Cole Cubelic chimes in on upcoming Auburn quarterback battle
The Auburn quarterback battle is going to be the main talking point all the way until a starter is named before the season starts.
Robby Ashford, TJ Finley, and Holden Geriner are using this spring practice window as an opportunity to show Hugh Freeze and the rest of the new staff why it should be them.
Many Auburn fans hope the answer is not Finley, but after the first spring practice, it seems his name is in the running for this job more so than many would have imagined.
On his podcast, The Cube Show, former Auburn offensive lineman, and current ESPN and SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic shared his thoughts on the Auburn quarterback battle.
Here is what he said: "What are some things that we are watching? Offense, let's start there. We know quarterback, right? Robby Ashford. You've got Hugh Freeze, you've got Philip Montgomery, you've got Kent Austin on this staff, so the development should be able to take place. TJ Finley still has a lot of experience; keep in mind TJ Finley's played a lot of football. He was forced into being a starter at LSU. Bo Nix goes down; he's a starter at Auburn. He got the start in the bowl game, so he's played in a post-season game. I think people forget sometimes that TJ Finley, even though it all hasn't been great, he's played a lot of football. I do think there may be some development left in TJ. Now he doesn't add the dynamic run ability that Robby does, but he's a guy that still could give you a veteran presence from a certain standpoint that's played a lot of ball that could potentially help you out. Maybe as a starter or maybe just as a backup who needs to come in and play at times on the roster. We've seen across college football you better have two that can play. I mean, hell, we're talking about Auburn. That's a perfect example of the last couple seasons."
"Holden Geriner is going to be there; I don't think you count him out. When I talked to Hugh Freeze a couple of weeks ago, he likes him. He likes his competitive nature. The kid goes out and works his a** off. Wants to try to be good. He wants to compete for the job. Hugh's going to let them all compete. Don't think that any of these quarterbacks are going to come into this situation and not have the opportunity to play. They absolutely will."
"But I want to go back to Robby for a moment. We mentioned it with TJ. Think about this with Robby, too; he played a lot last year. I mean, you got what a good three-quarters of a season as like the guy or whatever it was. Go back to this time a year ago. I had the Auburn spring game last year, so I met with Harsin. I went to practice a couple of times. I called the game. Richard Cross and I were there on the sideline talking to Harsin about Robby during the game. He was almost an afterthought right now going into spring ball. Then remember through spring ball, a little more discussion, little more discussion, little more discussion, and like midway through spring ball, it kind of got to like, oh, could we have a package for this guy? Then toward the end of spring ball, it was like, he's going to play. He came a long way in one spring. He didn't play a ton of football at Oregon. He missed the majority of his senior year at Hoover. That's one thing that Hugh and I talked about a little bit is the amount of development that's left in these Auburn quarterbacks. I think is way past what a lot of people believe."
The more people talk about it, the more it seems like this truly is a three-man race.
It's going to be the talking point of spring and summer to find out who will sling it for the Auburn Tigers in 2023.
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