A year after losing five of its final eight games and tying for fourth in the seven-team Western Division, Auburn is the chic choice to win the SEC. This isn’t a pick based on continuity; it’s a convoluted leap of faith.
Those who like the Tigers to win the nation’s most glamorous league are betting that an offense that returns only three starters will be as slick as it was in 2013, when Auburn was 14 seconds from a national championship, and that an wretched defense will get good because it has been entrusted to Will Muschamp, whom Florida just canned. That sounds fanciful. It might not be.
At the opening session of the SEC’s interminable Media Days, the stoic Auburn coach Gus Malzahn did get a tad fanciful, calling Muschamp “the best defensive mind in all of football, not just college football.” (Those thuds you heard were Nick Saban and Bill Belichick falling out of their respective beds.) Overmatched as a head coach, Muschamp actually isn’t bad at overseeing a defense. But let’s get serious: Malzahn’s team won’t win anything if Malzahn’s offense doesn’t cook with gas.
The man charged with implementing that offense is quarterback Jeremy Johnson, a junior who has started two collegiate games but who’s being hailed as a Heisman candidate. “Our offense won’t change at all,” Johnson averred Monday, which wasn’t quite a fib but surely isn’t the truth.
Johnson is listed at 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. He claims to weigh 235. He’s a physical approximation of Cam Newton, who led Auburn — and Malzahn’s offense — to the 2010 BCS title. Nick Marshall, the former Georgia cornerback who became the Tigers’ quarterback in 2013, was differently skilled. “Nick was one of the best zone-read quarterbacks in recent history,” said Malzahn, understating this time.
Johnson will indeed run the zone-read, but he won’t dazzle us with footwork. “I can run,” he said. Then he allowed: “I’m a north-south runner. I’m not an east-west runner.”
What has Auburn fans abuzz is Johnson’s arm. He can throw the ball deeper than Newton and more precisely than Marshall (now with the NFL Jaguars, again a cornerback). Playing the first half of last season’s opener against Arkansas because Marshall was suspended, Johnson completed 12 of 16 passes for 243 yards and two touchdowns. Marshall worked the second half, throwing only six times.
College offenses have concentrated on spreading the field — think Malzahn, think Oregon — but Ohio State showed last winter what can happen if you have a big quarterback with a big arm who can throw over those spread-out defenders. At 6-5 and 250 pounds, Cardale Jones wasn’t the runner Braxton Miller or even J.T. Barrett was, but the Buckeyes won the inaugural College Football Playoff behind a third-string quarterback who delivered the deep ball better than Nos. 1 and 2 ever had.
After Johnson’s splendid half against Arkansas, Malzahn said Johnson “could start for most teams.” That he didn’t start for two years at Auburn was due mostly to Marshall’s zone-read aptitude but was partially a function of age. Johnson arrived on campus — he’s from Montgomery, just down the road — just after Malzahn, who’d been Auburn’s offensive coordinator from 2009 through 2011, returned as head coach.
Malzahn went with the older guy (Marshall) and nearly won a national championship. Now he’s going with Johnson, who has spent two years in the system, which for Malzahn is unusual. Newton was one-and-done. Last year Marshall became the first returning No. 1 quarterback Malzahn had had at Auburn.
“Backing up Nick was a great experience,” Johnson said. “I had a chance to sit back and just learn.”
Now he gets to play, and he’s primed for the moment. “I’m happy to be here,” he said of his appearance before the media gaggle, smiling as he spoke. “I really am.”
He came dressed for the occasion — orange-and-blue bow tie, orange-and-blue boutonniere, orange pocket square. Of Muschamp, Malzahn said: “He’s got the ‘It’ factor.” Darned if there doesn’t seem a bit of “It” about Jeremy Johnson, too.
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