Auburn football has seen another quarterback target choose a different school with Spencer Sanders’ decision to join Lane Kiffin and the Ole Miss Rebels on Thursday, January 19. While AU never offered Sanders, there was a registered interest from Hugh Freeze and co.
What could the decision of the new Tigers coaching staff to not offer Sanders, coupled with the Ole Miss coaching staff pursuing yet another signal-caller after landing Walker Howard mean for the two programs moving forward?
Let’s take a look…
Auburn football could be backing Robby Ashford for QB1
Spencer Sanders was the only quarterback Auburn football had been looking at who would’ve had the inside track to the starting job over Robby Ashford. With the former Oklahoma State QB now off the board, the writing may be on the wall for Ashford to be getting the vote of confidence from Freeze and co.
Ashford is a local product who has three years left of eligibility. He helped get the Tigers get through lean times, almost upsetting eventual SEC West champion LSU in the process, before leading the Tigers during the Carnell “Cadillac” Williams era to a non-losing record.
It’s good to see Freeze seemingly make the call to back Ashford for the starting job while developing Hank Brown and Holden Geriner, should the latter get a vote of confidence as well with a coaching staff that didn’t recruit him.
Ole Miss lacked faith in Jaxson Dart
After Ole Miss collapsed down the stretch in 2022, losing five of their last six games, and Jaxson Dart threw five interceptions during those contests, the Rebels staff decided to drown Dart in competition in the QB room.
You could tell this season they didn’t have much confidence in Jaxson Dart. Now he’d have to beat out Sanders. https://t.co/fEqE0SwlYi
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) January 19, 2023
Not only did Ole Miss add Walker Howard, who could be seen as the backup replacement for Luke Altmeyer, but they’ve now added a QB who went for over 2,000 yards passing for over four years in Stillwater.
Sanders and Dart is now a legitimate QB competition in Oxford. That there is a competition shows Ole Miss’ lack of faith in Dart.