Auburn 'in conversations' with more QBs on transfer board

[DAG 33,980]

7 minutes ago, e808 said:

Looks like Tulane Quarterback is out the question. He is staying put

From what I understand that might not be completely closed just yet.

[AUwent 3,748]

8 minutes ago, metafour said:

This is a silly question and some of you really need to come back down to earth on Ashford.

Here is your reality: Sanders is a 4-year P5 starter who has actually completed passes at a ~62-63% rate prior to this past season. 2022 was actually the "outlier" for him, and even then, his "bad" season resulted in an ~8% higher completion percentage than Ashford's woefully bad 49% completion percentage this past season.

Robby Ashford is a third year player who was running 4th string at Oregon before he transferred to Auburn. At Auburn, he was a 3rd string player behind two very average QB's in TJ Finley and Zach Calzada. He could not beat out TJ Finley for the starting job out of fall camp, and don't forget that Calzada suffered a freak non-football injury to his shoulder which is the only reason why Ashford was able to play in the first place. Calzada himself is a QB who came here because he could not beat out a woefully average Haynes King at Texas A&M.

So you are essentially asking whether or not a guy who hasn't been able to win a legitimate QB competition at two schools and has spent his entire career as a 3rd/4th stringer is "as good" as a multi-year P5 starter at a Top 25 program. When Ashford did get to play this season, the results line up with why he was where he was on the depth chart at Oregon, and why he couldn't even unseat TJ Finley here: 49% completion, as many INT's as he had passing TD's, and this one is less obvious: he was actually among the national leaders in fumbles this past season with something like 8 or 9. He is highly inaccurate and VERY turnover prone. That is the worst combo you can have at QB.

Spencer Sanders is turnover prone himself and is far from perfect, but he is absolutely an upgrade on Ashford and actually has some track record of success. What did we do offensively once Harsin was let go? They basically warped the offense back in time and started running a throwback 1950's/1060's offense that utilized Ashford as essentially a 3rd RB. Look at his stats with Carnell as the interim: he had nearly as many rushing attempts as he did passing attempts. They did this because he was woefully inefficient throwing the football, and thus the only chance we had to compete offensively was to play a throwback run-dominant offense. This is NOT a good implication for Ashford's ability as an actual QB, and it obviously correlated with Freeze's pursuit of high-end transfer portal starters. 

Too much is made of the supposed lack of offensive system for Ashford and now his injury, when you need to simply look at where he was on the actual depth chart at two different P5 schools and the glaring flaws he showed as the starter this past season. He plays hard and is very athletic, but he is SO far behind in terms of actual ability to play the QB position. These are actually flaws that he showed back in HS as well; hence why he had to go to Oregon. He is an athlete trying to play QB, and if you actually evaluate intently, pretty much all of his actual positive plays from this past season came on broken plays wherein he was able to do something with his legs enough for a pass to open for him. You can't rely on that type of QB play to compete in this league, or really anywhere at the P5 level.

 

We need to be pressing him HARD. Can we expect other QBs to enter in the coming days?

Edited January 2, 2023 by AUwent

[e808 3,025]

32 minutes ago, metafour said:

This is a silly question and some of you really need to come back down to earth on Ashford.

Here is your reality: Sanders is a 4-year P5 starter who has actually completed passes at a ~62-63% rate prior to this past season. 2022 was actually the "outlier" for him, and even then, his "bad" season resulted in an ~8% higher completion percentage than Ashford's woefully bad 49% completion percentage this past season.

Robby Ashford is a third year player who was running 4th string at Oregon before he transferred to Auburn. At Auburn, he was a 3rd string player behind two very average QB's in TJ Finley and Zach Calzada. He could not beat out TJ Finley for the starting job out of fall camp, and don't forget that Calzada suffered a freak non-football injury to his shoulder which is the only reason why Ashford was able to play in the first place. Calzada himself is a QB who came here because he could not beat out a woefully average Haynes King at Texas A&M.

So you are essentially asking whether or not a guy who hasn't been able to win a legitimate QB competition at two schools and has spent his entire career as a 3rd/4th stringer is "as good" as a multi-year P5 starter at a Top 25 program. When Ashford did get to play this season, the results line up with why he was where he was on the depth chart at Oregon, and why he couldn't even unseat TJ Finley here: 49% completion, as many INT's as he had passing TD's, and this one is less obvious: he was actually among the national leaders in fumbles this past season with something like 8 or 9. He is highly inaccurate and VERY turnover prone. That is the worst combo you can have at QB.

