Bo Nix vs Sean White: Who's the better quarterback?

My very first appearance on ESPN radio was back in February of 2021. It was my first episode co-hosting On The Line, a show created by Noah Gardner years ago. Gardner and I shot the bull for the first 15 minutes or so of the two-hour show, until eventually Noah brought something up in the middle of a QB discussion that I had thrown his way off-air: Sean White is just as good of a passer as Bo Nix.

Noah explained when you adjust White's stats to Nix's attempts, White came out with more touchdowns, slightly more interceptions, and a little over a thousand yards extra.

The phone calls rolled in for the next hour and a half.

There was a serious debate surrounding Auburn's offensive line, their personnel, the backfields, everything. Fans were furious that we would even suggest that White was in the same stratosphere as Bo Nix.

The only point I was trying to make was that from a completion percentage and passer rating standpoint Sean White was a more efficient passer. Not a better overall QB. Fans still lost their mind over it.

I decided to revisit the argument today.

Over the course of his three seasons at Auburn, Bo Nix started 34 games. He completed 628 of his 1,057 pass attempts (59.4% comp.) for 7,251 yards. He threw 39 touchdowns to 16 interceptions.

Nix also added 869 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns on the ground.

Bo took a small step forward in his junior season (2,294 yards, 11 touchdowns, three interceptions) with Bryan Harsin before suffering a season-ending injury vs Mississippi State.

It's pretty widely accepted that during his time at Auburn, Nix was an exceptional athlete who had subpar accuracy and questionable decision making. Most would agree that as of right now, he's not lived up to the five-star rating he had coming out of high school. Part of it has been his own doing, but there's a considerable amount of blame that could be thrown onto his coaching staff.

That's another conversation for another time.

Sean White started 17 games for the Tigers during his two seasons on the Plains. He completed 216 of his 351 pass attempts (61.5%) for 2,845 yards. He threw 10 touchdowns to seven interceptions.

White was thrown into the fire during his freshman season after Jeremy Johnson flamed out pretty quickly. He was not particularly impressive, throwing only one touchdown and four interceptions in 2015.

In 2016, however, his numbers took a jump. He led the SEC in completion percentage (63.9%), finished second in adjusted passing yards per attempt (8.2), and had the fourth best pass efficiency rating in the conference (143.1).

White was not a stellar athlete and benefitted from one of the better backfields in the nation in 2016. However, he made sound decisions when given the opportunity to throw and showed solid improvement following a weird year one.

Bo Nix's 1,057 pass attempts significantly outweigh White's 351 attempts.

I ran the numbers with a weighted calculator to see what Sean White's passing numbers would look like if he had Nix's pass attempts:

8,561 passing yards (62.0% comp.)

30 touchdowns

14 interceptions

8.1 yards per attempt

Allow me to explain some of these numbers.

White's progression from 2015 to 2016 can't be ignored. If I wanted to figure out how many interceptions he would have thrown over 1,057 pass attempts including data from his 2015 season (calculating his interceptions using his average amount of pass attempts per INT, then dividing 1,057 by that number) I would have gotten a little over 21 interceptions.

After throwing an interception every 69.3 attempts in 2016, it is fair to assume that Sean White (barring injury) was not going to revert back to his 2015 form (1/4 TD/INT). Therefore, I used a weighted calculator to slightly favor his 2016 numbers within his average pass attempts per touchdown and interception (NOTE: using only his 2016 numbers would have given white a TD/INT ratio of 45/15, which is unrealistic in my opinion given no Auburn quarterback has ever come close to those numbers) I based the weight I placed on 2016 on his improved passer rating as well as the amount of games he played.

Like I mentioned earlier, there are several variables surrounding White's weighted statistics that may change the outcome of his production.

The first is offensive line play. Fans seem to believe that Sean White had a better offensive line than Nix. Allow me to share these numbers:

Sean White started 17 games for Auburn and took 25 sacks (1.47 per game). Not bad, right? That's a sack every 14.04 pass attempts (A fun stat within a stat here: Alabama quarterback Bryce Young took a sack every 14.03 pass attempts this past season).

Bo Nix started 34 games and took 50 sacks (1.47 per game). Not only is that the same amount of sacks per game as White, but it's also significantly better when you look at Nix's sacks per pass attempt: 21.14.

Nix's scrambling ability is another variable here. Was the ability to escape pressure altering how many times Bo could have actually been sacked?

According to SEC Stat Cat, Auburn's 2021 offensive line allowed a pressure rate of 31.1%, eighth in the SEC. However, Auburn also had the third-best scramble percentage (3.66%). Quarterbacks didn't bail often. On top of that, Nix had the second-best sack percentage in the SEC (3.4%) and the eighth-best pressure rate in the SEC. While Nix's scrambling ability was valuable, Auburn's offensive line held their own. Often times, Nix would float into pressure or bail from the pocket without needing to, as shown by his throwaway percentage (5.86%, third-worst in the SEC).

Note that staying in the pocket and delivering downfield is something that Nix got better at in 2021. Before you say his offensive lines from 2020 and 2019 were worse, know that the 23 sacks (still 36th nationally) Auburn gave up in 2021 were the most of Nix's tenure (20 in 2020, 18 in 2019).

Another variable in this equation is White's amount of sacks taken per pass attempt. If he had 1,057 attempts, he would have been sacked significantly more. While considering Nix's play improving if he had a "better" offensive line, also consider White's play declining if he had to throw as much as Nix and the Auburn offense elected to.

There was no Kamryn Pettway or Kerryon Johnson in Bo Nix's backfield.

Sean White was simply a game manager when Auburn's ground game was clicking, and it was clicking often. The Tigers averaged 4.91 yards per carry during White's two seasons.

Auburn's ground game was not the same under Nix. They averaged 4.67 yards per carry from 2019-21. This number is also slightly skewed because of the all-SEC schedule in 2020. Non-conference games would have slightly brought this number up.

Even if it did, the fact still stands: Auburn's ground game was slightly worse when Bo Nix was the quarterback. The Tigers either elected to throw the ball more or were forced to throw depending on the situation. It appears that quarterback play somewhat hinges on the offenses ability to run the ball. This was also proven during the Jarrett Stidham era, when Auburn took a dip from 4.76 yards per carry to 4.25 the following year, Stidham's production suffered, and Auburn's passer rating went from fifth to eighth in the SEC.

Could Nix have played better if he had a more solid running game to depend on?

Well, let's see. Auburn averaged 174.2 rushing yards per game during Nix's tenure. In the 17 games Nix played in that Auburn eclipsed that rushing total, he was 279 of 448 (62.3% comp.) for 3,381 yards with a TD/INT ratio of 23/5. He averaged 198.9 passing yards per game, and the Tigers went 14-3 (including 7-0 in 2019 when Auburn averaged 199.1 rushing yards per game) and 4-2 against top 25 opponents.

In short, yes. When Auburn's ground game worked, Nix didn't necessarily light up the world in terms of passing yardage, but he was more efficient than his average output.

While White would have posted very similar stats to Nix had he thrown the ball as much, Nix's ceiling with Auburn will forever be an unknown due to things outside of his control. While Bo was not the most accurate passer, nor the greatest when finally given the opportunity to shine, he would have benefitted from a stronger run game, better scheme, and better personnel surrounding him. Overall, Nix probably has/had the higher upside as an all-around quarterback.

The fact still stands, Sean White was a more efficient passer.

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