Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn's message after the spring game is he's not worried about no QB starter being declared.
AUBURN – After 15 practices including multiple scrimmages and the A-Day exhibition game, Auburn's program left the spring season without a winner in the quarterback competition.
Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn says he's not worried about this and fans shouldn't be either. The latter of that group is not likely to stop being concerned about the critical offensive position on the field.
"I'm not concerned about nobody separating themselves on a day like this," Malzahn said on April 9 after the Auburn's spring game.
In the same response Malzahn used his prized pupil, 2010 Heisman Trophy winner and reigning NFL most valuable player Cam Newton, as a puzzling example to why fans shouldn't be focusing on A-Day game results as a talking point to Auburn's quarterback debate.
The problem with Malzahn's comparison to the 2010 quarterback battle, when he was Auburn's offensive coordinator under head coach Gene Chizik, and this current positional contest is obviously the result Despite struggling to a disappointing spring game where he was 3-of-8 for 80 yards, Malzahn's boss handed the starting job to Newton over Neil Caudle, Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley.
"After thoroughly evaluating our quarterbacks during spring practice and over the last week, Cam has emerged as our post-spring No. 1 quarterback," Chizik said in a statement four days after the 2010 Auburn spring game.
None of the three Auburn quarterbacks did anything to distinguish themselves in the A-Day spring game leaves Malzahn with a major problem heading into the summer and fall. This is certainly a problem he and Malzahn's staff thought he'd solved with the increased experience of Jeremy Johnson and Sean White along with the signing of Franklin III.
Malzahn, who has admitted to highly valuing spring evaluations, refused to do with this 2016 quarterback battle what Chizik did in 2010 and he did last spring when naming Johnson as the starter for the 2015 season.