Spencer Sanders is turnover prone himself and is far from perfect, but he is absolutely an upgrade on Ashford and actually has some track record of success. What did we do offensively once Harsin was let go? They basically warped the offense back in time and started running a throwback 1950's/1060's offense that utilized Ashford as essentially a 3rd RB. Look at his stats with Carnell as the interim: he had nearly as many rushing attempts as he did passing attempts. They did this because he was woefully inefficient throwing the football, and thus the only chance we had to compete offensively was to play a throwback run-dominant offense. This is NOT a good implication for Ashford's ability as an actual QB, and it obviously correlated with Freeze's pursuit of high-end transfer portal starters. 

Too much is made of the supposed lack of offensive system for Ashford and now his injury, when you need to simply look at where he was on the actual depth chart at two different P5 schools and the glaring flaws he showed as the starter this past season. He plays hard and is very athletic, but he is SO far behind in terms of actual ability to play the QB position. These are actually flaws that he showed back in HS as well; hence why he had to go to Oregon. He is an athlete trying to play QB, and if you actually evaluate intently, pretty much all of his actual positive plays from this past season came on broken plays wherein he was able to do something with his legs enough for a pass to open for him. You can't rely on that type of QB play to compete in this league, or really anywhere at the P5 level.

 

Some said context is important. U said 49% but he didn’t play as the starter every single game. He was rotating in and out. Had he started maybe his percentage goes up maybe it doesn’t.
My point is if Sanders comes he shouldn’t be automatically given the job. He needs to compete. U said Sanders is turnover prone and think that’s in the BIG 12. If the SEC is a better conference (defensively) imagine what that’s gonna look like.

I only brought BO up earlier because some had issues with him. Sanders is worse than him and the conference he played in isn’t known for defense. Had it been McCall or O’Leary then fine.  I am pretty sure Sanders didn’t play under worse conditions than Robby did this year but somehow he got worse as a 4 year starter.

Edited January 2, 2023 by e808

[AU-24 3,069]

10 hours ago, metafour said:

This is a silly question and some of you really need to come back down to earth on Ashford.

Here is your reality: Sanders is a 4-year P5 starter who has actually completed passes at a ~62-63% rate prior to this past season. 2022 was actually the "outlier" for him, and even then, his "bad" season resulted in an ~8% higher completion percentage than Ashford's woefully bad 49% completion percentage this past season.

Robby Ashford is a third year player who was running 4th string at Oregon before he transferred to Auburn. At Auburn, he was a 3rd string player behind two very average QB's in TJ Finley and Zach Calzada. He could not beat out TJ Finley for the starting job out of fall camp, and don't forget that Calzada suffered a freak non-football injury to his shoulder which is the only reason why Ashford was able to play in the first place. Calzada himself is a QB who came here because he could not beat out a woefully average Haynes King at Texas A&M.

So you are essentially asking whether or not a guy who hasn't been able to win a legitimate QB competition at two schools and has spent his entire career as a 3rd/4th stringer is "as good" as a multi-year P5 starter at a Top 25 program. When Ashford did get to play this season, the results line up with why he was where he was on the depth chart at Oregon, and why he couldn't even unseat TJ Finley here: 49% completion, as many INT's as he had passing TD's, and this one is less obvious: he was actually among the national leaders in fumbles this past season with something like 8 or 9. He is highly inaccurate and VERY turnover prone. That is the worst combo you can have at QB.

Spencer Sanders is turnover prone himself and is far from perfect, but he is absolutely an upgrade on Ashford and actually has some track record of success. What did we do offensively once Harsin was let go? They basically warped the offense back in time and started running a throwback 1950's/1060's offense that utilized Ashford as essentially a 3rd RB. Look at his stats with Carnell as the interim: he had nearly as many rushing attempts as he did passing attempts. They did this because he was woefully inefficient throwing the football, and thus the only chance we had to compete offensively was to play a throwback run-dominant offense. This is NOT a good implication for Ashford's ability as an actual QB, and it obviously correlated with Freeze's pursuit of high-end transfer portal starters. 

Too much is made of the supposed lack of offensive system for Ashford and now his injury, when you need to simply look at where he was on the actual depth chart at two different P5 schools and the glaring flaws he showed as the starter this past season. He plays hard and is very athletic, but he is SO far behind in terms of actual ability to play the QB position. These are actually flaws that he showed back in HS as well; hence why he had to go to Oregon. He is an athlete trying to play QB, and if you actually evaluate intently, pretty much all of his actual positive plays from this past season came on broken plays wherein he was able to do something with his legs enough for a pass to open for him. You can't rely on that type of QB play to compete in this league, or really anywhere at the P5 level.

 

Everything you wrote is 100% factually true and makes perfect common sense. With that in mind, all that truth just doesn’t matter to a certain handful of people on this board.

