Auburn’s Byrum Brown Earns High Praise from National Media

The Auburn Tigers have undoubtedly found themselves a beacon of hope in Byrum Brown, a quarterback who transferred over from USF earlier this year. Brown has consistently been a top-level dual-threat over his few years at USF, and now, he is following his head coach, Alex Golesh, to the Plains.

Just how good is Brown, exactly? ESPN’s Bill Connelly believes Brown could single-handedly make a massive difference for the Tigers’ offense.

“If quarterback Byrum Brown is as good as I think he is -- and I think he's really, really good -- then the Auburn offense should play at a top-40 level for the first time since 2019,” he said. “Brown is a dynamite dual threat who should get plenty of help from backs Jeremiah Cobb, Bryson Washington (Baylor) and Nykahi Davenport (USF) and a quartet of former USF receivers: Keshaun Singleton, Christian Neptune, Jeremiah Koger and Chas Nimrod.”

Brown has already drawn comparisons to Auburn legend Cam Newton, who similarly transferred in from a non-Power Four program and played just one year at Auburn. However, if Brown is looking to fill Newton’s shoes, he will certainly have some work to do– an undefeated season and a Heisman win are not exactly easy to pull off, though Brown has already received a bit of Heisman hype.

The unfortunate aspect of all the hype Brown has gotten since transferring to Auburn is that the spotlight now shines clearly and definitively on him, meaning any minor negative aspect of his game will almost certainly become a trending topic on social media.

As such, armchair quarterbacks across the country have shared their less-than-favorable opinions of Brown’s throwing motion, prompting the Tigers’ head coach to issue a response, which boiled down to ‘wait and see.’

However, there are still aspects of the Tigers’ offense that could be shaken by a grueling SEC schedule, Connelly notes.

“As with plenty of other transfer-heavy attacks, I'm not sure if the line will hold up,” he said. “Last year's top five linemen are gone, and Golesh will be asking a majority of nine transfers to come through and play as a cohesive unit. But unless the line craters, the rest of Golesh's explosive and up-tempo attack should produce solid improvement.”

The offensive line, ironically, was also a point of concern last year, as Jackson Arnold was sacked more than any other SEC quarterback during his time as the starter. Brown has an affinity for scrambling and creating production out of busted plays, but he cannot do that forever or in every scenario.

There is simply no way to know how the Tigers’ unit will perform until, well, they start performing, so Golesh’s ‘wait and see’ genre of thinking towards the season may be, in fact, the best possible way to approach Brown and the Tigers’ offense, who have all seen significant hype and significant hate throughout their first few months on Auburn’s campus.

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