.

The panic button being activated is tempting, but if anything, the Tigers now have the opportunity to play looser and freer now that the expectations are lower.

Auburn is meant to be an underdog, and without Nix, they have become a massive one against Alabama in Week 13. Against South Carolina, they have opened up as a multi-score favorite.

That means that the public is expecting at least one more Auburn football win in 2021 and that can’t happen without players stepping up in the absence of the team’s highest-profile player.

Here are 5 Tigers that could break out following Bo Nix’s injury:

Auburn football QB TJ Finley

With all of the talk from many members of the Auburn family this season about pulling the plug on Bo Nix and handing the keys to the kingdom to TJ Finley behind us, we will finally see that happen due to Nix’s ankle this coming weekend.

All eyes will now be on the LSU transfer–who found the field in the waning moments of this past Saturday’s Mississippi State collapse and threw for an incompletion before fumbling the ball–against the Gamecocks.

Before his quick albeit ineffective run against the Bulldogs on Saturday, we hadn’t seen Finley since the Georgia Bulldogs game. What we need to see moving forward are shades of his Georgia State performance, though, where he played the hero once Bo Nix found the bench.

This time, it isn’t by choice for Bryan Harsin, but he’s deferring to Finley once again to lead the offense with his big arm.