[GreenTiger 1,005]

Garrett Nussmeier????? 
Not the experienced QB we might be after but seems to have a solid skill base. 

[bigbird 60,513]

3 hours ago, GreenTiger said:

Garrett Nussmeier

Yes, please 

[AuburnNTexas 7,140]

20 hours ago, e808 said:

Yes but Bo improved every single year . Sanders played at the same school and same coach Bo has played for 3 different coaches and still improved. Some may disagree but had he finished 2021 Auburns record would have been better. Had he given another year Harsin might still a job so it worked out for all involved.

Robby was one to one in his stats this year(sanders career 60 something tds to 40 something picks).He was also playing musical chairs at the quarterback position with Finley. He had a coach with no clue, less than stellar oline and played games while being injured. Just looking at overall stats Sanders is just as likely to turn the ball over as Robby. Sanders can be brought in to compete but shouldn’t be a lock at the position over Robby or Holden. That’s just my half a cent opinion 

That is a valid point but in college there is a turnover of players around you. Bo basically had the same O-line every year which while not good was also better every year and had 2 receivers around him that were NFL capable as one was drafted and other was picked up for a while.   I don't know if Sanders O-Line was better or worse from year to year same thing for his receivers.  I do know that at Oregon last year other then the Georgia game Bo had a solid pocket most of the time and some very good receivers.   In the Georgia game where Bo was pressured we saw the BO we saw at Auburn make some great throws and also make mistakes. That said most QB's don't play as well when constantly pressured.

Sanders like RA is a very good runner with a much higher completion percentage so is worth a shot if we can bring him onboard. I agree if Sanders comes in he would not be a lock to start as maybe RA will improve with better coaching or maybe RA is just a great athlete playing QB but is not really a true QB.  

[AuburnNTexas 7,140]

I hope the Tulane QB joins the Portal and that the USC game was his showing us what he could bring to Auburn. I was very impressed by his throwing, running but even more importantly his decision making. There is some talk he might enter Portal but most think he will stay at Tulane. A man can dream as I think he would be a great fit in just about any system. 

[Potatooooooes!! 1,375]

9 hours ago, AU-24 said:

 With that in mind, all that truth just doesn’t matter to a certain handful of people on this board.

That's a theme around here unfortunately

Edited January 3, 2023 by Potatooooooes!!

[gr82b4au 5,568]

It seems like we are not sure on Sanders. He’s been in the portal for several weeks and no movement. 

Which QB if any visits this weekend? 

 

[e808 3,025]

12 minutes ago, gr82b4au said:

It seems like we are not sure on Sanders. He’s been in the portal for several weeks and no movement. 

Which QB if any visits this weekend? 

 

As they should be. IMO Tulane QB is a better option or even Nussmeier. Sanders just has years on the other QB’s on the roster and just as turnover prone. His numbers to me say marginal improvement at best and theirs is no data on Holden to say if he is good or bad. We just know last year wasn’t ideal for him to be thrown into the fire.

Auburn had a Qb with similar numbers and there were complaints. Now bring in another QB from a different conference with similar numbers . I know he would be a stop gap but still the fact remains. 

Edited January 3, 2023 by e808

[Gowebb11 9,315]

2 minutes ago, e808 said:

As they should be. IMO Tulane QB is a better option or even Nussmeier. Sanders just has years on the other QB’s on the roster and just as turnover prone. His numbers to me say marginal improvement at best and theirs is no data on Holden to say if he is good or bad. We just know last year wasn’t ideal for him to be thrown into the fire.

Tulane’s QB and Nussmeier aren’t in the portal yet are they?

[e808 3,025]

7 minutes ago, Gowebb11 said:

Tulane’s QB and Nussmeier aren’t in the portal yet are they?

Not yet. Wishful thinking and probably shouldn’t have included them. I think Tulanes was then there were reports he is staying so who knows.

Nussmeier was very impressive . I think he exposed Georgias secondary and OSU saw what he was able to do on tape.

Edited January 3, 2023 by e808

[gr82b4au 5,568]

21 minutes ago, Gowebb11 said:

Tulane’s QB and Nussmeier aren’t in the portal yet are they?

No they are not.
i get the fact that we are waiting for someone,  but going into spring with RA, a RS freshman and a True Freshman that picked us over Uab would be unsettling. There is still time but it is closing fast. Let’s see who visits this weekend. 

