Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn, shown during last season's Iron Bowl rivalry game against Alabama, said he hopes to settle on some "order" for the team's four quarterbacks now that the Tigers' spring football session is over.AUBURN, Ala. - Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn said all four of his quarterbacks made some big plays in Saturday's A-Day spring game.
A more detailed public assessment, and any comment on the pecking order, will just have to wait.
"We've got quite a few of them we feel like can move the offense," Malzahn said after Saturday's game. "We've got good information, and next week we'll assess everything and see where we're at. We want some order after spring. I think we'll be able to get to that point."
Four contenders with scant experience among them battled during spring practices and scrimmages to replace two-year starter Jarrett Stidham. The most heralded is freshman Bo Nix, an early enrollee, but Joey Gatewood, Cord Sandberg and Malik Willis have also been in the mix. The quartet combined for five touchdown passes Saturday.
Wide receiver Seth Williams said Auburn is in good shape at quarterback, no matter who wins the starting job.
"We're good. We've got a quarterback," said Williams, who caught two touchdown passes from Gatewood. "We've got four quarterbacks, and one of them's going to be our guy. All of them are just good, so we're not going to have a problem there."
Malzahn hasn't offered details on a quarterback depth chart, though Gatewood and Nix took turns leading the first-team offense in the first half of A-Day.
For comparison, Malzahn - Auburn's head coach since the 2013 season, he was the Tigers' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2009 to 2011 - didn't announce that Cam Newton, who wound up winning the Heisman Trophy and leading Auburn to the national title in the 2010 season, had won the starting job until days after the 2010 spring game.
Nix, an early enrollee, is the one of the team's most prized recruits. The son of former Tigers quarterback Patrick Nix, he was the nation's top-rated dual-threat quarterback in the 2019 signing class, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings. He led Pinson Valley High School, coached by his father, to back-to-back Alabama Class 6A titles while setting state high school records for career total offense and touchdowns responsible for.
Nix started strong Saturday, setting up a touchdown pass with a 38-yarder to Williams. He rolled right under pressure and fired back toward the middle for an 11-yard touchdown to Eli Stove, who's returning from a knee injury that sidelined him most of last season.
Nix added a 49-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Hill late in the first half and finished the game 11-of-16 passing for 155 yards and two touchdowns.
"He's improved a lot, but that's to be expected," Malzahn said. "He's a true freshman and still should be in high school. The college game's different, and of course the speed's different and our defense is different. It's been good for him to get used to everything that goes with it."
Willis is the most experienced of Auburn's current quarterbacks, the only one of the four with more than one pass in a college game. He has twice as many collegiate runs (28) as passes (14), though.
He was 7-for-8 for 63 yards and a touchdown Saturday, when he got off to a good start with a 41-yard touchdown pass to Hill, who made the over-the-shoulder catch against the first-team defense. Willis went 5-of-5 for 64 yards on the drive.
Gatewood, a 6-foot-5, 237-pounder who struggled in last year's spring game as an early enrollee, was 8-of-12 for 130 yards and a pair of touchdowns this time around.
"He's a different quarterback than he was at this time last year," Malzahn said. "He does have more confidence. He really has been focused and really desperate to win the job. He's had a very good spring."
Sandberg finished 8-of-9 for 54 yards.