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Maybe Gus Malzahn watched Texas put on a clinic on how to use more than one quarterback and not lose a game or your team. Or maybe he just studied the film of Clemson 19, Auburn 13 until his eyeballs bled.
Or both.
In any case, give the Auburn coach credit for doing something his harshest critics have suggested he was incapable of doing. He saw the error of his ways, and he made a change.
Malzahn said Tuesday he’s tossing his poorly conceived and executed con game of Three-quarterback Monte into a flaming dumpster where it belongs before it leaves any more scorch marks on his reputation.
OK, that’s not exactly what he said or how he said it, but come Saturday night in Jordan-Hare Stadium, every player on both teams and every fan in the stands won’t be guessing which Auburn quarterback will take the snap on any given play.
Instead, Malzahn said, Sean White will start the game, and John Franklin III will be the backup. As for Jeremy Johnson, thank you for your contributions to the program.
Malzahn nixed Auburn’s three-quarterback system on Tuesday after one week.
Malzahn did say Johnson will get some reps in practice and will be ready if necessary against Arkansas State and beyond, but it appears as if a college career that started with such promise is going to end on the bench unless something goes terribly wrong with White and Franklin.
It’s hard to imagine anything involving the Auburn offense could go more terribly wrong than it did against Clemson. Malzahn changed quarterbacks between and during series, after positive and negative plays. His starting quarterback, White, was never allowed to develop any rhythm. His running quarterback, Franklin, never ran the ball, though the threat of it helped open some holes for Kerryon Johnson.
The shell game inspired unfavorable comparisons to former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville’s less-than-dynamic duo of co-coordinators, Hugh Nall and Steve Ensminger, who brought you the offense known as Nallsminger for the painful 2003 season.
No more tomfoolery, Malzahn said. It became obvious quite early Saturday that the home Tigers were more confused by the quarterback cluster than the visiting Tigers as Auburn scored just 13 points for the third straight game against a Power 5 opponent.
It was unfair to judge the quarterbacks themselves, who spent almost as much time running on and off the field as they did running the offense. We still don’t know if a healthy White can make all the throws, run just enough to be dangerous and turn a higher percentage of his red-zone trips into touchdowns.
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