[W.E.D 11,070]

3 hours ago, e808 said:

Auburn had a Qb with similar numbers and there were complaints

We do not have a QB with similar numbers.  SS was also hurt the majority of this year causing his decline a bit.  He's consistently been 62% and a good runner.  We don't have anything near that

[gr82b4au 5,568]

12 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

We do not have a QB with similar numbers.  SS was also hurt the majority of this year causing his decline a bit.  He's consistently been 62% and a good runner.  We don't have anything near that

Let me preface this by saying I really like RA as a person and a competitor. That said, this RA hope is eerily similar to “Finley is going to be much better this year” stuff. I get the fact that we are talking about Freeze, who’s much better with QBs that Harsin or Gus. But RA would have to improve leaps and bounds over both his HS and College performances. Ashford needs a ton of work because he has never been accurate. 
I get it that SS might not be great, but he is a lot better than Ashford. It is not even close. At this point Ashford is the worst performing QB in the SEC other than the TAM guy(s). 
We cannot go into next season having the worst quarterback in the league. 

[Bro Johnny Mac 1,394]

RA is a great competitor, a great athlete and he seems to have a good attitude.

I would like to see him playing in some capacity. I think HF will find a way to get him involved if he’s not QB1

Edited January 3, 2023 by Bro Johnny Mac

[e808 3,025]

1 hour ago, W.E.D said:

We do not have a QB with similar numbers.  SS was also hurt the majority of this year causing his decline a bit.  He's consistently been 62% and a good runner.  We don't have anything near that

I said we had. Remember Bo and the complaints . That was in the SEC. Sanders in the Big 12 with a high turnover volume.  Do u think he played with a worst line or with worst coaching than Robby? Yes u need more bodies in the QB room but if he came shouldn’t be deemed the starter. Holden is still the wildcard here but seems to be brushed aside.

Edited January 3, 2023 by e808

[W.E.D 11,070]

9 minutes ago, e808 said:

I said we had. Remember Bo and the complaints . That was in the SEC. Sanders in the Big 12 with a high turnover volume.  Do u think he played with a worst line or with worst coaching than Robby? Yes u need more bodies in the QB room but if he came shouldn’t be deemed the starter. Holden is still the wildcard here but seems to be brushed aside.

Bo wasn't ever as good either.  He had 1 season where he touched 60%

[e808 3,025]

34 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Bo wasn't ever as good either.  He had 1 season where he touched 60%

Bo progressed every season. His last season at Auburn was 61% behind a bad oline. He was not accurate at times but at least he took care of the ball. Sanders regressed and has a high turnover margin but somehow that’s supposed to be good. Again I know he is a stop gap but turnovers will definitely cost u games in the SEC. For example the Bama game . Auburn was pretty even until JH uncharacteristic fumble and the phantom fumble call.  
It’s just my opinion. I will roll with whatever coach decides. I am a nobody in the grand scheme of things

[W.E.D 11,070]

6 minutes ago, e808 said:

Bo progressed every season. His last season at Auburn was 61% behind a bad oline. He was not accurate at times but at least he took care of the ball. Sanders regressed and has a high turnover margin but somehow that’s supposed to be good. Again I know he is a stop gap but turnovers will definitely cost u games in the SEC. For example the Bama game . Auburn was pretty even until JH uncharacteristic fumble and the phantom fumble call.  
It’s just my opinion. I will roll with whatever coach decides. I am a nobody in the grand scheme of things

Yet Bo never had a Comp% better than SS had his first 3 years and played hurt his final year......

I don't care to talk anymore about bo tho

[e808 3,025]

20 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Yet Bo never had a Comp% better than SS had his first 3 years and played hurt his final year......

I don't care to talk anymore about bo tho

The point is Sanders regressed and has a high turnover volume. In another thread it was said that Robby is a turnover machine. Also that he was 49% but it wasn’t acknowledged the multiple injuries he was playing with. I know Robby is raw but how can injury be used for one player and not the other. Like I said this is just my IMO. We shall see what happens

[W.E.D 11,070]

Just now, e808 said:

The point is Sanders regressed and has a high turnover volume. I

He got hurt.  he had 3 years of being above average.  He didn't just get bad over 1 season.  9/10 picks in a year isn't a ton.  It's not that bad.

He's not amazing, but he's better than anything we currently have or anything we could hope anyone develops into.

[dilligas 581]

6 hours ago, Gowebb11 said:

Tulane’s QB and Nussmeier aren’t in the portal yet are they?

They are not.

[gr82b4au 5,568]

4 hours ago, e808 said:

The point is Sanders regressed and has a high turnover volume. In another thread it was said that Robby is a turnover machine. Also that he was 49% but it wasn’t acknowledged the multiple injuries he was playing with. I know Robby is raw but how can injury be used for one player and not the other. Like I said this is just my IMO. We shall see what happens

RA is statistically the worst QB in the sec. Do you really want to depend on a guy that is last in the SEC and has never been accurate in HS or college ? Here: 

https://www.espn.com/college-football/qbr/_/group/8