Whichever Auburn quarterback is “rewarded” with the Herculean task of replacing Cam Newton‘s on-field production, there appears to be at least a halfway decent chance he will have the entire summer to brace for the pressure that would come with filling a Heisman- and title-winning quarterback’s cleats.
At least, that’s the current mindset of the Tigers’ offensive boss at the start of the spring sessions.
With head coach Gene Chizik bothered by a flu bug, offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, along with defensive coordinator Ted Roof, held court with the media following the first practice of the spring. Malzahn said the coaching staff would like to see either junior Barrett Trotter (pictured) or redshirt sophomore Clint Moseley rise to the top of the depth chart by the time the 15 sessions are in the books.
“We definitely want to,” Malzahn, the hot offseason head-coaching candidate, said when asked about naming a QB this spring. “It’s going to be a good competition.”
It will also be a competition that’s somewhat incomplete. True freshman Kiehl Frazier will not join the fray until summer camp as he completes his senior year of high school, but some feel that, once he gets on campus, he’ll become a legitimate candidate for the job.
Malzahn said today that he will reintroduce a true Wildcat QB to coincide with Newton’s departure. As Frazier was the No. 5 dual-threat QB in the country, the move back in Wildcat time would seem to give the frosh at least a fighting chance to make the positional battle substantially more intriguing than it already is.
The early line on a favorite, though, seems to slightly favor Trotter, if for nothing more than he’s in his third spring practice with the Malzahn offense. There’s a lot of time between now and the Sept. 3 opener, however. Plenty of time for anything to happen -- including a true freshman trumping his age and lining up under center from the get-go for the defending national champs against Utah State.