Auburn football: What direction Andy Burcham is leaning in QB race

Andy Burcham had a surprising take on the QB situation Auburn football HC Bryan Harsin has a little more than a week to sort through before the Tigers take the field on September 3rd against Mercer.

The radio voice of Auburn football, and everything else AU, is leaning towards Hoover product Robby Ashford to be the eventual starter as the season progresses. Finley will be QB1 in Week 1 (and ideally, beyond) but according to Burcham, Ashford’s improvement will show on the field in whatever role he ends up having.

Harsin has hinted there could be multiple quarterback packages within the offense in 2022, so the faith Burcham has in the third-year transfer out of Oregon–who has yet to be on the field for a snap in the NCAA–comes from believing defenses won’t be ready for his happy feet when No. 9 is behind center.

Burcham was highly complimentary of Ashford on the ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning‘ show on WJOX out of Birmingham:

"“I don’t know if we’ll learn this from Bryan Harsin this week or we’ll find out in Game 1 against Mercer, just how much Robby Ashford figures into the offense, even if he’s not the starting quarterback.”“He’s the best two-way threat or dual threat that Auburn has in the quarterback room, and I think he’s gone the furthest since he came on campus in January. I’m anxious to see what kind of packages we see for Robby Ashford.”"

Andy Burcham believes Auburn football QB T.J. Finley has become more of a starter than he was

Andy Burcham believes in T.J. Finley undergoing a transformation in the offseason with things finally starting to look like a normal NCAA athletic experience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic during the LSU transfer’s first two seasons.

He said that Finley ‘had a chance to establish some leadership in the quarterback room and with the offense’ and pointed out that he’s now been with this program for a year to establish himself in the quarterback room.

“I think he’s more accurate, and I think he’s more of that starting quarterback than he was.” Based on Burcham’s takeaways, it sounds like the Tigers have a two-man platoon that will all but doublehandedly hold the hopes of the Bryan Harsin era in their hands.

And they may just be ready for the task at hand.