Auburn football: What Bo Nix’s Oregon decision reveals about OC search

It’s real. Bo Nix is no longer a part of the Auburn football program as its leader but is instead under center for the Pac-12’s perennial power Oregon.

As one of just two teams from the conference to make the College Football Playoff, the Ducks were certainly one of the few jumps Nix could have made that could be seen as a step up from his current situation.

Had he returned to the Plains for his fourth season, he would have had to once again fend off TJ Finley and Dematrius Davis, but also incoming freshman phenom Holden Geriner. Now, Nix figures to beat out all the current freshman (Ty Thompson, Jay Butterfield, Robby Ashford) in replacing Anthony Brown as QB1 in Eugene.

This decision was one Fly War Eagle had seen coming after the report of Nix not looking to make a jump within the SEC or to the Group of Five conferences. Now that it has happened, the Tigers’ OC search is starting to make more sense now.

Once Auburn football passed up on Kenny Dillingham at OC, Bo Nix was a goner.

With the Ducks being the team to poach Kenny Dillingham from Florida State, and the Tigers ultimately choosing a current NFL QB coach from the Pacific Northwest, it was clear that Nix and Bryan Harsin weren’t on the same page in how they saw the next season going.

Now Nix is reunited with the OC he had his best season under, and he does so by joining one of the best college football towns on the west coast. There will be no shortage of NIL offers after seeing what Anthony Brown and other Ducks received, and there will be a far less daunting schedule to deal with. Utah, Washington, and UCLA have nothing on Alabama, Georgia, and Texas A&M.

But this decision makes all the sense of the world through the lens of not landing Dillingham being the key to Nix moving on.