This week marks the beginning of Auburn football’s 2022 spring training, and the biggest question heading into head coach Bryan Harsin’s second season on the Plains is who will earn the starting quarterback role.
The five-way competition will kick off during spring training, but it will likely be much closer to the beginning of the 2022 season before any answers emerge as to who will be QB1. TJ Finley likely has the upper hand heading into the QB battle as the only contender that has playing time as the quarterback under Harsin and his staff.
However, many newcomers and staff changes mean that nothing is certain. Between Zach Calzada, Robby Ashford, Holden Geriner, Dee Davis, and Finley, Auburn football’s coaching staff has quite a lot to take into consideration.
For the first week of spring camp, each quarterback will rotate, and Justin Hokanson reports that the order on day one went Finley, Davis, Ashford, Geriner, and then Calzada, who is still recovering from an injury sustained in the offseason, but more than just the reps will be studied in the evaluation:
"“There’s a lot of other reps that aren’t team reps that we have to evaluate. Individual drills, one-on-ones, routs on air, all those things. We’re looking at every single thing. These guys, their life is a documentary right now. We’re going to watch every single thing they do,” Harsin said."
All QB1 contenders will participate in the first scrimmage, and then some separation will be made and the best performers will earn more reps throughout the 15 spring practices. Then, the competition will continue on into the summer.
Harsin noted that the coaching staff will look at who performed well, but also who stood out as a good leader, and he will take input from not only his fellow coaches but also the players on the field before making decisions about who will carry the Tigers into the summer months.