BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | Quarterbacks, quarterbacks, quarterbacks.

We’ve probably got a week, maybe two before Auburn names its starter.

T.J. Finley certainly took a step forward in the competition during Saturday’s scrimmage, but I think it’s still close enough for either Robby Ashford or Zach Calzada to pull ahead this week.

Going into the start of fall camp, I considered Calzada the man to beat. Not because any coach came out and said that but because of the circumstances of AU pursuing him so quickly in the portal, his perceived fit in a Bryan Harsin offense, his SEC experience and his win over Alabama.

Finley’s low completion percentage and record as a starter along with Ashford’s inexperience even furthered my pre-camp opinion on Calzada as the frontrunner.

I don’t feel that way anymore.

In fact, my opinion is not necessarily shifting to another starter, it’s leaning toward a less than ideal situation and that’s the possibility of all three quarterback playing and starting this season.

That’s usually not a recipe for success. We know that.

When you don’t have one of the quarterbacks stepping up and winning the job outright, which I don’t feel like is happening at this time, it just leaves a small margin of error for whoever they name as the starter for the opener.

And regardless of who that becomes, it’s just a matter of time before enough of those errors accumulate for a change to be made.

I certainly don’t think any AU coach or member of the staff wants this or is planning for it, it’s just how I see it based on the information I have on the first 10 days of camp and my 22 years of experience covering Auburn football.

For Auburn’s sake, I’d like to be wrong. In case you haven’t noticed, preseason predictions by sportswriters shouldn’t be taken as gospel. The best path to success is a starter to be named and he takes the reins and rolls through the next 12 games.

But do Finley, Ashford or Calzada have that in them?

Well, I’m not saying unequivocally no, but it’s like several positions on AU’s offense — I’ve got to see it to believe it.

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Staying with the quarterbacks, I am intrigued by a couple of things — how much Finley has improved from last season, especially in his accuracy, and Ashford’s upside.

Finley’s always possessed a lot of the intangibles it takes to be a successful quarterback, especially leadership and a knowledge of the offense. If he could push his accuracy over 60 percent (it was below 55 last fall), that could make a big difference in his ability to win and retain the starting position and in Auburn’s chances for a successful season.

Ashford already has that dual-threat ability that separates him from the other two and he seems like a gamer — solid in practice but really steps up when the lights come on.

Granted, I don’t have much to base that on — mainly the A-Day game — but he’s the one quarterback on the roster that you just don’t know how good he can get and how much his dual-threat ability could help Tank Bigsby and the running game.

Nothing really intrigues me about Calzada at the moment, but I do wonder if he’s a little rusty returning from an injury, having an incomplete spring and going through the process of learning a new offense.

Perhaps he’ll get to a point — in fall camp or early in the season — that he puts it all together and becomes more confident and more consistent.

There’s still so much up in the air.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 15 years to the release of a debut album that included the first of 29 consecutive top 10 hits. On Aug. 14, 2007, Luke Bryan released his first studio album, I’ll Stay Me, which included the hit song Country Man, which peaked at No. 10 on the Hot Country chart. Bryan has had a meteoric rise with 10 albums and 27 No. 1 hits over 15 years. He has been named CMA’s or ACMA’s Entertainer of the Year five times. With 75 million records sold, he ranks up there with artists such as KISS, Nirvana, Bob Seger, Alabama, Tupac and The Weeknd has one of the best-selling artists of all time. He’s also ventured into television appearing on The Voice from 2016-17 and as a judge on American Idol since 2018.

Thomas Luther Bryan was born in Leesburg, Ga., in 1976. His father was a peanut farmer. He graduated from Georgia Southern in 1999 with a business degree and moved to Nashville in 2001. He began his career as a songwriter for Travis Tritt and Billy Currington. Bryan’s breakout came with the release of his second album, Doin’ My Thing, in 2009, which included his first two No. 1 hits — Rain is A Good Thing and Someone Else Calling You Baby. His third studio album, Tailgates & Tanlines has three more No. 1 singles and it’s just continued from there with a new album and more No. 1’s about every two years. Bryan has lost both of his siblings, his older brother, Chris, to a car accident in 1996, and his older sister, Kelly, to unknown causes in 2007. When Kelly’s husband, Ben Cheshire, died in 2014, Bryan and his wife, Caroline, helped raise Kelly’s three children along with two of their own. Luke and Caroline support a number of charities and causes including AIDS, cancer, children’s health, human rights, congenital heart disease and Down Syndrome.